Sentence fragments hang out in some corner of my brain popping up like hand puppets in the form of one person or another from my past. Because of this idiosyncrasy each week invisible loved ones pray alongside me.

What would you do if I gave you eight billion dollars and told you to use it to benefit all of humanity? I know what I would do.

One of the most significant stumbling blocks standing in the path of a Jew who is toying with the idea of becoming more religiously observant is embarrassment. Or more correctly, the fear of embarrassment...You see, when viewed from the outside (i.e. from a Ba’al T’shuvah-eye view), religious communities and their intricate customs and institutions look suspiciously like a huge minefield filled with endless opportunities to stumble and humiliate oneself...

Long ago, Chazal told us Kol hatchalot kashot – All new beginnings are difficult. But what would life be without new beginnings? They are a source of new hope, new plans, new possibilities. Still, they take a lot of getting used to. This year I found myself dealing with an oversized trio of New Beginnings...

I was torn – do I travel in towards the Old City of Jerusalem to celebrate, witness, and feel the aura of Chol Hamoed in general, and the Hakhel ceremony in particular, by the Kotel; or do I not venture in, battle the traffic, get pushed around by the sheer volume of people, and face the frustration of possibly not making it in all the way because of the police closing off so many of the streets?

Generations is defined as a single stage in the descent of a family or a group of people... Generations, linking the past and future... Our roots in the past are the key to our continued and thriving existence as individuals, and as a people. We define ourselves through our lineage and refine ourselves as we lay the groundwork for future generations.

“Dia de los Meurtos” or the day of death was a Mexican holiday. As a kid growing up on the Texas border of Mexico, I used to drive into Juarez, Mexico and buy masks—pink and blue insect faces with horns, green devil faces with bright yellow tongues. I think the Native American tribes in Mexico took their holiday a bit more seriously than American teenagers took their Halloween...

This story took place close to a decade ago. Although it's about a flying Sukkah, it really began about a week before the holiday, when the stores throughout Jerusalem were selling a new type of Schach that could be used over and over again...