Rabbi Bruce's Reflections on Life

Dear Friends and Family, Some revelations this week that I need to share and I want to also let you know about the special program in Sue's honor this week. Sue's birthday is this Tuesday and it is another first to experience.  I will be surrounded by family from today through her birthday which will be immensely supportive.  So many of you have continued to reach out and as I approach the completion of the year of mourning, your ongoing caring is unprecedented in my experience as a rabbi.  Everyone has people who support them, but the depth and quantity of the love and kindness I have received is a reminder that love changes everything.  Sue would be inspired by the ways in which you have taken care of me and it is a tribute to her that kindness does make a difference in a world that isn't always kind. As I have had to rabbinically guide a number of people recently as they are dealing with illness and death, I have finally accepted that although my faith in  and career...

Dear Friends, So much has happened in the past week. I appreciate your bearing with me in what is once again an emotional roller coaster. Folks tell me this journey is non linear and this week exemplified that BIG TIME. The week began with speaking at the funeral of a 47 year old former student and friend of our older children. As I tried to comfort the bereaved, it was a stark reminder of the fact that many of us suffer tragedies and I can't imagine what this family is going through. Sue was in certain ways like a mom to this student and she had deep feelings about his kindness and caring. She encouraged him and mentored him and it was a reminder of how important simple acts of caring can be. In conversations with a member of the family, they introduced me to the Buddhist idea that when we experience a tragic loss, it is like an arrow going through our hearts. We are in pain and often look to try to find reasons for our pain. That can lead to the second arrow which is th...

Dear Friends, I wanted to give you an update. It is now 44 weeks and perhaps it was being secluded in the snow and not seeing people for a few days or perhaps it is because it was the first snow storm since Sue passed away, but it has been a challenging time. Sometime soon, an editor is going to be compiling these blogs and the commentary I am writing and we hope to publish my musings sometime during 2026. Recently, one of our children and I were talking about an idea in Jewish life that there are 36 righteous people in every generation. We don't know who they are since they work behind the scenes and are unassuming. As we were talking about this, I realized that I may have been married to one of them. Many of you reading these blogs have told me that you never realized all the things that Sue did during her lifetime. These people are called lamed vavniks since the Hebrew letter "lamed" is numerically 30 (each Hebrew letter has a numerical value...this is called ge...

Dear Family and Friends, I think it is time. I will continue to blog on the blog site listed below but will be taking a break from sending these to individuals. It is time to begin to put these blogs for the past nine months into a book that I might be able to publish. Occasionally I will send them to you in this fashion if I am in need of support and guidance. I cannot express my gratitude to so many of you who have accompanied me on this journey. I hope you will stay in touch as you have done even though you are not personally receiving these blogs. Your friendship, caring, and love have been inspirational and have allowed me to continue to live and not merely survive. As a person who has made his career using words, I cannot find the words to thank you for your compassion. So...I will just say, "THANK YOU." Let me explain why I think it is time to take a break. I continue to hear Sue's voice telling me that I have said much of what I have written already ...

Dear Friends, In the Broadway Musical South Pacific, there is a song, "some enchanted evening you will meet a stranger...you will meet a stranger across a cr;owded room... Well, Sue and I met at Hillel in 1973 but the romance of the song didn't happen. We were at a coffee house as I recall and her friend was playing the guitar and was playing "Classical Gas." We were cordial and knew who each other were...but that was it. UNTIL... As you may remember from previous blogs, I got her convicted in a trial in Hebrew in the fall of 1974 in a Hebrew class. I teased her...what else is new...:-) and she stuck her tongue out at me. The rest is history as we developed a friendship that lasted into six decades. I will always be grateful to my mother for encouraging me to take one more semester of Hebrew because as she put it, "you might meet some nice Jewish girl." Well, I did meet a Jewish girl:-) ( I would tease Sue about this occasionally.... Last nigh...

Dear Friends and Family, As we conclude 2025, I have been reflecting upon what has clearly been the most difficult and challenging year of my life.  I also think about all the blessings which have been bestowed upon me by loving friends and family.  I have learned that those who cared about Sue and care about me really do care.   When my student told me that someday I would recognize that the line from Psalm 23 would make sense, they were right.  My cup does runneth over and goodness and kindness have been following me. The student told me that the challenge would be that there is a hole in the bottom of my cup and that at times I won't feel the blessings, kindness, and love because they will leak out.  They told me that slowly the hole would be smaller and that the blessings would once again fill my cup and overflow.   As I have walked through the valley  of the shadow of death, I have not been alone.  I am not quite ready  to concede that perhaps G-d has been with me through t...