Judaism
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The summer of 1966 was a difficult time for me. In the spring, my father had died suddenly. My mother had decided I should attend Boy Scout camp for a week. In the weeks leading up to it, I had been staying with the Hingstman family in Vestal, New York. I was uninterested in attending…
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Mixing Apples and oranges (or pomegranates). Readers may think I have been doing just that in these reflections on Advent and Chanukkah. Jews and Christians have distinct faiths and teachings. I firmly believe in ecumenical dialogue. Dialogue, to reach an understanding, not a theological compromise of beliefs. As Trevor Harford, a Christian Bible and Rabbinic…
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A curtain of silence drapes the late autumn and first days of winter. There is a sense of expectation. In the solitude of quiet nights, I find hope and the desire for renewal and deepening of faith in the flickering candlelight. I think of these days and nights of contemplation as an invitation to sit…
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The other evening, my wife arrived home with bags of groceries from the market that we will donate to a food bank for distribution. An act of kindness. A moral imperative. More importantly, an expression of love and faith. And for my wife and I, it is also an act of remembrance of both those…
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The other morning, I found a note in my mailbox from a dear friend. The subject raised for discussion pertained to confession and absolution. This is a timely message as we are in the period of the High Holy Days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. These are ten days of reflection, atonement, and absolution.…
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On Sunday, following dinner, I settled in the living room. My wife and I were undecided whether to watch a film or a television show. We recently became hooked on a French detective program, “Le détective de la montagne” (The Mountain Detective). The Mountain Detective is a series about Alex Hugo, a policeman who leaves…
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Donald Trump made two statements on Tuesday, August 19th that should give us pause. The first is a social media post. “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing…
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What does it mean when someone asks you to pray for them? What does the request say about them and you? Prayer is a topic that we relate to public worship, a liturgy. Our engagement in private and personal prayer is typically an undiscussed topic because it is just that― private. Emotional public appeals for…
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Perhaps I have been asking the wrong question. Ben Azzi used to say: “Despise no man and consider nothing impossible for there is no man who does not have his hour and there is nothing that does not have its place” (Aboth IV.3). Despise no person regardless of socio-economic status, gender, gender orientation, race, creed,…
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Letting in the Fresh Air COMPASSION AND CHANGE Letting in the Fresh Air Bob, an artist friend, recounted a story to me about Cardinal Loris Capovilla, Pope John XXIII’s personal secretary. Father Capovilla told Bob that moments after being elected pope, and they were alone, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli said, “They chose me to be pope…
Charles van Heck's Woodhull Journal 