by Deborah Globus

by Deborah Globus

Isaac and Ishmael at their father’s grave.  In Abraham’s place is an overturned chair.  Thus the stage is set in the bibliodrama Elizabeth is leading.

These two (half) brothers have not seen each other in no one knows how many years.  What do they say to one another?  You – Isaac, what do you say?  You – Ishmael, what do you say?

We answer, in character, each of us imagining how it went.

One of us suggests, “I’ve missed you brother; let us make peace”

Another imagines, “What are your intentions?”

Still another sees it this way, “This is my land.  Be gone!”

But I know this scene.  I have been here before.  

And suddenly I am no longer at “the grave” but in a hospital room, years earlier.  In the bed is my brother, 39 years old and steadily poisoning himself with alcohol.  Within a year he would be dead.

by Deborah Globus

An Advent Reflection for Begin Again 
and the Cloaked Monk

John 3:31-32
1 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony.

Sometimes I think about how much of a bummer it must have been to be Jesus. 

by Deborah Globus

We’re an inter-faith family.

But that’s not quite true.

by Deborah Globus

When we celebrate Passover in my house, we begin by clearing out all the bread/wheat/corn stuff that we don’t eat for those 8 days. 


It’s a good amount of work for a questionable practice but man, oh man, do we appreciate bread when we’re done!

All these things are called chametz.

I had a friend whose family actually hunted for chametz with a feather and a wooden spoon to sweep it into, the traditional way to approach getting ready.  

We don’t go quite so far, but I like what our Haggadah (the book that directs the Seder) has to say about the last of the chametz:

“Do you think we found every last crumb?  Probably not.  After all, we’re not perfect; we’re human.  Here’s a prayer we can say together about any crumbs we missed:

If there are any crumbs I haven’t seen or taken away, I hereby disown them.  I declare them to be nothing – as ownerless as the dust of the earth.

No one can be perfect.  We can never get rid of every crumb or stop making mistakes.  All we can do is try.  Searching for chametz is a way of trying.”

by Deborah Globus

At Kehillath Shalom Synagogue we held a Women’s Seder – the story of Exodus as told through the stories of the women so integral to the escape from slavery, and with an emphasis on women’s issues.  We wanted to make it relavant and modern and so we added this: Ten Modern Plagues.  Each reader stood as she read the name(s) she was given and remained standing.  We went from a room of women sitting to being surrounded by the voices of women’s pain and suffering.