Presentations and Programs

The following is a sampling of presentations and discussions. There is obviously a wide range. I am a skilled facilitator and can craft discussions to fit your needs.

  • Accepting Donations: The ethics of receiving funding from bad people. Exploring the rules for accepting donations, when is refunding money appropriate.
  • American Judaism: Past and future; Is the golden age over; antisemitism. Three separate programs dealing with antisemitism.
  • Leaving Money: Dividing your estate, the problem with problem children. A program on gifts and relationships with children
  • Living Life with Purpose: Finding purpose as we age, in traumatic times. Several programs on living life with purpose as the world around us changes.
  • Living with Uncertainty: Examine if life is more uncertain than it used to be.
  • Being Resilient: It seems we keep confronting trauma after trauma. What in Jewish tradition allows us to keep going.
  • Repentance, Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Through the Lens of Field of Dreams: A conversation using the movie to examine Yom Kippur themes.
  • Money and Morality: Looking at Jewish traditions of caring for the widow, the orphan, the stranger and the needy.
  • Freedom as a State of Mind: Do commandments limit our freedom, or make it easier for us to go through life? Or both?
  • Dealing with Antisemitism: I never had to have security at the synagogue for gatherings. How do we deal with it, and explain it to our children?
  • Everything Old is New Again: Can we start over, or do decisions affect our lives forever? Can we correct mistakes or are we stuck?
  • Faith, Spirituality, and Religion? What does it mean to be religious or spiritual? Do we still have faith, in what or whom?
  • Religion and Science Compatibility: For us modern thinkers, where does religion fit? We can’t believe in the same things we were told as children, so now what? Has science explained away religion?
  • Jewish With Feeling: Judaism is not just synagogue prayer. A series on the various subjects examined in the book by Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.
  • God, Oy, What a Word. Exploring God belief: Always an interesting conversation for groups of Jews. One version was called “what’s God got to do with it?”
  • Jewish Time: Judaism is a religion that takes place in time, not place. This is an exploration of calendar, cycles, and Shabbat
  • Jewish Identity-Choice or Chosen: An examination of why we are Jewish.
  • Forgiveness: Why and How. A practical, experiential program with exercises.
  • Judaism and the Me-Too Movement: Explore how the movement has affected Jewish institutions.
  • Jewish Family: Marriage, Divorce, and Shalom Bayit: A series of presentations and conversations about Jewish philosophy, theology and traditions
  • Premarital Counseling for Remarriage and Later in Life Marriages: Using the guide that I prepared, this examines issues that are specific to these marriages.
  • Torah Studies: Each week we study a Torah portion, as we have done for thousands of years. Because each year, it means something different to us.
  • Jewish Views on War and Peace: Jewish tradition has a lot to say. October 7th   brought it all front and center. This is a difficult and sensitive subject.
  • Politics From the Pulpit: Many synagogues have policies restricting political conversations. Are they correct? How have our rabbis dealt with violations of Jewish principles in the past.
  • Yetzer Harah, Yetzer Tov: Apparently, most of us have both good and bad inclinations. Why is that? Are there people who are just evil?
  • Jewish Humor: There’s are several ways to deal with Jewish humor. One is to just spend an hour telling jokes. Another is to use humor to examine issues like family dysfunction and antisemitism.