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Jewish Inspiration

Jewish Inspiration June 18, 2018

We Need Us

She walked into the doctor’s office, trailing behind her mother. The feeling of overwhelm was everywhere. New office. New smells. New staff. New protocol.

Jewish Inspiration June 4, 2018

The End is Near

Hey OOTOB readers,

First, you may have noticed that my writing style has changed somewhat. See, as of August I’ve been writing a column for the Cleveland Jewish News, our local paper. The pieces have to be 500 words and as I write, I have a certain audience in mind. Then I publish here. Also, I write every few weeks for our congregation’s newsletter. In the past seven years that I’ve been blogging (started in July, 2011) my tone and content have shifted and fluctuated, but I never thought this was the place for “Jewish inspiration” per se. But now I’ve decided to publish those pieces here too. So pretty much you get a mosaic of my writing.

Jewish Inspiration April 29, 2018

Travel Anxiety

I’ve been doing a lot of traveling recently (Philadelphia last week, California today, Dallas and South Bend in June). Each time, a few day before I travel, I get these benign feelings of travel anxiety. Now, in general I am not an anxious person, so I wasn’t really sure where these feelings were coming from.

Jewish Inspiration March 26, 2018

Be the Zaidy

Passover approaches like a returning visitor bringing melting snow and sunshiny Sunday afternoons to clean your car in the driveway. Every year it marches forward steadily, predictably. The smells of Passover coming: frying onions, potato starch cakes, hard-boiled eggs.

Jewish Inspiration November 19, 2017

Food Whispers

Part 1: My Grandmothers

Eat, eat mammele. Ess upp. Groise oigen. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach. Kugel and cholent and challah and sugar cookies. Pizza and fries. Studying for high school finals with a can of Coke and a bag of mesquite potato chips in my room above the garage. Every time. Effortless and guileless. 

Jewish Inspiration October 21, 2017

The Stranger in the Airport

I was flying home from a speaking gig in Atlanta and was waiting at my gate in the airport terminal. My kosher Chinese takeout had made a narrow escape from TSA clutches, and now I had just started to chow down when I saw her: a fellow hair-coverer.

Jewish Inspiration October 7, 2017

Journey of Shul