blogs/rabbi-huberman

I am a Jew.

I’ll tell you what that means to me.

Being a Jew connects me with a 4,000-year-old tradition to seek justice within an often-unjust world.

Being a Jew is to draw on a history dating back to the time of slavery in Egypt and reminds me — through the DNA of a storied people — to ensure that no one under my immediate or extended watch is ever...Read more...

"Take a census of the whole Israelite community" (Numbers 1:2)

There was a mystery within my former congregation as to why an elder — let’s call him Abraham — always asked to be called to the Torah on the Shabbat morning coinciding with the reading of B’reshit — Genesis — the first section of the Torah.

For many years,...Read more...

“You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” Exodus 19:6

The photo is buried somewhere in a box. I’m sure one of these years it will turn up.

It was taken on May 24, 2005, during a British royal tour of Canada, and in some ways it created a mini incident.

That morning, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip found themselves in the Alberta...Read more...

Perhaps the most frequently asked question in Judaism is: “What happens to us after we die?”

If only we knew. And, like most questions within Judaism, our rabbis have posited as many answers as there are “stars in the sky.”

But one answer touches me perhaps more than any other. And it comes from one of our greatest Kabbalistic masters, Rabbi Isaac...Read more...

I’ve been thinking, these past few weeks, about past Passovers, with both the good and “complex” memories they invoke.

Exhibit A is the Maxwell House Haggadah, which since 1932, has guided families through one of the most storied holidays in Jewish tradition. More than 50 million copies are in print.

But in so many ways,...Read more...