blogs/rabbigoldberg

One of the most moving, honest, and loving portrayals of Judaism I have ever encountered in popular culture emerged this year: the Netflix adult animated series Long Story Short. Created by Rapahel Bob-Waksberg, best known as creator of the hit show Bojack Horseman, the show tells the story of three generations of a Jewish family in a thematic, non-chronological way. Bob-Waksberg wanted to portray a Jewish family like the one where...Read more...

I distinctly remember when, as a camper at a Jewish summer camp, we would prepare for day trips outside of camp. These were exciting opportunities to leave the camp bubble and do something fun with friends. In addition to making us memorize the camp phone number–which I still know to this day– should we somehow get separated from the group, our staff also gave us  a stern warning about our behavior on these trips. We were...Read more...

Do you remember the scene in Fiddler on the Roof, when Motel gets the new sewing machine? “Rabbi,” he asks. “Is there a blessing for a sewing machine?” “There’s a blessing for everything,” the rabbi replies. In the film, the rabbi then prays in Hebrew: May it be God’s will that the Divine Presence rest in the work of your hands. Not a bad blessing for a sewing machine, actually.

We do have blessings for so many things...Read more...

I had the opportunity to visit Israel just after Purim this past spring, on a long-planned group trip through Daniel’s work. It obviously ended up being a very different kind of trip, to a very different Israel, than what we anticipated when we planned it a year prior. One of the most difficult, but also most...Read more...

Exactly 50 years ago today, the State of Israel faced an existential threat. While the KTI community assembled in this very room to observe Yom Kippur, including some people who are still with us today, Israelis faced their own “who will live and who will die” moment. In a surprising move, Israel found itself facing simultaneous attacks from Syria in the north and from Egypt in the west, an attack that caught most Israelis by surprise,...Read more...