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Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Jun 5, 2026, 7:46 AM

Wider Lessons of Gay Pride Month: MEeting the “Enemy”

Israel started its Gay Pride Month celebrations yesterday with Jerusalem's Gay Pride parade. Tel Aviv's march – the largest in the Middle East – will take place next Friday (June 12). Whether we "agree" or not with homosexuality, there’s...

Jun 5, 2026, 12:04 AM

Talking With AI (ChatGPT)

Well, here's a project for you. Go to ChatGPT and ask your friendly AI tool the following question. What do you know about me (Insert your full name) that I might not know about myself? Here's what ChatGPT said about me. That's a...

Jun 1, 2026, 4:30 AM

The Secret Place of Thunder

“...I answered you in the secret place of thunder...” -Psalm 81:8 In the deep and secret place of our heart, there is a stirring. There is a powerful illumination in the darkness. Within our innermost being that others cannot see, there is a rain that is...

May 30, 2026, 5:43 PM

It’s Time For A Change: Service Year In Merhavim

Beautiful sunset in Merhavim, my photo

Returning to Merhavim on Sunday after the Shavuot holiday, we all felt that the year was drawing to a close. For me, it will end a month earlier, since the school year finishes at the end of June, while...

Walter Estever Gonzalez

May 28, 2026, 2:01 PM

Where Was God When He Asked for Water

A mother hides her children during the Salvadoran civil war.

There are nights that never end. They do not remain in the past. They return quietly, without warning, and sit beside you as if they had never left. One of those nights still lives in me. During the Salvadoran civil war, when...

Andrew Logan Lawrence

May 27, 2026, 3:56 PM

Shalom Y’all: A Jewish Story Older Than America

If you ask most people where American Jewish history begins, they'll say New York. Some might know about Newport. Almost no one says Georgia. And yet, just five months after the colony of Georgia was founded in 1733, a ship...

May 20, 2026, 4:18 AM

Naso and Ruth : A Season for Reflection

Almost four years ago, in June 2022, I began writing a blog for the TOI. At the time, I did not imagine it would become a weekly practice—one in which I try to weave together the weekly parsha with...

Walter Estever Gonzalez

May 18, 2026, 5:08 AM

Before I Knew the Name

Childhood in El Salvador during the civil war.

There are things the body recognizes before the mind has a language for them. When I was a child in El Salvador, I attended a small church with my mother. It was not a Jewish place. It did not call...

May 17, 2026, 12:18 AM

Possibilities For Friendship And The Service Year

Adi Negev where most of us work at the Service Year, my photo

Although I was born in Israel and grew up in Haifa, I did not have a close Modern Orthodox friend until after I returned to Israel following almost ten years in the U.S. In Haifa, on Mount Carmel (where Naftali...

May 15, 2026, 4:39 AM

The Eternal Jew’s Tale, #216, Messiahs, 11

Malkhut Torn Apart; image composed, colorized and modified by the author, all layers obtained from Wikimedia Commons from the image, Blake - Behemoth and Leviathan 1826, in the public domain.

In this episode, the shells are again shattered. The Eternal Jew’s Tale Messiah Tractates, a Montage Luria, Glorious, 3 of 3 Human, all too human. Beliefs to yoke the wild animal in us, that we might live by a fixed plan and never...

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