Blogs

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all

These immortal words are from the poetry of Emily Dickinson.  The homage she pays to hope here is one of beauty and importance.  Think about how many times, even in a single day or week, you have articulated a hope of some kind.  Whether...Read more...

In the 1920’s, the author Don Marquis created a wonderful series of comics and poetry.  One poem, “the lesson of the moth,” features archy, his favorite character, observing a moth who as archy describes him, is “trying to break into a lightbulb and fry himself on the wires.”

“why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the...Read more...

It’s summertime, so I’ve got Joni Mitchell on my mind. Not only because she penned and performed some of my favorite summer anthems (“The Hissing of Summer Lawns,” “Chelsea Morning,” and “Woodstock,” anyone?), but also because her music contains a wealth of seemingly lighthearted lyrics that carry a profound resonance that I don’t often have time to relish during the chaos of the school year. This...Read more...

“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are,” the writer Anais Nin famously remarked.

     The very same might be said of Torah, especially this Shabbat as we reflect on the portion Shelach Lecha.  The opening of this parsha tells a story that is all about how we see, and how we are seen.

     It’s about the images of ourselves that we carry in our mind’s eye…...Read more...

This past Tuesday evening our congregation celebrated Shavuot, with guests from Gishrei Shalom in Southington.  It is it is a beautiful holiday; at once a harvest festival and the Season of Revelation hearkening back to the Israelites first hearing the words of our ancient covenant at Mt. Sinai.  After seven weeks of counting the omer and, step by step, coming closer to this moment, we find that in the words of a past student of...Read more...