This post is adapted from a talk I recently gave at Congregation Kol Sasson in Skokie, Ill.

I. Stumbling On Big Questions

In 2005, four weeks after I received rabbinic ordination, two weeks after our second son was born, my wife Natalie and I moved to Evanston. As the new...

In the middle of a bedtime meltdown a few months ago, my six-year old was crying on his bed. "I'm so upset," he sniffed. "I want to go back to school! I want to go back to school!"

Thinking that maybe he had forgotten something there, I gently asked,...

I am a rabbi. When I tell people that I lead a program called Ask Big Questions, many of them respond something like this: "Oh, that makes so much sense. Judaism is all about asking questions!" Jews are a people who love questions, who are characterized by questions,...

Conforming has gotten a bad rap of late. Well, not really of late. More like of the last few hundred years.

To conform, for many of us, means to deny something essential about ourselves. Conformity means fitting in with everyone else. In its most pronounced form, conformity means silencing ourselves...

As we observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year, that question looms large. Challenging economic times are causing many of us to make financial sacrifices for the sake of our families. We're deferring retirement. We're working multiple jobs. We're going to less-expensive colleges. A recent report on NPR highlighted...