Chats with Larry Episode 9

On today’s RABBI BRIAN’S CHATS WITH LARRY

While Today’s Rabbi Brian Chats With Larry has great audio quality (an improvement over last time), but that’s because I TOLD Larry I was recording it. He  was really stiff at the start, which I’ve skipped. 

Enjoy the good quality` and fast start as Larry and I talk about:

    1. Will power and God’s will. (God’s will =) “Love people, use things”
    2. Will power, Won’t power, and how we don’t always do what we know we should do
    3. Satan, good and evil
    4. Larry’s imposter syndrome and Brian’s childlike playful spirit
    5. The paradox of pride
    6. Explaining religion without the religious words

The Delay

January 14, 2026

2026 issue #03 — The Delay I’m in my buddy David’s car. He’s driving me from my mom’s apartment in NYC to Newark, NJ, where I’m going to catch a plane back home to Portland. David and I have been friends for fifty years. Amazing. My phone dings. I look at it. Nothing important. Just an alert from United. *

Read More »

Lifeboats. Summer. Bridges. Helpers.

January 10, 2026

Lifeboats. Summer. Bridges. Helpers. The rapid succession of a toddler-drunk-on-power messes is overwhelming. I’m exhausted by the sheer number of (what seem to me) reprehensible acts. My country is sickening me. federal agents shooting at (and killing) civilians actions against immigrants, federal workers, the environment, reproductive rights invading a sovereign nation and abducting its leader pardoning people who committed reprehensible

Read More »

A Friday Night Tradition

December 14, 2025

Religiously. Every Friday night, religiously, I do a particular tradition. I do the same ritual religiously every Friday night. I’m not misusing the word religiously to mean fanatically, as in the improper use of it in the sentence: She exercises religiously. I use the word religiously as it should be used—with more positive connotations—as in calmly, forgivingly, without rushing. So,

Read More »