This sentence ends the prayer that I discussed in my last blog, the one that begins, On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed…

I don’t recall noticing it the first half of my life. In my youth, the choir may have sung it in Hebrew, which I didn’t understand. If I recited it with the congregation, it was surely in English. The English may have been the same as what appears in my grandmother’s 1927 Reform Jewish prayer book: But Penitence, Prayer, and Charity avert the evil decree. read more

For the past two years the three of us have formed an abiding friendship with B.J. Yudelson. Together we have engaged in two study groups that did not necessarily overlap yet nurtured us in ways that deepened our understanding of our lives and of our commitment to Jewish values, ethics and social justice.

In an essay posted just before Rosh Hashanah in 2014, and is reprinted here in this collection, B.J. wrote about a central verse in the Rosh Hashanah prayers that, “the best way to think of teshuvah, tefilah, and tzedakah (repentance, prayer and charity) is restoring the balance with oneself, with God, and with the community… By returning to one’s true self, by communicating with the Divine, and by performing righteous deeds we can cross to a place where we can write ourselves into the Book of Life. We can’t change what’s happened, but we can move forward to choose life.” read more

I chose to focus on the biblical verse, “And Jacob said to Pharaoh…Few and hard have been the years of my life.” (Genesis 47:9]. This is not necessarily my most favorite verse in Torah, however it always touches my heart. I am fond of the person Jacob-Israel our forefather, despite of his all too human weaknesses and missteps. But mostly I like the honesty, self-awareness and sorrow that the verse reveals. At this moment in the Torah narrative Jacob-Israel is at the end of his life standing before the all-powerful Egyptian Pharaoh answering the ruler’s informative question, “How many are the years of your life?” His answer is just a few words, without self-pity yet, it is personal and acknowledges his complicated and anguished life. In his answer he is giving a self-account for himself and not necessarily to inform Pharaoh. His complicated life dotted by sorrow and grief is emblematic of his namesake, of his descendants the people Israel. read more

I am writing about a crisis in social psychology.

But, before I address the crisis, some background: Recently, a lot of press has been given to the Science article reporting that many psychological effects, in particular social psychological effects, did not replicate in a large scale replication project. Since deciding what replicated and what did not isn’t as easy as it sounds (does it need to be significant to be successful? In the right direction? Consistent with the theory?), the exact percentage of studies isn’t clear, but, to be safe, let’s say over 50%. In other words, over 50% of studies didn’t replicate when another researcher (not the original one who published the original paper) tried to replicate them. That sounds really bad. But it isn’t the crisis I want to write about. read more

Citizenship has been in the news. Donald Trump wants to abolish “birthright citizenship” for Americans, primarily so he can expel some four million American citizens and their foreign born Central American or Mexican-born parents from the United States. And in Europe there is the sad spectacle of hundreds of thousands of essentially stateless refugees, desperate to flee war-torn Syria and Iraq, making their way to the safer haven of Europe in any way they can, herded like cattle, treated like produce, dying on the water, dying on the land. read more

I was standing in line at a suburban supermarket, thankful that there were only two people ahead of me, and expecting no more than the usual checkout routine. The cashier and the shopper had a friendly discussion about the amount of money on the debit card. Both women seemed to be in the same age-bracket, in their early thirties, the customer was African American the cashier was white.

I began to put my items on the counter when the next in line, a white older man said to the cashier, “Those people, they don’t like to work. Why should they? Obama gives them food stamps.” read more