Josh Feigelson, at The Blogs

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May 12, 2022, 11:29 PM

Of black swans and sabbatical years

Alexandru Panoiu from Bucharest, Romania, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The biblical injunction to let the land lie fallow for a year sparks a radical recalibration of society, teaching that what was is not what must be

Jan 14, 2022, 8:25 AM

The Jewish Heart of Democracy

It often feels these days that we’re living through a Great Unraveling. Institutions, those deposits of trust that enable things to be — or at least seem to be — settled, are coming apart. News media, public health, elections,...

Oct 20, 2020, 5:13 AM

A Listening Heart: A Citizen’s Reflection

One of my very favorite moments in the entire Bible comes in the third chapter of the Book of Kings. Solomon, still a young man, has just succeeded his father David as King of Israel. God comes to him...

Dec 22, 2019, 3:01 AM

Truth and reconciliation: a lesson from my dad

The first anniversary of my father’s death on the Hebrew calendar happens this week. As a result, I’ve been thinking a lot about where my family and I were a year ago, at St. Joe’s hospital in Ann Arbor,...

Oct 5, 2019, 12:47 AM

Teshuva 5780: Our Inner Child and Our Children

This is the first Tishrei of my life without my father. And I will confess, even as I approach the end of my period of avelut, that I wasn’t prepared for the strong emotions that would be triggered as...

Mar 23, 2018, 10:13 PM

The seeds born of protest

Hundreds of high school and middle school students from the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia staged walkouts and gather in front of the Capitol in support of gun control in the wake of the Florida shooting February 21, 2018 in Washington, DC. (AFP PHOTO / Olivier Douliery)

Like bygone protests on the Sabbath, the gun violence march ignites a conversation about morality and halacha

Sep 24, 2017, 9:14 AM

Our Spousal Dance with God, and Ourselves

A couple of weeks ago I was reading the Sunday New York Times and came across an article by Eli Finkel, a psychology professor at Northwestern. Professor Finkel researches marriages—what makes them work and not work, and how American...

Apr 9, 2017, 6:32 PM

Passover in Sodom: Which Neighbors Do We Love?

We typically don’t read Genesis 19 looking for connections to the Exodus from Egypt. But it turns out there are many: Lot bakes matzah for his guests (and Rashi comments that he does so because it was Pesach); chaos...

Mar 10, 2017, 1:32 PM

Evacuating school from a bomb threat: A personal reflection

On what goes through a father's mind when he's just been evacuated from his son's school

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About Me

Rabbi Josh Feigelson, PhD is President & CEO of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

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