Safe for travel! November is about to turn into December. Around here, there is snow on the ground and a chill in the air. Our Thanksgiving was in October, but the holiday parties have definitely started. People are gathering indoors, and the ventilation isn’t always great. Cue the same triple-demic we had last year - … Continue reading Why This is a Good Time to Mask

Image by M W from Pixabay First of all, my apologies for missing last week’s blog post - I went to a retreat with my rabbinical school early Sunday morning, and somehow it just didn’t get done. Nobody is perfect, not even me, but I’m back! I’m writing this on Saturday night, and my mind … Continue reading Is There a Scarcity of Blessing?

Image by Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay Life is non-binary, but it is human nature to want to choose a side. Black hats and white hats, good guys and bad guys. My country right or wrong, painting the humans on the other side of a dispute as the evil incarnate. It may be natural, but it … Continue reading Holding On to Complexity

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay Sometimes we get caught up in our own expectations, and we need to be aware of what is actually important, and what we are just doing because we think we should. As you probably know if you follow me on any social media, I am quite addicted to running … Continue reading It’s OK to Adjust to Your Needs

Truth gives life I have disliked the name my mother gave me for as long as I can remember. I tried talking with her about changing it one time during my childhood, and her reaction was such that it has taken me into my sixties to reconsider the issue. Can you imagine sixty years of … Continue reading A New Name

Image by Ralph from Pixabay Human conflicts are rarely simple, and few are more complex than the one we are seeing unfold before our aghast eyes right now in the Middle East. But it seems to me that the real enemy is one that we have been dealing with since the days of Cain and … Continue reading The Real Enemy

Image by Jackie Ramirez from Pixabay As you read this blog on Wednesday, this week it has been Thanksgiving in Canada, Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the US, and Isru Chag, the day marking the end of the High Holy Day season, for most Jews in the Diaspora (Israeli and Reform Jews marked it on Sunday). … Continue reading On Gratitude in Hard Times

Our sukkah This week Jewish people around the world celebrated Sukkot - the Feast of Booths, in which we build a little hut, known as a sukkah, outside our homes and do our best to live in it for a week, given the vagaries of weather. Here in Winnipeg, we are lucky any year we … Continue reading Reminding Us of Precarity

Image by cstpdx from Pixabay As you read this message, we have transitioned into the Jewish year 5784 (no more or less an arbitrary number than the one associated with Pope Gregory).  The holiday of Rosh HaShanah, the Head of the Year, kicks off a month-long cluster of holidays ordained in the Jewish Scripture, mostly … Continue reading I Wish You Apples and Honey

Image by jessica45 from Pixabay There are a couple of places I go, where I repeatedly measure the CO2 levels in the air and the ventilation is excellent. This means that the air is being refreshed on a regular basis (whether because of a good ventilation system or because windows and doors are open, or … Continue reading I Got Careless