ArcaMax

I recently offered up my list of qualities I hoped to see in the new pope and asked you, dear readers, to share with me your hopes.

Now that we joyously have welcomed Pope Leo IV we can begin to match up our lists and his papacy. I did not include in my list a pope who is a White Sox fan, who has a COSTCO card, who loves Chicago deep-dish pizza...Read more

Q: What do you as a rabbi want from the new pope? – (From F)

A: As it turns out, I want the same things from a new pope that I would want from a new rabbi – plus the ability to run a worldwide, multicultural, multi-billion-dollar institution representing more than a billion Catholics.

I want a pope who believes that Christ...Read more

Many notes of reflection on the passing of the pope. This from my friend F in Wisconsin:

“When he was a teenager, he loved to play basketball. Then, in his 20s, he had life-threatening pneumonia and part of a lung was removed. No more basketball for that young man! He became a priest after being inspired by a priest. John Paul II made him...Read more

Q: Many Christian readers, fresh off their Easter Communion services, wrote to me to ask me about the actual Christian belief about the bread and wine turning into the body and blood of Christ. Thankfully, you don’t have to rely on a rabbi’s interpretation. C, from Walla Walla, Washington, helpfully wrote in with her understanding of this ...Read more

As Easter approaches and Passover fades away this week, I offer to you, dear readers, and your families, a two-word prayer to help each of us gain a measure of hope in these troubled times by taking the true meaning of our sacred stories into our lives.

A story from my tradition. The rabbis asked, “After the children of Israel ...Read more

Go figure! This old question about a dog taught me everything important I needed to know about Passover and Easter.

Q: I have a dilemma. Bo is my Labrador Retriever and he is always with me. He rides in my truck, comes on my boat and sleeps in my bed. My girlfriend says he smells and she is allergic to him and tells me that ...Read more

In this season of sacred holidays for Judaism (Passover), Christianity (Easter), Islam (Ramadan) and Hinduism (Holi) it seems to me like a good time to face the challenges of interfaith dialogue on a deeply personal level.

What are we to do when the challenges of understanding the faith of our neighbor is not the result of some ...Read more

As we prepare to welcome spring (March 20) and Passover (April 12) and Easter (April 20). I offer up a prayer for remembering how our spring holidays divide us and unite us and how springtime makes all our celebrations part of a renewal of hope.

Passover and Easter are ...Read more

I recently wrote about how the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) is a part of every single world religion. This note lifts my spirits by showing me that it is also a part of the moral education of every compassionate family,

Q: My husband and I were raised ...Read more

Springtime brings us a wide variety of joyous and colorful celebrations in the cycle of sacred time. People do not realize that religions cannot only fill our lives and our years with stern limitations and restrictive rules, but that faith must also be fun.

The two weeks at the end of March and at the beginning of spring put us squarely in the ...Read more

I recently was humbled and honored to speak to a group of parents who have experienced the death of a child. I shall try to address some of their questions in the weeks ahead but nothing I can write will adequately convey the deep and hard-earned wisdom they shared with me.

Q: “I am so angry at the death of my son I don’t ever want to let ...Read more

The beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Friday evening Feb. 28 brings us back to the ways sacred calendars are created.

The first way a year was calculated in human history was by the cycle of the moon and not the sun. It is virtually impossible to calculate the time of a solar year but a lunar year is...Read more

The mission statement of the God Squad is that we know enough about how we are different and not enough yet about how we are all the same. I realize that I have been spending too much time writing about how we are different and not enough about how we are the same so let us begin our exaltation of sameness with the Golden Rule.

Q: You have ...Read more

In an interfaith column like The God Squad, it is easy to scoop up sectarian holidays and learn from their wisdom. Passover, Chanukah, Easter, Christmas, Diwali, Ramadan, Vesak all have much to teach us about the way sacred time intersects with secular time. However, the sacred calendar does not have ...Read more

As we move away from God winks for a bit and devote our time and love to understanding the big questions, we encounter a very big question, “Can prayer heal?”

Q: I read your column faithfully. My question for you is my prayer list. It just keeps growing, and I have had a difficult time reading my list and praying for each person and ...Read more

Q: Your exploration of the question “Is God Too Big For Us?” was of much interest. I appreciate your honesty in noting that we do not have knowledge about God. Thus your words about God are declarations of faith, but not matters of knowledge. My question has to do with your faith confession that trust in God is like the words of a child�...Read more

Q: The Bible presents us with a cosmology completely at variance with that accepted by modern science. The Bible tells us that the entire universe was created in six days and that the Earth is the center of the universe with everything in the sky revolving around it. Science tells us that the universe is between 14 and 15 billion years old, ...Read more