Until very recently, the rabbis of our synagogue shared a common point of origin. My successor, Daniel Kaiman, is our first Belarussian, with a New World detour into the islands of the Caribbean. Most of the rest of us, and that means six or seven, are rooted in the Jewish lands north of Poland. We come from places like Latvia and Lithuania, and it turns out that we lived in a close-together cluster. My mother’s family is from a town called Zaresai, known by Jews as Ezherene. It’s right on the northern border of Lithuania. Rabbi Kahn, my predecessor originated in Utian, as far from Zaresai as Tulsa is from Atoka. You got on the main road in one town or another and a couple of hours later, you arrived where you were headed.

A friend of mine, a thoughtful Jew, asked me to talk to him about prayers of praise. We were both at the Synagogue, coming out of services, so his question was pertinent to the moment we had experienced. The Saturday service is a steamroller affair: two-and-a-half hours of communal singing, centered on a lection from the annual Torah reading cycle and punctuated by words of explication from the rabbi. A very small element consists of prayers of petition. A little bit more falls into the category of thanksgiving.

My good friend David has properly rebuked me for my obsessive critique of Barak Obama. There’s certainly a kernel of truth in the charge. I’m always talking about Obama’s failure to engage on the critical issues of the day. The fact that he is finally mobilized, talking about the gubernatorial race in Virginia, the use of the military in domestic settings, and our rapid descent into an authoritarian kakistocracy has taken some oxygen away from my screed. But perhaps my screed has saved Obama, himself (?!). At least that’s the way I’d like to imagine it.

As a permanent outsider, I should be circumspect about Christmas. Every Jew I know thinks that they could nail the holiday. We’ve all got opinions about lights and trees, and which forms and styles do honor to the season. That is, of course, a classic case of envy. We rehearse the Christmas we would want for ourselves if only we had gotten there first.

The improbable candidacy of Zohran Mamdani looks like it may achieve its goal. We won’t know the numbers for another couple of weeks, but he will likely be New York City’s next mayor. Anyone who saw the televised debates could see his gifts as a public figure. When Cuomo dismissed him as a political novice, he deftly responded that Cuomo’s experience was a useless encumbrance. The only purpose it served was to prove his incapacity. In the second debate Mamdani took harder hits, but defended his ground without a catastrophic mistake. That’s probably enough to win him this election.

Tired of doomscrolling? Tired of me? Actually, I’m a little tired of myself. Day after day, it’s pit vipers and Komodo dragons all the way down, and not even Lexapro is sufficient to keep the demons at bay. That’s why I’ve decided to debut this new feature. It won’t appear often (who really knows?), but I thought it was time to lighten the mood. We are rapidly sliding into a hellish brand of tyranny and authoritarianism, but some people persist in doing the right thing. Go figure!

My cousin Gerry died this Shabbat, in the home she shared with her daughter Susie. My brother bore the news of her death, catching me on my way to the synagogue. I always thought I would be the point of connection for births and deaths and everything in between, but at some point Todd stepped into the role. He reminded me to call David, Gerry’s son, and convey our love to both of his siblings. He turns out to be more familial than I am, even though I am officially older.

The history of denigration is long and sordid, a necessary corrective to theories of progress. I wish I could believe in Martin Luther King, Jr., and his famous notion about the arc of justice, but then I’d have to account for the twentieth century, the bloodiest, most murderous in human history. All I see is the circularity of suffering. If it’s not the homosexuals, then it’s the Armenians. If it’s not the Armenians, then it’s the Jews, and dozens of other persecuted minorities.

Or perhaps I should say “this Shabbat.”

I don’t like to get in a car on the Sabbath. It’s contrary to my understanding of the halacha, Jewish law, and I try to make as few exceptions as possible. The idea here is to stay close to home, and nurture our experience of intimacy and interiority. A car can make a hash of that. More on all of this in an upcoming post.

Thank God, Almighty, they are free at last.

I never really expected it to happen, but I saw the faces of the hostages this morning. One by one, they came off the helicopters. One by one, they encountered their families. We will see much more of them in the days ahead, but I feel the relief of a father at a healthy birth. Some, at least, came through alive. Perhaps they will be reborn into life, free of the stench in which they were held for years.

Here’s a guess: you’re probably not worried about Venezuelan drug runners. If a few of them are incinerated by American authorities, that’s the price they pay for running drugs. After all, they were in American waters. They were also official enemy combatants. And the president has been empowered since forever to kill anyone the hell he wants. Would a president as scrupulous as Donald Trump summarily execute off-limits foreigners? Not the Donald Trump I know.

October 7 is now behind us, but it will never truly fade from view. Despite the fact that it came this past Tuesday, the first day of Sukkot on this year’s calendar, it was widely observed in quiet gatherings, both in the cities of Israel and the world Jewish community. This, despite the fact that the tradition forbids it. When mourning coincides with a Jewish holiday, it is mourning that must give way to joy. Not this time. Not this year. The trauma of 2023 is still too fresh.

Some of you know that this is not my first rodeo. Before I starting posting to this blog, I wrote a daily letter to public officials trying to get under the skin of my targets. This was at the beginning of Trump 1.0, when I thought that people were still sensitive to ridicule.

I’m teaching a course about Israel and the world, especially the communities that make up the Diaspora. That’s not a word I especially treasure. It carries with it an undercurrent of negativism that does not match my feelings about my homeland. If exile means lunch at Utica Square, I don’t consider that a disabling experience. I like the onion strings on the menu at Wild Fork. If that’s the nature of exile, I’d call myself agnostic.

There is a scene toward the end of One Battle after Another that somehow manages to capture the whole. Three cars roar across a western landscape, driven by characters armed to the teeth. One is the daughter of a charismatic revolutionary. The second is a sinister white supremacist. The third is Leonardo DiCaprio, addled by decades of drugs and alcohol, but determined to save his mixed-race daughter.

Rosa Tarloveky de Roisinblit died this month, right on the cusp of the High Holiday season. In many ways she was a familiar figure. Born in a Jewish settlement in Argentina, she grew into a career as an obstetrician. Eventually she moved to Buenos Aires and married, raising one daughter, Patricia, with her husband, Benjamin. The chronology of her life tracks my own. If Patricia had lived, she would have been my age today.

Ryan Walters is again in the news, but there hasn’t been a day when he was far from Page 1. Our departing Superintendent was very thirsty, sipping notoriety even when it was shameful. Nothing could slake his appetite for coverage. He craved it as a baby craves the breast.

Jimmy Kimmel is back, and not a moment too soon. He returned to his desk on Tuesday night, as millions tuned in to welcome him home.

I frankly never thought that it would happen at all, without prolonged protests and boycotts against Disney. Stephen Colbert is still broadcasting nightly, but his days are numbered, as if awaiting execution.

The Jewish new year begins tonight. Under normal circumstances, I would be keyed-up and mobilized. This year is 5786, a count that begins with the creation of the universe. I love the idea that I can live in many worlds at once, including one that is just under 6,000 years old. It opens the windows inside old assumptions and lets you see the universe from a different angle. According to this count, everything is new, certainly not old enough for capitulation or despair.

The most photographed American in the nineteenth century—more than Lincoln, more than Whitman—was Frederick Douglas, the orator and abolitionist. His life will be written about until the end of time. He lived as an enslaved person for much of his early adulthood and then engineered his own emancipation. Not content to be a tool in the drama of others, he exercised his agency in thrilling ways. One of those strategies was promotional images that illustrated his dignity, his intelligence, and his good looks. When people thought about American Black people, he wanted them to imagine…Frederick Douglas.