Jonathan Weinkle, at The Blogs

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Feb 3, 2025, 9:40 AM

A Great, Bitter Cry

Everyone in Florin heard the scream. In S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, known to most Americans as William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, the evil Prince Humperdinck tortures the hero, Westley, to an agonizing end. At the moment of his passing,...

Jan 1, 2025, 10:00 PM

Rude Awakenings

Most of us don’t dream like Joseph – we dream like Pharaoh. Instead of technicolor dreams of glory, our sleep is disturbed by the possibility of what comes after the glory, when the good luck runs out. Pharaoh doesn’t just dream sweet dreams of the...

Aug 14, 2024, 12:44 AM

Jewish liturgy abounds with hyperbole about how inadequate our praise for God can be. In Nishmat, we say: And our tongues as joyous as its many waves, And our lips praise like the expanse of the heavens, And our eyes giving light like the sun...

May 28, 2024, 8:10 AM

I grew up watching Happy Days on TV. In one episode, Arnold’s, the drive-in “greasy spoon” where the characters all hang out, burns to the ground. When the gang tours the wreckage after the fire, Fonzie (played by Henry Winkler to whom I am not...

Apr 6, 2024, 10:55 AM

Superstition and Ritual

Some years ago, our beloved Steelers were on the wrong end of a close game midway through the third quarter and had just done something that defied explanation. Fed up with the way the team was playing, my sons, both teenagers at the time, looked...

Mar 15, 2024, 11:31 PM

At Arm’s Length?

There’s a reason I’m not a surgeon. Last month our handyman came by to definitively fix our shower doors. I’d been “fixing” them almost as long as we’ve had them: hanging them back on the track when they fell, reattaching the wheels when the screws...

Feb 8, 2024, 2:39 AM

The Torah of Treating Substance Use Disorders

Originally delivered as the D’var Torah at Congregation Beth Israel, Vancouver, BC, Canada, Shabbat Yitro, 5784 (February 3, 2024). Event co-sponsored by JACS Vancouver (Jewish Addiction Community Services). Edited for clarity. When I was a senior in high school, a band called The Black Crowes...

Dec 4, 2023, 9:06 AM

A Little Prayer

A friend asked me the other day, “Why are we praying for the release of the hostages if we believe God could just intervene and bring them out? If God wanted to do that, wouldn’t He have done it already?” I tried to pin him...

Nov 2, 2023, 4:39 AM

Finding the Sheep

Parashat Vayera features the most difficult story in the Torah, the binding and near-sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. I have for years read this story as the last in a series of tests that God sets for Abraham and understood this to be the one...

Aug 26, 2023, 1:18 PM

‘Who rewards the undeserving with goodness’

August 18, 2023/1 Elul 5783, the Atlantic coast of New Jersey —The sea has knocked me on my behind several times today. Waves I thought I could ride, or jump through, smacked me in the face, sucked me under, or went up my nose. Fallen...

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About Me

Jonathan Weinkle MD, FAAP, FACP is a primary care-physician in a community health center in Pittsburgh. He is not a rabbi, though he has often been accused of being one. He is an amateur singer-songwriter, teaches at the University of Pittsburgh, and is the author of the 2018 book, "Healing People, Not Patients" and the upcoming book "From Illness to Exodus," due out in early 2025. For a complete archive of his writings, plus media, event listings, and even source sheets for further learning, visit healerswholisten.com. The opinions expressed in this blog are the author's alone.

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