I’d like to introduce you to the philosophical treatise that has most influenced my life: Calvin & Hobbes. You may laugh, but anyone who’s ever read Calvin & Hobbes knows that it addresses serious questions about existence and values and meaning…all through the eyes of the world’s most precocious 6-year-old and his imaginary tiger friend.ContinueContinue reading “From Human Doing to Human Being: A Yom Kippur Sermon About Mindfulness”
Tag Archives: judaism
Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: A Sermon For Rosh Hashanah 5778
Does anybody else here remember the book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? It’s about a kid named Alexander, about 4 or 5 years old, who is not having a good day. He gets gum in his hair, and drops his sweater in the sink, and gets criticized by his teacher,ContinueContinue reading “Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: A Sermon For Rosh Hashanah 5778”
Causeless Hatred and the Jewish State: Have We Learned Our Lesson?
What, I’m not good enough to be blacklisted??Those were the words with which I jokingly feigned righteous indignation last month when the Israeli rabbinate released its “blacklist” of rabbis from whom they will refuse letters of Jewishness for new immigrants. Others of my colleagues had similar amused responses: congratulating those who did make the list,ContinueContinue reading “Causeless Hatred and the Jewish State: Have We Learned Our Lesson?”
Wherein I Reveal the Meaning of Life
In Douglas Adams’s cult novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, several characters build a giant computer to tell them the meaning of life. After millions of years of experimentation, the computer (with much fanfare) finally spits out an answer: the number 42. But that makes no sense! How can “42” be the answer toContinueContinue reading “Wherein I Reveal the Meaning of Life”
Rabbi Micah Streiffer 