We all know how hard it is to refrain from gossip, particularly in moments of anger, pain, frustration or exhaustion. But our Torah reading reminds us that we need to be vigilant in monitoring our own speech and helping others do the same.

Daylight is fading, eyelids are drooping -- a gentle goodnight seems natural. On the other hand, there is the "simple task" of getting a child to bed, tucking them in, and finally going to take care of "grown-up stuff." How difficult it is to preserve this escapable sacred experience.

It's official: the end of the Easter season. Pretty soon, in fact, the church will settle in for a long summer of what it calls ordinary time. But not yet.

On Shavuot night, thousands of Jews will place learning at the center of Jewish life, encountering texts and ideas late into the night, across Jewish practices and ideologies. What does it mean to take Jewish learning into the year?

So many of us are in constant motion, hurtling down the street with smartphone in hand, running from work to social lives to home, running from north to east to south and back again, chasing a truth of some sort and not finding it -- and, perhaps, wondering why we're not hearing God's voice more often than we do.

The children's classic "The Runaway Bunny" might seem an odd place to begin a theological reflection. But for a child who has ever tested the strength of a parent's love, this story offers both reassurance and challenge.

We walked through the wilderness with eyes wide shut. Instead of neglecting the lessons of Bemidbar, perhaps -- in an age of questionable leadership -- we need to read it more slowly and carefully and pay better attention to the landscape.

Is youth wasted on the young? Or is G-d sending us a coded message as we age?

The whole purpose of the covenant at Sinai is to create a society that observed the sabbatical year. It is in a land where Shmita is observed that human beings will learn to respect the Earth herself, by remembering that none of us can own her.

The next time you see an observant Jew with prayer shawl, tefillin and tzitzit, look at him and see Jesus -- that's how he appeared every morning.

Violent deaths should never happen. But when we are witnesses to such evil, we must engage even more fully with the work of perfecting the world.

As our nation reels and begins to recover from this week's attacks, our religious traditions can offer wisdom and comfort. Here are five primary sources from the Jewish canon. I hope you find some of them helpful in your own grieving and processing.

Marriage is about profound interpersonal connection and love, not just sex. It is held sacred by our rabbinic sages, and by leaders across so many different traditions.

Miriam played an integral role in the story of Exodus, yet she's all but ignored during Passover, the holiday that commemorates the Exodus. It's not surprising.

As enthusiastic participants in a consumer society, we have been buying, using and then quickly storing a lot of stuff. Passover is a time to take back control.

Hearing the horror of the planned genocide, the light went on: Esther connected with her inner self and understood why she had been made queen. Esther had been made queen to save her people.

The Gospels -- and several other passages of the New Testament -- state explicitly that God killed Jesus. God sacrificed his only son for the redemption of man according to Scripture:

G-d chooses to conceal Himself is because G-d wants to be known rather than seen. The act of seeing satisfies our innate curiosity about the object or person at hand.

We should strive to avoid the twin idolatries of gun rights and gun control. The Jewish tradition invites us to have a full conversation with each other about how to reduce gun violence, lift up the most vulnerable among us, and defend ourselves.

The fact that 20 percent of global marriages take place between first cousins and most societies, including Europe and Canada, consider cousin marriages to be legal should give us a pause.

The Bible comes up in the conversation on HuffPost Religion almost daily. One disturbing psalm is of particular interest commenting community. On a re...