The Rashomon Effect, named after the1950 Japanese film Rashomon, is term describing how different people can witness the exact same event but relate the story in contradictory ways. A corollary of this when something unpleasant happens to two people;…
Life’s Photo Album: The Places That Shaped Us If you had to choose just one way to tell the story of your life, what would you use? A journal? A timeline? A scrapbook? For most of us,…
Judaism Can’t Be Outsourced What is the defining quality of an authentic Jewish leader? In this week’s parsha, as Moses realizes that he will not lead the Jewish people into the Land of Israel and turns to…
What’s in It for You? Korach felt slighted that Moses didn’t select him for a prominent communal position and found 250 leaders to join him in a rebellion. And they rose up before Moses with two hundred…
Gathering for What? Walk into almost any room and you’ll hear people talking about the importance of community. Politicians promise to build one, businesses try to create one, and social media platforms are built around them because…
The Eternal Rebellion Against Responsibility“IT’S THE JEWS. IT’S THE JEWS. IT’S THE JEWS.” Those all-caps words comprise the answer offered to the question of “who is to blame for all the wrong in the world,” according to…
Purpose, Not Privilege: Why Shavuos Still Matters Every nation tells a story about itself. Some are built around land, language, ethnicity or political ideology but the Jewish people tell a different kind of story — one that…
A Society That Refuses to Give Up on PeopleImagine the following two scenarios. (1) A person sells land that has been in their family for generations. Years later, they realize it was a terrible mistake. The family…
The Sacred Space of the Unseen: When Kindness Has No WitnessImagine anonymously doing something kind for someone. No thank you or recognition; would you still do it? That question is addressed in the middle of this week’s…
The Box Was Never Just a Box: Rethinking Holiness Karl Duncker, one of the pioneers of Gestalt psychology, conceived a challenge to demonstrate the need for unconventional thinking. In a room with a table pushed against the…
