Raviva

We’ve arrived!  Jewish women, that is. After generations of wilderness for Jewish women, two great events of the twentieth century helped to bring us to the Promised Land.  Both are being celebrated this spring, and it is a happy time to be a liberated Jewish woman. Ninety years ago Rabbi Mordecai K

I have been thinking about the late 1960′s lately. I was ten years old in 1968. The civil rights movement was in full swing and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Profound counter culture movements (beatniks and hippies, etc.) reflected the rebelliousness of the era, ultimately in

My love affair with Jewish learning began at an early age. I was an unusual kid who loved Hebrew school from the start. But my classmates didn’t share my affinity and my passion for yiddishkeit. I recall an early high school reunion where a group of old friends gathered around a table in a suburban

The Thanksgiving leftovers may be nibbled over and gone, but still I can’t get Thanksgiving out of my mind. Even as we sat around our holiday table reveling in the company of family and the joy of delicious food, I was thinking about a brief exchange I saw on morning TV the day before the [...]

I was recently interviewed for a documentary that is being made of the first generation of women rabbis. It was an interesting experience as I was asked questions that caused me to reflect on my life and my work, almost like crafting the outline for an ethical will. The interviewer asked how my work

The New Year is upon us.  The Jewish tradition offers us a great toolbox for a real opportunity to set out on a meaningful new course for the journey of 5772.  Teshuvah, repentance, means a “turning” from one direction to another. For most of us it is subtle course-correction, returning to our core

Do you remember the day of September 10, 2001?   I recall that day in utterly clear focus, as though it was a lead-up to the traumatic events about to unfold the next day.  I was at home on the morning of 9/11 when the world was shattered. We all remember that terrible morning of 9/11.  [...]

Every day this week, every email I exchanged, the opening line was consistent: “How did the storm effect you? Are you ok?” Our area of New Jersey, west of New York City, certainly felt the storm. Some of the most persistent and damaging flooding in Northern New Jersey has been in our area. While  my