Stories

Why did the rabbi endanger his life to come to synagogue when he could have prayed at home? Why did he lead the service, against his normal practice? And why was he so emotional?

A beautiful and impressive synagogue appeared before us as though it had fallen from the sky . . .

When I visit my parents’ graves, I am usually at a loss, unsure what to say and what to do. Are there prayers I should be saying? Should I be reading Psalms, and if so, which ones? Do I have a chat with them? What do I say?

“Baseball is like poetry,” Dad would say, where innings become rhythms of pace and pause. Father and son, side by side, the diamond before us.

Yisroel stood in the doorway, cheeks and nose bright red from the cold, snow encrusting his thick brown bangs. “My mother is still not here, and I’m frozen. Can I wait inside?”

During my eleven months of saying Kaddish, I ended up in various minyans from San Francisco to Halifax, but the phone call in New York was the start of what turned out to be perhaps the most interesting Kaddish experience of them all...

A trip to the Holy Land became a spiritual experience even before we took off.