Guess what. Christianity is not a dirty word. Some people, MANY people, have a naive version of Messianic Judaism which is really a kind or proof-texty hodge-podge of a personalist Torah orientation, AND they believe this to be an elite religion for the world in contrast to an “apostate” church which “fails to keep […]

What follows is a detailed review and something of a summary of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, by Priya Parker, (New York: Riverhead Press), 2018. I will be making this volume a foundational influence in how I plan events of whatever shape or size. I think you will too. […]

George Herbert Walker Bush is dead . . . or is he? If you have read any of the reflections the past few days, as I have, you will discover the magnitude of his love for wife Barbara, and you will read how she regretted that in dying, she was leaving behind her beloved George, […]

There is a certain amount of mystery involved in how people come to faith in the Messiah. This is doubly so for Jewish people. How does this happen? And how might we aid in the process? This blog-post seeks to address these issues. Charles Kraft, Professor of Anthropology at the Fuller Seminary School of Interculural […]

A hundred and fifty years ago people felt compelled to follow the truth when they were shown it. It doesn’t work that way any more, does it?  Here is the key to keep in mind: People will only care about your explanations when they covet your experiences.Yeshua said he would make us fishers of people. […]

In every area of life, but especially as we view ourselves to be servants of God, we would do well to gain clarity on one particular issue – “What is my/our calling?”  In other words, considering my identity and the responsibilities to which I am linked by virtue of that identity, who am I called […]

Here is a d’rash (a sermon) I was pleased to deliver at Beth Messiah Congregation in the DC area.  I’ve never heard anyone sing HaTikvah at Rosh Hashana, but I believe it is a most appropriate song for this season.  I am especially drawn to the line which states, “Od lo avda tikvateinu–our hope has […]

This is the third and last of our current postings on what Jewish speech ethics have to say about our current political and social media communications. But it is one thing to point out problems, and quite another to solve them. While I won’t claim to be providing solutions to the problems we have been […]

Last time we introduced the issue of WHY we should be concerned with verbal hygiene, with watching what we say. Today we are going to look more at the WHAT, that is, what kinds of speech should we avoid. As mentioned last time, this material is part of an early draft of a forthcoming discipling […]

I am working on two books right now. In view of all the invective hurtling through the air right now, and staining the pages of Facebook, I felt compelled to share with you some material from an early draft of what is likely to be the third chapter of one of those books, a discipling […]