Some days my heart is torn more than others. The morning I attended a lower school chapel service at private school affiliated with a Christian denomination was one of them. Piano music in the background, a child lit two large candles with the same kind of long, brass candle-lighters I...

Five days after the high holidays of Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), Jews celebrate Sukkot. It's a Thanksgiving-like holiday recalling the sukkot (Hebrew for "temporary shelters") that farmers used to live in near their fields when they harvested their crops. It's also a time of...

I am a terrible blamer. I came face to face with this today.

After I dropped my three kids off on the camp bus near our house, I took off on an early morning bike ride in Central Park. As I started to ride, I did what I sometimes do...

This morning I was awakened by gentle rustling outside of my door. It was my son Daniel who was trying to find his long underwear for skiing in the jumble of ski clothes on the floor in the hall. We are on a ski vacation this week and the slopes...

My mother died exactly two years ago today. My sisters and father and I surrounded her that day with singing, massage, our presence and a few precious words. It was terrible and mysterious and beautiful all at the same time. While she had what most would call "a good death,"...