December 2016

Series: A Letter to my Younger Self

This post is part one of a longer series of posts in which members of the Keshet community write letters to ...

How Having a Baby Has Changed This Rabbi’s Blessings

This summer, my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world in Jackson, Mississippi. Ever since, the birth ...

Reconciliation Within the Family and Beyond the Family

The Book of Genesis is nothing if not a story of dysfunctional families.Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Hagar, Sarah ...

How a Baby is Made

How is a baby made? More specifically, what determines the future characteristics of the child? One answer emerges from the ...

An American Hanukkah Story of Resistance

Hanukkah is a time for celebrating the power of light to dispel darkness, so this year I’m setting aside the ...

Hanukkah Gift Giving Guide for the Undecided Giver

It’s that time of year again. In the weeks before Hanukkah, my extra mental energy always goes to gifts.I have ...

Why I’m Not Afraid of Natalie Portman’s Christmas Tree

Jewish actress Natalie Portman announced to Jimmy Fallon that she is going to have a Christmas tree for the first ...

Do We Really Need the JOFA Conference?

They overflow the curbs of Eastern Parkway. With their black hats, beards, and suits, they are an inverse image of ...

The More We Look, the More We See

My three-year-old daughter doesn’t miss a thing. She notices when we move the snow shovels from one side of the garage ...