Last weekend, we buried my grandpa, Aaron Eckel, in the fertile sandy soil of the family cemetery, amongst his relatives dating back to the 1830s. The cemetery is situated between the barn where he raised Holstein cows and the house that he built with his own hands after marrying my grandma, Lila, in 1959. Behind the cemetery is a field where the cows

In a few days, I will be heading up to Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, to spend two weeks at OSRUI. I am so excited to sit by the lake and eat ice cream, and of course to teach and sing and pray and play with the campers in my unit. Last summer

Last week, I took a very brief trip to Vancouver, Canada, to visit my friends, Cantor Shani Cohen and Rabbi Kylynn Cohen, because Shani was singing in the chorus of the Vancouver Opera production of La Boheme. While Shani was working, Kylynn and I walked around and admired all

I recently watched a new opera called El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, which tells the story of Frida Kahlo returning from the underworld on the Day of the Dead to help escort her husband, Diego Rivera, into the afterlife. It was emotionally rich, visually vibrant, filled with marigold hues and soaring,

During an education class when I was in cantorial school, we studied Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. My professor described the many frames through which people understand the world: kinesthetic intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, linguistic intelligence and then added, “I’m sure all the cantorial students here have musical intelligence.”

This week’s Torah portion, Bo, places us deep in the dramatic arc of the Exodus. The final plagues strike Egypt, Pharaoh finally relents, and the Israelites prepare for freedom. Yet what stood out to me in re-reading this portion was the verse that focuses on legacy and learning.  As the Israelites are commanded to prepare the

B'haalot'cha: What Do We Weave and What Do We Carry?  When I moved to Santa Fe in 2021, the Museum of International Folk Art was hosting an exhibit called From Combat to Carpet: The Art of Afghan War Rugs. Starting in the late 1970s, following the Soviet invasion of