Pro­duc­ing con­tent on the Web since 1995.


some say­ings of ר‘משבצונה“ל

For many years I have worked hard, and strug­gled with mas­ter­ing virtuous. Now, in addi­tion, I’m work­ing on becom­ing more virtual.
This is an expres­sion of that effort.
* * * * * * *

השיבנו ה‘ אליך ונשובה חדש ימינו
כעוד לא היו
* * * * * * *
ומביא גאלה…
לצאצאיהם

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All pho­tographs are by Mark Hurvitz unless they are obvi­ously not.

The pho­tos in the ban­ner at the top (only a shal­low sliver of a much larger photo) are either from our home or our trav­els and are offered for their beauty alone (though a brain-teaser for me: “Where was that?”).

st. paintings

At least three col­ors of painted mes­sages on the pave­ment. By the time there are three col­ors that fit within the photo, none can have any “mean­ing” what remains is the pattern.

3 pavements

Three pave­ments poured next to each other (con­tigu­ous), but not at a prop­erty line.

#blogelul : counting

the num­bers’ game
[Note: not all of the but­tons used to illus­trated this game rep­re­sent the con­cept expressed in the num­bers; some are used because they dis­play that number.]

The chil­dren played by the shore, allow­ing the ball to bounce lightly on their fin­ger tips before they popped it over to the other side of the line. Now […]

…the real thing?

can you speak for 3 min­utes on any subject?

Early in our stud­ies at rab­binic school, one of our classes intended to make us bet­ter pub­lic speak­ers. Our instruc­tor was Hol­ly­wood actor Stan­ley Wax­man. He would often assign us the task of speak­ing extem­po­ra­ne­ously for three min­utes on any sub­ject he would present (usu­ally offer­ing one word). […]

beyond the straits and narrow

a grow­ing haggadah

We printed a pri­vate new edi­tion of A Grow­ing Hag­gadah last year for per­sonal use. We will use it again this year. If you are inter­ested in hav­ing a PDF ver­sion of the text to print and use (in whole or in part) at your Seder you can down­load it here:

A Grow­ing Hag­gadah (for fam­ily use)
A Grow­ing Haggadah […]

the new year; traveling for chocolate… and much more

Switzer­land was actu­ally “Plan B”

We had hoped to get to Fire Island (Long Island) at The Pines for Rosh haShan­nah to be with a col­league and at the beach. How­ever, because “the sea­son” at The Pines was still going strong, the two estab­lish­ments where we tried to book rooms could not com­mit, barely even return­ing our calls […]

it's very clear

our love is here to stay

While prepar­ing a wed­ding drash for this past week I learned that Ira Gersh­win chan­neled Isa­iah 54:10 in this week’s haf­tarah portion.

Isa­iah:

For the moun­tains may move
And the hills be shaken,
But my loy­alty shall never move from you,
Nor My covenant of friend­ship be shaken

Gersh­win:

In time the Rock­ies may tum­ble,
Gibral­tar may crum­ble,
They’re only made of […]

on following orders

you decide how to go

Last year (2009) at this time of Yom haShoah I wrote that I believe that all Jew­ish teenagers (at least) should expe­ri­ence a week of sho’a nightmares.

I was in my early 20s when I tried to imag­ine the life of the boy with his hands raised being led from the Ghetto. I spent months with him, I kept […]

Let My People Go (Отпусти народ мой) [that they may serve me]!

a grow­ing haggadah

A new edi­tion of A Grow­ing Hag­gadah (which is still avail­able in its 2005 HTML ver­sion) has been printed. If you are inter­ested in hav­ing a PDF ver­sion of the text to print and use (in whole or in part) at your Seder you can down­load it here.

A Grow­ing Hag­gadah (for fam­ily use)
A Grow­ing Hag­gadah (for a multifaith […]

how much is any life worth?

redeem­ing prisoners

The value of פדיון שבויים‎ (Pidyon Shvuyim, the redemp­tion of pris­on­ers) is very impor­tant in Jew­ish life. Mai­monides states that it takes prece­dence over sup­port­ing the poor or cloth­ing them… because the prob­lems of the cap­tive include those of the poor: being hun­gry, thirsty, unclothed, and they are in dan­ger of their lives.

an entire world?

Tal­mud […]

steve’s song

jews and judaism in amer­i­can elite culture .01

On Sun­day evening, Novem­ber 8, 2009 I attended “Steve Reich Talks about his Jew­ish Music at JMF”. I was a bit sur­prised (after being told to reserve my free tick­ets in advance) that there were per­haps fifty peo­ple in the hall wait­ing to hear the words of this very popular […]

swann song

jews and judaism in amer­i­can pop­u­lar cul­ture .01
now, …with har­vey and sheila!

There was a time, it feels strange to write this… a gen­er­a­tion ago, when being Jew­ish was very “in”. The thing to be in Amer­ica. Amer­i­cans con­tinue to, even increas­ingly, con­vert to Judaism in the 2000s. How­ever, back in “The Six­ties” some forms of Jew­ish cul­ture were […]