As I finish my training to become a cantor, looking back on the High Holiday services that brought me to this point
As we recite the ‘Unetaneh Tokef’ prayer on Yom Kippur, we remember that life is finite. For me, that realization came with a jolt of electricity.
What would Sandy Koufax do?
When my dachshund Ginger died, I went to services to mourn—and it gave me a new appreciation for Judaism
Bridging the gap between biblical terseness and the needs of a functioning Jewish legal system
Rabbi Gil Steinlauf made headlines for coming out as gay this week. He had already transformed the venerable congregation.
Talmudic scholars have never agreed on the pre-Yom Kippur chicken sacrifice
The Yom Kippur prayer unites everyone who hears it. Twenty-five years after I converted, it still gives me goose bumps.
On ‘Modern Vampires of the City,’ the frontman wrestles with Jewish questions, calling to mind a personal Kol Nidre
The case of Edie Windsor finds allies in the Jewish community
Who volunteers to sing in the synagogue choir for Kol Nidre? This year, I joined and found out.
How can you enter a day of moral repair with words on your lips that annul your past and future promises?
Prayer shouldn’t be a spectator sport. So why do so many shuls insist that congregants sit in silence?
In defense of making Occupy Wall Street Jewish
An incredible Occupy Wall Street Kol Nidrei draws hundreds
Playing music: Books on too-expensive concert tickets, the too-Jewish-sounding Simon and Garfunkel, and the just-Jewish-enough Louis Armstrong
A new CD claims to shine a light on a secret chapter in black-Jewish music history, but the secret is long out
We may talk of its eternal qualities, but the music of Kol Nidre is forever being made anew
