Successful living often involves blending two incompatibles. For instance, raising great children means parenting with the perfect mix of tough, firm discipline and gentle, yielding compassion. In running a business, entrepreneurs must exquisitely blend ‘the customer is always right’ with ‘some customers are not worth having.’ In courting, smart men and women combine ‘you’re the...
A lot of presents will be given over the next month, many of them to children. While some of the presents will come from aunts and uncles, grandparents and friends, parents will also spend a great deal of time and money choosing just the right items for their children. After all that work, they might...
As the U.S. population ages, many members of the baby boomer group are rejecting the elderly housing paradigm of their parents and grandparents. An article in The New York Times describes innovative senior housing in Florida whose name, Latitude Margaritaville, is based on a popular Jimmy Buffett song. In describing this over 55 housing...
I went to the library yesterday to get some comfort reading. You probably know about comfort food. After 9/11, even fancy restaurants began serving mashed potatoes, chocolate pudding and other common staples of childhood. As people were reeling from the ominous events that shook the world, eating simple old-fashioned favorites emotionally connected them with a...
We wish you a joyous Chanuka or Christmas with family, friends and community.
“Rabbi Lapin, please stop talking and writing about money; all you’re doing is perpetuating anti-Semitic stereotypes!” This was the phone call I received a while ago from the head of one of the Jewish organizations concerned with anti-Semitism. Knowing it was futile, I still recommended that he worry more about Moslems than about me. “Rabbi...
As the rabbi of a fledgling synagogue in Venice, CA, one of my first goals was to build a school. Recognizing that a stable community needs a place to celebrate and pass along its values, Susan and I spent the summer after our marriage recruiting students for an enterprise that, as of yet, had no...
Around the world, Jews greet the holiday of Chanukah by lighting one flame. On each successive night of this eight-day festival we add one additional flame, culminating on the eighth night with a fully lit eight-flame menorah. Among the miracles commemorated by Chanukah is that God made a tiny quantity of consecrated oil last for...
