Listen up!

I’m happy to announce (after recovering from Thanksgiving) that rabbi school is done and I’ve been officially installed as the rabbi at Machar, the Washington Congregation for Secular Humanistic Judaism.

As part of the graduation/ordination process, which occurred during Shabbat services on November 10, 2017 at the Birmingham Temple (the founding congregation of Humanistic Judaism), I gave a talk, which you can watch below:

The talks of three madrikhim/ot (a lay leadership/para-rabbinic leadership program) graduates, another rabbinical ordination, and a posthumous honorary ordination, can also be viewed.

The following weekend, I was installed at Machar. I gave a talk there, too, and if the video worked as planned, hopefully I’ll be able to post that, too.

What’s in a Name?

Well, now is as good a time as any, no?

I’m no longer a Humanistic Jew in Indianapolis. Mrs. HJ, HJ, Jr., and I have made the trek from Indianapolis to our new home in the Columbia, Maryland area. Why?

Because this is me. Up at the top, under “Rabbi.” So, now you know what I’m doing–in November, I’ll be ordained a rabbi (I better get all those papers done, then…), and I’ve already taken on the role at Machar, a Humanistic Jewish congregation in the Washington, D.C., area.

I haven’t quite figured out what this blog will be called–but, hopefully, I’ll have more time to blog than I have in quite some time. Hopefully.

We’ll see, then, I guess.

Of Pills and Panic

It’s astonishing just how finely tuned our brains are–and how small changes in what goes into our brains can change so much about how and who we are.

Back in late April and much of May, Secular Jew, Jr. (“SJJ”) was hospitalized twice in pediatric “stress center” units. “Stress center” is the euphemism du jour for temporary place to put people with acute psychiatric symptoms that cannot be managed at home and that may be resolvable without permanent institutionalization, usually due to substance abuse or severe depression. SJJ is not yet even a preteen, and most of the kids in these units were teenagers, so these were really very extreme places for SJJ to be. But after two stays, in the course of less than a month, the issues SJJ was experiencing seem to have boiled down to medication issues; medications were removed, SJJ stabilized, and things seemed pretty okay.

Until yesterday.