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?”).

davka flickr

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.

davka flickr

3 pavements

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

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 […]

let us make light

a can­dle light­ing kavanah in honor of shab­bat of bereishit
As our week ends, we focus on how our own lives mir­ror cos­mic events.

Shab­bat now begins.
We have com­pleted a full week of creation.

Now we focus inward for a short time;
of what has this week consisted?

We bring to con­scious­ness aspects of our week just passed:

Was there a project left […]

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 […]

pirkei imahot

I am not the first to use the phrase, but begin­ning on March 15, 2000 I began a file in which I col­lected our mother’s say­ings. I will peri­od­i­cally share them here. One of her pri­mary expressions was:

if you can’t say any­thing nice about some­one,
don’t say it

It’s that simple.

Our mother was not a learned per­son. Though she grad­u­ated near the top of […]

i love my gay rabbis

con­grat­u­la­tions!

Plain­tiffs have demon­strated by over­whelm­ing evi­dence that Propo­si­tion 8 vio­lates their due process and equal pro­tec­tion rights and that they will con­tinue to suf­fer these con­sti­tu­tional vio­la­tions until state offi­cials cease enforce­ment of Propo­si­tion 8. Cal­i­for­nia is able to issue mar­riage licenses to same-sex cou­ples, as it has already issued 18,000 mar­riage licenses to same-sex couples […]

which jews…?

I found this image on a crazy anti-Zionist site:

Which ‘Jews’ do you believe are the descen­dants of the bib­li­cal ‘Israelites’?

to which I answer:

All are Jews! I am not a racist.

The site may also be anti-Semitic, it sure feels that way, but I’ve not had a chance to study it thoroughly.

What is Zion­ism?
Zion­ism is the national lib­er­a­tion move­ment of […]

the electronic leaflet

from prayer­book to leaflet

I have been involved in writ­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing leaflets at least since 1966 when our fam­ily com­posed a leaflet [text] we dis­trib­uted in front of our congregation’s Yom Kip­pur obser­vance call­ing atten­tion to the war in Vietnam.

The Hurvitz Family’s Yom Kip­pur Leaflet call­ing for an end to the war in Vietnam (1966)

Dur­ing the […]

be תורה

tweet #torah to the top as we gather @ sinai

I have been “on” (or using) Twit­ter since Jan­u­ary 2009. I don’t use it much socially, but rather edu­ca­tion­ally and polit­i­cally. I don’t share where I am, how I’m feel­ing and what I’m eat­ing. I share thoughts about #Torah, #Israel, #Pales­tine, #Gaza, #Iran, #Auschwitz, #Shoa, #Holo­caust, #Jew­ish, #Exo­dus, #Sukkot, #Rabbi, #Shabbat, […]

the boy and I

the boy with his hands raised

As I men­tioned here on April 10, when I was in my early 20s, I tried to imag­ine the life of the boy with his hands raised being led from the War­saw Ghetto. I spent months with him, I kept his image before me daily. I looked into his eyes, and I tried to look through his eyes.

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 […]