Recently, I wrote about parents bringing kids to shul and trying to navigate the interplay of their own needs, their kids’ needs, and the needs of those around them. Predictably, reactions varied widely, ranging from “Yes! I relate to this so much! Every word!” to polite but firmly worded expositions on the reasons not to

Storm of the century! This one will be worse than Hugo (chilling words for a South Carolinian)! The Carolinas have never seen one this bad! Anticipated to be the most expensive storm ever. Evacuate now before it’s too late! Hard to imagine you can joke about words like these but last night my friend said

As I write this, we are in the midst of the Aseres Y’mei Teshuvah, the Ten Day of Repentance that last from Rosh Hashana through Yom Kippur. In the laws of Teshuvah (3:4), the Rambam tells us that a person should always consider himself as if his mitzvos equally balance his sins and the world’s

Learning halacha can be tricky, as it often seems to devolve into a complicated laundry list of “do this” and “don’t do that.” If we haven’t studied the background in depth, some of the details can seem kind of weird. Does it really matter how many handbreadths wide my sukkah is or how low my

Once upon a time, there was a television program called The Cosby Show. (We won’t go into why it was called that. We don’t talk about B*ll C*sby anymore.) For most of its run, which lasted from 1984 to 1992, it was the show to beat. The Cosby Show was the #1 sitcom for five

(This is the fifth and final installment in the series of articles on things I learned from my recent back surgery.) After my procedure, I was in the hospital for three days. While I was there, I didn’t entertain much. The first day was the day of the operation itself, so I spent the entire

The alarm goes off and the kids jump out of bed. They put on their uniforms, which are laid out carefully on their beds, eat breakfast while chatting with each other about what they are looking forward to that day and head out to the car excitedly, while holding onto their neatly packed backpacks. On

(This is the fourth of five articles I’m writing about things I learned from my recent medical experiences. It is by far the most personal.) It’s no secret that I wasn’t raised Orthodox, though my family always had such leanings. My parents switched the family from a large, ornate Reform temple to a humble shtiebel

Somehow, this time of year – the lead-up to Yom Hadin – often makes me think not only about Heavenly judgment, but about humans who judge each other. Maybe it’s just the word “judgment”; maybe it’s coming off of the Three Weeks, when we talk so much about sinat chinam; maybe it’s the necessity of