A German-Trained American Rabbi in Yorkshire

(Photo note: This was the view fom where he had a Shacharit prayer service which took place directly after the stroy recounted below.) I had one of the most profound Jewish experiences of my life last week. Last Tuesday the Jewish month of Elul passed from expectation to reality, and in celebration of this milestone, the Cantorial, Educational, and Rabbinical students participating in HUCs Year in Jerusalem program met at 4 am (yes, really, we did) to hop in buses to travel to a Sephardic Synagogue on French Hill and attend a Slichot service. Now I do realize that a few things need to be defined for my non-Jewish friends reading this. First of all, the month of Elul is the month directly preceding the Jewish High Holy Days and takes on special significance for anyone observing even a baseline of Jewish tradition. Elul is a month of introspection. Sandra likes to say that Elul is the Jewish version of the forth step (we made a searching inventory of ourselves) of the “12 ...

(Photo Note: I just wanted to help everyone imagine a little bit what it is like to watch a concert at BYU's -Jerusalem campus [thank you Mindy for the head's up].) Several years after I graduated from the University of Montana with degrees in Clarinet Performance and Composition I returned during a trip to Montana and stopped by at the U for a visit. At the time, about 10 years ago, I wore my new career as a (at that time) systems analyst proudly. After all, a job offer while I was still in Graduate School with a starting salary of $37,000 sounded like paradise. I was a musician, for Petrov’s sake. I was accustomed to earning in a one-night gig $20 plus tips plus free alcohol—and being happy with that. Plus I had already began a cycle of financial woes that lasted far longer than I care to admit, and I really needed the $37,000 a year. So I dropped out of graduate school and started a karmic cycle that would last, well, until now. That particular visit to my...