An Early Childhood Educator once told me, “Children are organically spiritual.” Children naturally explore the non-physical world. They wonder about it. For children, the whole world is new. They are curious and will hear from friends, TV, the internet, commercials, etc. about God. They will wonder about God. Is God really a man? Does…
Read More »Parenting
I don’t like the way emotions make me feel!
I don’t like the way emotions make me feel! This classic teenage line was spoken by my own daughter during a teen *moment*. She knew what she was saying was silly but she also hated the roller coaster of emotion that teens are heir to. We all have feelings that we’d like to discard…
Read More »My Daughters are put off by N.Y. Jewish Culture
A worried Jewish father with a non-Jewish wife wrote to me about the take his college age daughters had towards New York Jewish “culture”. I answered him in my Mixed and Matched column. I’m Jewish, my wife is not. Our two daughters, who have been to Israel, were raised Jewish with all the Jewish lifecycle…
Read More »Pain makes it hard to listen to the views of others
It can be hard to hear another person when the words in your head are drowning out their voice. Everyone deserves to be heard out. If someone else’s experience is being blotted out by your own pain you may need to be heard out before you can listen to that person. Try to sort out…
Read More »Jewish and…
“My wife and I knew that raising biracial Jewish kids meant there would be situations when people would question their Jewish authenticity. We thought about scenarios that could come up. We brainstormed how to response and how to teach the kids to respond. We told them, “You owe nobody an explanation. No one has the…
Read More »What my Mom said about Christmas
My mom and I are Jewish, my dad is Catholic. Growing up we were members of a synagogue and I went to Hebrew school. When I got close to my bat mitzvah it suddenly hit me, We have a Christmas tree! I went to my parents and said, “We have to stop having a tree….
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