Personal Journeys

Our lives are like the reverse side of a great tapestry. From the back, it all looks random and chaotic: all we can see are the knots, the imperfections, some bumps, smears of color...

The year is the same, the days are the same, but the months are different. It is a time quite individual -- created by G-d, especially for me...

It was the commercial that first attracted me. Then there were the bonus gifts, and by the time my free-trial period was up I'd forgotten that my credit card was being billed monthly...

In prison, you lose your identity. You can't be a thief when you aren't stealing; you can't be a drug dealer when you aren't dealing. You have no status in the underworld and no status in the real world

That his Shabbat prayer was a gift to last all my years, Grandfather could hardly have known. And in the very last moments before my carriage moved, he gave me still another, utterly precious gift...

Leon Friedman was a Holocaust survivor who wrestled with his memories, suffered depression, and what some would call "survivor's guilt." I saw him frequently for one problem or another; sometimes I thought he just wanted to talk...

Radical research was required. I could have been a bit more philanthropic, but I needed a visceral rite of passage, not to mention the brief catharsis destruction provides...

It was back to basics. Actually, it was back to much less than basics. It was back to virtually nothing...

I recently participated in a phone conference connecting 29 people from Israel, Ukraine, France, Alaska, Texas, New York and Solon, Ohio, all the children or children-in-law of a single woman -- my mother

"Daddy," I cried, gulping down the large lump that was forming in my throat. "We don't want your blessing tomorrow. We want it after the surgery, for many years to come!"

I'm driving down the mountain. The forest on either side of the Jerusalem Highway has an eerie, mystical aura. The words pop into my mind: Free Choice

The rabbi was speaking of women's inherent spiritual superiority to men. My hand shot up. "Where are the men? Shouldn't they also hear of our elevated status?"

The center is not our creation, but the circle is. The paradox today is this: one cannot create a circle without a firm center, yet the center is invisible until we create our circle

At a certain point we have lived long enough to see that every choice we made was made in ignorance.

The philosophical conclusion of quantum physics is that physical reality is determined by a human observer. Halachah (Torah law) requires me to check every corner of my home for pretzel crumbs. Corrective observation

I work 12 to 14 hours a day. I have even less time than money. My obligations to family, work, and community are greater than any time in my life. Yet I have never been more free

I simply had no more talk left in me. I had spent hours casting about for some suitable activity that could serve as a replacement for the speaking, but thus far, I had come up with nothing.

An earsplitting blast froze me in my place and the ground vibrated from an explosion. Terrified screams and a haze of smoke filled the air...

"I want to know why the women aren't allowed to dance with the men." My anger sounded to my own ears flat, bold, the way I wanted it...

"That was about the time of the beginning of the baal teshuvah movement," I said, remembering my arrival in Crown Heights in 1974. My guest bristled. "What do you mean, 'movement'?" he said. "I wasn’t part of any movement. I did this on my own."