I was just reading Chapter 10 of Buried Treasure and was wondering what God’s advice would be to the sons in single-family homes headed by mothers. In my own case, I grew up in South Africa after both parents immigrated there. When my father died (I was 7) my mother refused to return to her...
Don’t you love reading something so true or so beautifully expressed that you simply must re-read it and maybe even write it down so you will come across it again? Reading the news nowadays provides a series of heartbreaking stories. For example, on the day I am writing this, I came across articles on the...
Dear Rabbi and Susan, I have reached an impasse in my life. I come from a troubled family background and have had to step in and take charge of my parents’ life in a way that a child never should have to do. We are talking about dealing with mental illness and bankruptcy among other...
“All you need is love,” sang the Beatles in 1967. A pretty sentiment to be sure, but a poor roadmap for life as proven by the young and confused of that generation whose lives were shaped by a fateful summer of love two years later. Love is wonderful, but alone it is hardly adequate. One...
If you find yourself suffering from muscle cramps and unusual tiredness, you may have a potassium deficiency, but a doctor would need to determine this with blood tests. It is possible that you have not eaten enough potassium, but your symptoms may well have other causes. Nothing in our bodies tells us that it’s time...
I was profoundly disturbed when a member of my congregation told me that he didn’t care that his father had just passed away. They had been estranged for years, he explained, yet I still felt sullied by listening to his utter lack of affection or even respect for his late father. My admonishment to him...
Sadly, but readily, I’ll confess that I am no dancer. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to be Fred Astaire on the dance floor. It’s just that when I dance, more than anything else I resemble a drunk trying to trample a cockroach. One of my many problems in this arena is that I remember...
