Dear fellow theists,

I once sat on a grassy hill in Jerusalem with a group of friends. On my left was a gorgeous expanse of desert rolling on toward the Dead Sea and the burning disk of the setting sun was just scraping the Golden Dome of the Old City...

Between Oct. 3 and 22 last year the nation was treated to four debates between the presidential contenders. Many viewers, myself included, thought they had an enhanced drama quotient this time around -- sharp exchanges, intense body-language and the usual mélange of content disconnect. What struck me most at the...

A few months back I had the pleasure of watching the film "In Our Own Time," a surprisingly engaging documentary about the Bee Gees. Toward the end of the film, Barry Gibb mused that even a few years back you wouldn't be caught dead putting on a Bee Gees record,...

I recently came across a fascinating (to me) quote by Lady Gaga: "I want women -- and men -- to feel empowered by a deeper and more psychotic part of themselves. The part they're always trying desperately to hide. I want that to become something that they cherish." Now, while...

Senator Marco Rubio set off something of a media fire storm in a recent interview with GQ magazine in which he suggested that the age of the universe was a "mystery" and that theologians have striven to reconcile the biblical account of a six day Creation with the current 4.54...

I have to admit that I was fully transfixed this afternoon as I watched Felix Baumgartner stare down the 24 mile long void that separated him from the ground. There he stood, motionless and quiet, knowing that in moments his own body would tear through the sound barrier as gravity's...

The day my eldest child turned 16 months he began to vomit. It wasn't just your average little kid spit-up either. Rather, it was a cascading gastric fountain that randomly exploded like a little incontinent fire-hydrant. Our concern increased in proportion with the frequency of these episodes, which was several...

Tal Ben Shahar's class in positive psychology was one of the most popular in the history of Harvard University. Yet despite his pedagogical success, four best-selling books, a consulting practice with Fortune 500 companies and sundry television appearances, he decided it was time to move home ... to Israel. How...

I recently saw the following sentiment expressed in my Facebook newsfeed:

"Can we all just agree to drop our masks for 60 seconds? For one minute just quit pretending to be a 'sweet girl,' 'holy man' or 'accomplished business guy?' We'll all be better off when you are who you...

"In the 600th year of the sixth millennium [5600 in the Jewish calendar corresponding to 1840 C.E.] the gates of wisdom above (Kabbalah) together will the wellsprings of wisdom below (science) will open up and the world will prepare to usher in the seventh millennium [the 7000th year corresponding to...

It is frequently pointed out to me (by non-spiritual types) that civilization needs to evolve and that religion -- with its unalterable principles and absolutist moral stance -- is gumming up the works. There tends to be an assumption that society, like the evolutionary process itself, is constantly getting better....

Though I am not entirely sure why, people seem just plain fascinated by the (supposedly) cloistered communities of black clad Jews who briskly swarm -- entourage and side curls in tow -- through the streets of Brooklyn, the Diamond District and Old Jerusalem. For sure, some of it is the...

Most spiritual traditions have a structured methodology through which they strive to make personal or collective contact with the Divine. This practice is commonly referred to as prayer or meditation, and while many might not agree with a particular practice or the enterprise in general, very large swaths of humanity...

A fascinating thing has transpired in the 63-year-old relationship between the Israeli Jewish population and their brethren in the American diaspora. The latter have just realized that their days are numbered -- not as a result of the encroaching existential dangers of the sort that Israel faces day in and...

Try as I might, I continue to be startled by the mindset of the non-believer. It's not so much that I can't grasp the notion that someone could believe that there is no Creator and that there is no grand design to the universe, but rather that so many of...

I spent five years ensconced in a yeshiva directly opposite the Western Wall in the late '90s. It was a high traffic area and it was not uncommon for tourists and visitors to pop in and take in the great view from our balcony. Periodically, this led to philosophical discourse...

It is not uncommon, in my experience, for a new student to declare "why were we not taught any of this!?" after doing some in depth study. Like many American Jews, and despite the sincere efforts of the educators, I was left with a confused, incomplete and vaguely lame feeling...

All sentient people possess the same intuitive awareness of their own existence. We refer to this cognizance as the "self," and though it is one of the most fundamental human experiences, it is also one of the most mysterious. I have asked people on very many occasions to answer the...

I had the pleasure this week of fulfilling my (first ever) civic obligation of jury duty and was one of the first people interviewed to sit on a case involving an auto accident. The pleasant, lightly bearded judge asked each of us 16 questions, each aimed at determining if we...

"A little light pushes away a lot of darkness." --The Talmud

Two thousand two hundred years ago, Ptolemy, King of Egypt, forced 70 rabbis (at knife point) to translate the text of the Torah into Greek, creating a document that would come to be known as the Septuagint. This work...