Category: Learning
From Redemption to Revelation: how do we get there, together?
The period of Counting the Omer (we count 49 days from the second day of Passover to Shavuot) in which we currently find ourselves is a reminder of the road between redemption and revelation. It seems... Read More
What I Learned From Elie Wiesel
Every once in a while, maybe even once in a lifetime, someone comes into your life, unexpectedly, and changes it forever. That happened to me in the Fall of 2001. By this time, I had already gone back... Read More
Musar, Mindfulness and Counting the Omer
On the Jewish calendar, we are currently in the period known as Sefira or Sefirat HaOmer—the Counting of the Omer, a forty-nine day period between Passover and Shavuot. Each evening, beginning on th... Read More
The Tennessee “Monkey Bill:” Why We Need Better Education About Religion in Public Schools
Recently, the Tennessee legislature passed the controversial HB 368, dubbed “The Monkey Bill” by its critics as a reference to the famous 1925 Scopes Trial. The bill starts off with a sound argume... Read More
In Oman, the Muslim-Christian Equation: Understanding is greater than Tolerance
On most days, if we’re realistic, the idea of religious tolerance serves only to usher a person just inside the other’s front door. It might, in the end, provide a sort-of, kind-of knowledge, but ... Read More
Educating for Critical Consciousness
There is a crisis of higher education in Dhaka. The crisis is deep-seated, and not based on lack of resources, technology, or facilities. The crisis is a failure of human potential – a failure t... Read More
“Blinking at Reality:” All or Nothing on Public Land
“If the property belongs to God he is able to pay the tax.” Robert Ingersoll In Lynch v. Donnelly (1984) the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that a Christmas display in a mall in Pawtucket Rhode I... Read More
It’s all about control …
At the beginning of Lent, I gave a fellow seminarian some advice. Now, that advice is kicking my butt. The advice was simple – to survive seminary, as a time of formation, you had to allow yoursel... Read More