I missed National Sibling Day. When was this holiday created? Are we soon to start sending "Happy Sibling Day" cards to one another?

I learned, belatedly, that April 10 was declared National Sibling Day through Facebook. Adorable images in yellowed tones of friends as youngsters with their siblings sprinkled through...

After a long spell of cold weather, the "cruelest month" is finally showing its friendlier side. To celebrate, I donned new navy and white pants (on sale at J. Crew) covered in a floral print by Liberty of London. My legs look like a spring garden. "Only you could wear...

Do you know where your parents met? The story of your birth? Can you recite a tale of suffering from you ancestral archives? It turns out that possessing those answers may help you develop resilience. A recent New York Times article proposes that knowing family stories helps people,...

As Jews around the world start to prepare for Passover, our holiday that remembers our enslavement and journey to freedom, we face a mixed message. On the one hand, during our Seders -- ritual meals where we recite the story of the exodus from Egypt and chant prayers of gratitude...

My husband and I try to avoid the strains of late winter's chill by attending cultural events when we can. Living in New York City, this is relatively easy to do. Last weekend, our cultural encounters seemed to revolve around ways in which humans succumb to or avoid depression. On...

My love of the Mediterranean has been scientifically proven to be healthy. Hooray!

Ever since I swam in the sea at Tel Aviv as a child, warm, lapping turquoise waters have beckoned. Never mind that I was born in New England and spent my summers on Cape Cod in...

"You wear your politics on your sleeve," a college boyfriend once told me, critically. The comment infuriated me but perhaps it was true. We were students at Dartmouth College in the late 1980s. The college had been co-ed for less than two decades and it was not easy to be...

These days, you can make a new friend every day. Simply "confirm" a "friend request" on Facebook or send out a request of your own and you can reunite with a pal from decades past or forge a new relationship based on a cursory meeting.

Admittedly, I don't have...

My son and I read "The Emissary" by Ray Bradbury for his school literature class. In the story, a dog helps a bed-ridden boy grieve both his inability to walk and the death of a beloved teacher. The dog ventures to the outside world, including to the cemetery where the...

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the struggle I have as a Jewish parent when my children express a wish for a beautiful Christmas tree. I confessed that their pleas awaken my own desire for the smells, creativity and splendor the annual entrance of decorated greenery welcomes into...

Cut pine trees line Columbus Avenue. The scent of the woods wafts over the exhaust fumes and the remains from restaurants, markets and garbage cans. As I walk my son to school, we stop to inhale the magic of soon-to-be Christmas trees. Nature has parked itself on small sections of...

Can a blog, meant to be public, lean toward a more personal eulogy? Since we are all grappling with mortality, transience and the distraction of screens in some respect, I will take the risk.

I met Jonieke in 1989, back at a time before blogs and email and cell phones....

After a couple of weeks of painful news, I've been thinking about the power of prayer. Don't get me wrong, I'm virtually an atheist. I value ethical actions from a humanitarian point of view and I respect science. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, I joined a friend as he...

I couldn't sleep this morning. I kept thinking about that mother across the street.

So I started making my coffee and putting together my son's lunch box. And then I thought, she can't do that today. I plugged in the waffle iron -- my son likes homemade waffles -- and...

In Birmingham, England, a brave and inspiring teenager fights for her life. She took on the Taliban, religious extremism and misogyny all simply to pursue an education. A girl wanted to go to school.

My daughter is two years younger than Malala. Across the Atlantic from Malala's hospital bed, my...

Why are so many women I know -- myself included -- prone to waves of sadness these days? The sun is shining, flowers blooming and days are getting longer. Yet the springtime blues seem to be affecting people whose lives, at least from the outside, look pretty great. It turns...

From the start I want to be clear: I love my mother and I love being a mother.

Now to my point: Mother's Day causes a lot of tension. I noticed this perhaps-obvious fact years ago, shortly after my husband's mother died suddenly of a brain aneurism at age...

There's so much pressure on parents these days. How are we to do right by our children? Are we to be "helicopter parents," circling around our kids to spare them unnecessary scarring, or, as I read recently, as suggested by Rabbi David Wolpe, more gentle "helium parents," loosely holding the...