As April draws to a close, I’m reflecting on my first four months as a member of the Writer’s Circle of The Wisdom Daily. I am reminded that last April I cross-posted an article I wrote for TWD to this blog, which their editorial staff had titled, A New Jersey Rabbi & Rumi. This year, I’m delighted to share my April 2026 TWD article, which includes 2 poems that I wrote in honor of the…
Rabbi's Message
Tuesday, August 12th: It’s exactly two months since the moving van arrived from Atlanta and, though the garage is still half-filled with boxes, I’m finally feeling settled in our new home and settling into a joy-filled morning routine. This includes reciting blessings of gratitude for being alive to witness the beauty in our little patch of Eden in Marlton. Yesterday, while the arborist trimmed the broken branch of the purple leaf plum tree that grows…
In the afternoon on March 30th, just before the start of National Poetry Month, I was waiting nervously to be invited to share a poem I’d written about being the new rabbi here at CBT. For me, offering divrei torah, words of Torah, or iyyunei tefilah, insights about the prayers, from the bima at CBT is a cake-walk compared to offering a poem in a Zoom room of poets, even though I’ve spent countless hours…
For nearly four decades, the Torah that is read during the month of Kislev—known to Hebrew Bible scholars as Sippurei Yosef, the Stories of Joseph or the Joseph Narrative—has been particularly meaningful to me. It was one of the first biblical texts I studied in Hebrew with the poet and professor David Rabeeya z”l at Bryn Mawr College and, more than 20 years later, I revisited these stories with my younger daughter who celebrated her…