Now having lived in our house for just about a year, my husband and I are building our first sukkah. So far the structural process has gone pretty well, thanks to a do-it-yourself kit sold at our synagogue.
But the issue of decorations is a much larger question. We don’t have a box full of decor […]

As part of my job as a staff member for my synagogue’s youth group, I helped our high school students navigate the High Holiday liturgy. The youth community service is held for students in grades 8-12 and is led by them exclusively.
The kids are bright and well-educated Judaically. Many of them have attended day school […]

In this week’s Forward, Dani Shapiro writes about an experience that most of us have experienced.
I was pushing my son’s stroller along the main avenue of our Brooklyn neighborhood on a bright fall morning, when I was stopped by a bearded man in a top hat, his long black coat flapping.
“Excuse me, are you Jewish?” […]

During Yom Kippur services this year, I came up with the best praying strategy I’ve ever had, I think. It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to write it down and look it up next year…except, of course, I never do.
I’m a regular Ashkenazic guy. Blase Hungarian features, thick Carpathian mountain hair, the […]

I was just discussing in the office about how the first concert I ever attended was when I saw Shlock Rock when I was 8.
With Yom Kippur coming up in a few hours, I wanted to send the link to my favorite S/R song.  I don’t remember what it’s called but it was to the […]

It’s Erev Yom Kippur, so everyone get eating! Just as there is a commandment to fast on Yom Kippur, there is also a mitzvah to eat the day before. Some opinions even say that one should try and eat all day long by keeping a sucking candy in your mouth or some other type of snack.
While […]

Yesterday on Slate (apparent my new go-to blog for Jewish content other than Mixed Multitudes), Michael Weiss shared the history of the Kol Nidrei prayer. He goes into the controversial nature of annulling all oaths:
As stand-alone statement, divorced of its context and Talmudic source material, it does seem to suggest that there’s no such thing […]

It’s October, which, as you may have noticed is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and there’s a pink ribbon on everything these days, from Cuisinarts, to donuts at 7-11 to boxers for your beau.  I’m all for money going to breast cancer research–this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, since my […]

I’m the helpdesk manager here at MJL — which means that any question that gets sent to the site drops straight into my inbox. It’s given me some pretty amazing (and pretty random) interactions — everything from the sobering (where to get information on Jewish death and burial quickly) to the wild (visiting students looking […]

From Slate’s weekly poem collection. Click here to listen to the author Philip Schultz read it.
You are asked to stand and bow your head,
consider the harm you’ve caused,
the respect you’ve withheld,
the anger misspent, the fear spread,
the earnestness displayed
in the service of prestige and sensibility,
all the callous, cruel, stubborn, joyless sins
in your alphabet of woe
so […]