Author: webmasterdeb

Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben discusses a challenging point in an interfaith couple’s relationship: meeting the parents.

Rabbi Reuben discusses the issues that arise when an interfaith couple has a baby, specifically a boy.

Gerda Klein, the Holocaust survivor won an Emmy and an Oscar for a film about her experiences in the Shoah. She was once asked, “How did it feel for you as a holocaust survivor to be holding an Oscar in your hand?”

Your dad told you not to date non-Jews. What are you going to say to your children when they start dating?

Last Friday as I came into the synagogue to prepare for Shabbat services, our Hazzan Sheni Beth was standing in the foyer with her husband, Ira and their 4 year old son, Jonah. Beth turned to Jonah and said, “Say Shabbat Shalom to the Rabbi, Jonah.” He looked up at me with that 4 year …

Read More “To Stand In Awe Of Our Blessings”

A guy gets a Labrador and he can’t wait to show him off to his neighbor. So when the neighbor comes over, the guy calls the dog into the house, bragging about how smart the little guy is and how incredibly trained he is. “Wait till you see this!” he says to his neighbor. The …

Read More “Feeling Safe In An Unsafe World”

A little girl in our Early Childhood Center experienced a major breakthrough in her life when she learned to tie her own shoes. Instead of excitement, however, she began to cry.

A 6th grade teacher posed the following problem to her class in arithmetic: “A wealthy man dies and leaves twenty million dollars. One-fourth is to go to his wife; one-fifth is to go to his daughter, one-sixth to his butler, and the rest to charity. Now,” she asked the class, “what does each get?” After …

Read More “What You Leave Behind”

The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note and posted it on the apple tray: “Take only one. God is watching.” Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end …

Read More “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times”

You know the Romans were known for many great achievements, but they weren’t so swift when it came to marking the passage of time. They invented the Julian calendar which was advanced for its time, but didn’t take into account the exact length of a year. So after a few years it became obvious that …

Read More “The Power of One”

A minister friend of mine told me the story of these were four ministers who were sitting at lunch together at a class reunion – one turns to the others and says, “You I can tell…I have a problem with stealing…from time to time when no one is looking, I take some money from the …

Read More “The Last Socially Acceptable Bigotry?”

Everyone told me not to do it. People want to be inspired on Kol Nidre, they all said. They want to hear about profound matters of the spirit; words that touch their souls, give wings to their deepest longings for meaning and purpose. They are even willing to look deeply into their own failings and …

Read More “Before It’s Too Late”

You know the Romans were known for many great achievements, but they weren’t so swift when it came to marking the passage of time. They invented the Julian calendar which was advanced for its time, but didn’t take into account the exact length of a year. So after a few years it became obvious that …

Read More “Give Us Back Our Days”

I was startled out of my sleep at 6:15 AM Tuesday morning by a phone call from my daughter, Gable, who is living just a ten-minute walk from the World Trade Center in New York. “Oh my God,” she cried into the phone, “I’ve just witnessed the most horrible scene of my life.” With those …

Read More “Confronting the Terror of Terrorism”

Twenty-five years ago my best friend was raped at knifepoint. She lived alone in Hollywood and like most 20-somethings, had never really given her safety a second thought. Until that night when she awoke from out of a dead sleep to find a man with his hand over her mouth and a knife to her …

Read More “Hide Or Seek”