Hear Our Voice

Welcome to Chol HaMoed Pesach, essentially meaning, the “Holy Normal.”  Whereas Shabbat and the chaggim (the first and last days of Pesach and Sukkot, and Shavuot) are considered the most holy days of the year, and most other days are considered chol (normal, everyday), the days in between the first and last of Pesach and Sukkot fall into this category of chol hamoed (the holy normal days of this season).  Why do they carry this...Read more...

“Arguing against intermarriage is like arguing against the weather,” said Egon Mayer, the founder of the Jewish Outreach Institute well over thirty years ago.  I’ll never forget the expert historical claim of my professor, Rabbi David Ellenson, who taught us that in every emancipated Jewish community throughout history, by the third generation, 1/3 of Jews married people from non-Jewish backgrounds.  And yet, despite...Read more...

“Eventually has arrived.”  These words a friend of mine recently shared with me in a catch-up phone call, describing a recent reunion with an old friend.  He explained, “I just had to take the time, the gift of time.”  For it is fleeting.   Youth is for those who believe in things they will eventually accomplish, when they have time, when things are in order, once we have finally grown up.  I hear lots of...Read more...

This is an article about money and Congregation Shma Koleinu. I am telling you this up front so you don’t feel sideswiped or bamboozled but please also DON’T STOP READING.  This is an article about money and Congregation Shma Koleinu because if the Sages of old could so easily recognize, im ein kemach ain Torah, (if there is no bread-$$-money, there is no Torah), then this has been an issue that has required some regular and historic...Read more...

A friend of mine sent some others and me an email that was a bit alarming, especially coming from her. Some of you may have read about or heard about a short documentary film, A Night at the Garden, which was nominated for an Academy Award. The film runs 7 minutes and is built entirely upon documentary footage of an actual American Nazi rally that took place on February 20, 1939, inside of Madison Square Garden. It was attended by 20,000...Read more...

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity"…it seems that these words profoundly ring true now as much as ever.   The plagues of our time seem to be rearing their ugly head with greater ferocity…floods, fires, drug addiction, political malfeasance, income disparity, climate change and pollution…take...Read more...

As the prophetic words go, “Nachamu, Nachamu Ami,” “Comfort, O Take comfort, my people.” May comfort and resolve and bravery and courage arise from these horrific days of hate. The idea of someone entering our sacred spaces and profaning them in the most grotesque of ways is truly impossible to imagine, except that now and truly, in days before now, it isn’t and it wasn’t. I am at a loss for words but not for action. Now is the...Read more...

Also available in the August 2018 digital version of the Meyerlander Monthly.

Harvey was a most unwelcome guest to a party none of us planned. And despite the fact that Harvey was such a party pooper, he didn’t push people away from the party – in fact, the more Harvey poured himself on to our party, the more and more the people came. By foot, by boat, by plane and train, rescuing, saving, offering their most sincere efforts to...Read more...

The call hit me like a ton of bricks.  Natalie on the other end of the line sharing with me a devastatingly sad event that had occurred only days after we had moved to Houston in July of 2011.  A family on their way home to Houston had been in a terrible car wreck, only their three small children had survived, two of them, boys, were in critical condition.  Assuming they survived, they would be disabled for life.  I hung...Read more...