Commentary

Like many of you, I don’t typically make healthcare decisions based on the cost of services.

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react that matters.” Epictetus, Greek Philosopher.

 Orthodox, Traditional and Conservative Jews refrain from celebrating joyous occasions, including weddings, during certain days of the seven-week period between the second day of Passover and Shavuot known as the sefirat haomer or “the counting of the omer.”

A book reviewer is supposed to attract the reader’s interest in learning the story by way of the book.

Most readers of The Chronicle will already know the basic story shared in Mindy Corporon’s tome, “Healing a Shattered Soul: My Faithful Journey of Courageous Kindness after the Trauma and Grief of Domestic Terrorism,” or are at least familiar with it.

Editor’s note: This message is reprinted from a weekly shabbat email sent March 19 to HBHA families and friends.

This week was the Grammys! For those of you who weren’t paying close attention, the winner of the Best Comedy Album went to Tiffany Haddish — the first black woman to win this Grammy Award since Whoopie Goldberg won it in 1986. The name of her show? Black Mitzvah (now available on Netflix!).

As we handed over our one way tickets to the agent at the gateway, we knew that there was no turning back. Here we are making that giant leap of a transition from a small town called Brooklyn, New York, to the big city of Lawrence, Kansas.

The Jewish calendar as we know it today was designed by Hillel II. The name was really Hillel, but we add or call him Hillel II so as not to confuse him with the famous Hillel, who lived several centuries before him.

We don’t speak enough about domestic violence in the Jewish community. This is true of all Jewish communities. Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twersky, one of the foremost experts and advocates in the Jewish community regarding mental health and the issues of domestic violence and substance abuse, saw mental health issues, and relationships in particular, through spiritual care lenses.

“Flowing upward through a confusion of dreams and memory, …I surface. My eyes open. I am awake.” So, begins a day in “Crossing to Safety” by Wallace Stegner. We awaken these days with anxiety that presses from multiple directions. Each day, too, we live with the hope of crossing to a safer place in our lives.

As we inch closer to our son Michael becoming a Bar Mitzvah, it is nothing like I ever imagined it would be. Looking forward to this Jewish milestone, I can’t help but look back to 1989, the year of my Bat Mitzvah.