Blogs

We do not wish to see the forest

We wish to see the trees, the tree.

The child, not the human race.

This fragment of poetry was found in the fragments of posthumous writings by Yehuda Amichai, the renown Israeli author and poet.  I think of them often, especially when the world feels as overwhelming and heartbreaking as ours...Read more...

A story is told of a sculptor in Ancient Greece who was hard at work on his latest masterpiece.  Day after day people would walk by and marvel at his creation.  As the sculptor neared the end, one passerby remarked that there was something he could not understand.  “Sir, if you’ll permit me,” he said, “your sculpture is magnificent, but why do you work so hard on the back of it?  Won’t it be...Read more...

Last weekend I drove over an hour to a town in Connecticut I had never been to.  Granted that describes many towns in Connecticut seven months into living in Cheshire, but this one drew me in because it’s the location of The Book Barn.  If you’re as much of a bookstore aficionado as I am, and you’ve never had the pleasure of visiting this remarkable one in Niantic, you must check it out!

Among the bargains I came home...Read more...

As we begin this week’s Torah portion, Bo.  Seven plagues have come and gone, everything from frogs to lice to cattle disease.  Each time Pharaoh relents, then grows hard-hearted and stubborn.  And the Israelites remain enslaved.

Now, as the time for the Israelites’ freedom draws near, Pharaoh has grown even more stubborn, so much so that the Torah tells us God now hardens his heart, rather than Pharaoh...Read more...

It’s a story we have heard time and again. Jacob and his sons have passed away, and a new Pharaoh has come to power in Egypt. He sees that the Israelites are growing in number and, afraid that they wouldn’t be loyal to Egypt in case of invasion, he decides to enslave them and tries to kill off their male children. Moses, a beautiful boy whose Levite mother could not bear to see him killed, is miraculously saved from death through the...Read more...