By the time you read this, we will be deep into setting up the Passover Seder table and cooking the many dishes we will be serving our 14 guests. Our 13- year-old granddaughter Dalia will recite The Four Questions which are the prelude to retelling the story of our liberation from Egypt, and her father Ben will be leading us in singing the rousing songs contained in the Haggadah, the text for the...

This is the season when I feel the need to return to a subject I’ve addressed before — my life as a sports fan. The confluence of March Madness and the opening of baseball season means that I spent an inordinate amount of time in recent weeks in front of the TV, time which, arguably, could have been better spent cleaning out our overstuffed closets or reading Proust. How did this come to...

The students in our teacher education program heard me say – probably too often – that teaching is like crossing a tightrope between hope and despair. Clearly, these words apply more broadly to all of life. Perhaps an even better metaphor is contained in a popular Hebrew song which starts “All the world is a narrow bridge.” But it’s important not to stop there because the real power lies in the...

Consider this scenario. You are a school principal who needs to fill a teaching position. One of the candidates is a highly experienced teacher who has relocated to Chicago. Her years of experience and advanced degrees translate to a sizeable salary. There’s no question that she will be a great asset to your educational program, but hiring her would take a big bite out of your available...

There are a rare few books that, once you’ve read them, permanently change the way you see the world. One I’ve written about before, Richard Powers’ The Overstory, makes it impossible to see a cluster of trees in a forest as inanimate ever again. Then there’s The Soul of an Octopus by our friend Sy Montgomery. Once again, reading about Sy’s relationship with an octopus at the New England Aquarium...