Curses! - Parshat Chukat Balak 5786

Personhood at 3am - Parshat Vaetchanan 5786

So there I was, shuttling between the NICU and the recovery room, doing what I do under pressure: deflecting fear through humor and showmanship. Performing calm and competence I did not feel. Sometime around 3am, when it was really just me awake, looking at this brand new tiny person hooked up to machines and tubes, P.T. Barnum ran out of material. And I started saying the Shema.

Teach ‘em How to Say Goodbye - Parshat Devarim 5786

Maybe it comes with getting older, but I find myself thinking more frequently about how I'm not going to be around forever. One day, many decades from now G-d willing, my boys will go through what’s left of their lives without me. The only parts of me that will remain are the memories that are memorable (and let’s be honest, that’s kind of a crap shoot) and, with any luck and loads of intention, the lens through which we see the world and our place in it.

A Man’s Word - Parshat Matot 5786

The capacity for language — to name, to promise, to bind oneself to another across time — is the defining gift of human consciousness. Which means the commitments we make to one another are not social niceties. They are acts of creation or destruction, every time. A kept promise builds a world. A broken one, even a small one, dismantles it. My boys are watching me build. They are running the ledger in real time, with the terrifying accuracy of those who have nothing else to do but pay attention to whether I mean what I say.

Raising wise heirs - Parshat Pinchas 5786

Somewhere deep inside me was the fear that if I opened the floor to discussion, I'd slowly erode my own credibility (less sour aftertaste) as a father. But then another, more disturbing thought crept in: What if he has a genuinely better idea…occasionally? That question has stayed with me. It's about what kind of relevance (least sour aftertaste) I hope to exercise in our home. Am I raising children whose highest virtue is compliance because my highest virtue for them is compliance, or children who learn to think carefully and independently enough that one day they become worthy stewards of the values they're inheriting?

Curses! - Parshat Chukat Balak 5786

In this week's parsha, Chukat-Balak, a Midianite king named Balak realizes he cannot defeat the Israelites by force, so he hires a prophet, Bilam, to do what swords couldn't: curse them into oblivion. Bilam opens his mouth to deliver the curse — and a blessing comes out instead. Not once, but three times. He tries again. The curse will not come. Something stronger than his intention, or even Balak's hatred, is rewriting the words in his mouth before they land.