Rabbi Brian

Thoughts on loving our enemies ✧✧✧ Three Saturday Services in a row the group and I interacted around the topic of loving our enemies. Here are some thoughts related to our discussion. ✧✧✧ The “Love your enemies” trope is famously attributed to Jesus — in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere. > Love your […]

Fall, 2025 I’m sitting in my favorite chair in the living room. The sky is getting darker. It’s almost dusk. I check the time: 4:40 p.m. The dark starts early these days. Especially in the Pacific Northwest. I make a mental note to take my vitamin D in the morning. ✧✧✧ Most weeks I get

Beloved reader, I am redoing the rotb.org website.  Again. Why am I redoing the website again? Because a website older than (blank) years is (blank minus one) years overdue for a facelift.  (The standard is three years for small sites and six years for large sites.)  ✧✧✧ While placing into the background a composite grid,

An apple, a banana, and a baseball cap.🍎🍌🧢 ✧✧✧  I arrive at the wedding venue super early. My preference, always, is to arrive early, find the couple, and let them see that I’m on site. (It usually calms them down.) But, today, I’m super, super early. The couple haven’t even arrived yet. “You the photographer?”

A few weeks ago, in writing to you about the High Holy Day services, I referenced stopping the telling the story of the fish-dwelling prophet, Jonah in order to read to two-year old Nora. I thought, “Hey, I know what would make a good article! A fuller, playful retelling of the Book of Jonah.” But,

Text Late May 2020, and I’m talking to Phil, my beloved father-in-law. I’ve returned home from yet another protest that “Black Lives Matter” — and they still do. (You’ll notice the poster visible behind me when I’m on Zoom.) I’m stretched out in the living room’s one large, single-person lounge chair, legs comfortably resting on

Ten minutes before I begin leading High Holy Days services, a large dog leaps up and takes a softball-sized bite from the bottom of the two-foot-long challah on the table.I pause, oddly grateful that this is the first year such a thing has happened.My services are decidedly outside the box: bring-your-own-chair, under a metal canopy,

✧✧✧ Vignette #1 “I’m afraid I won’t be able to get through them,” the future bride says laughing, bu tearfully. I’m crafting a bespoke marriage ceremony for her and her partner. I just detailed some Jewish vow traditions we might or might not use. “How about personal vows?” I ask and continue, “These are promises

  Note: Setting boundaries is like painting a room. Before you actually start painting—which is, relatively, the easy part—there is a lot of prep work.  Similarly, the first seven steps to setting boundaries are preparation. Boundary setting doesn’t come until step eight. 1. Develop Self-Awareness Learn to notice your needs, wants, values, and limits. 2.

“I must be a bad person,” my friend J tells me. I called J just as I started my mid-day dog walk. He continues, “Maybe I should ask if you can forgive me… though I don’t know if that’s a thing rabbis do.” “Lay it on me. Let’s see what I can do.” “Well, I