John Quincy Adams and an American Reminder
By Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern On March 25, 2026, Dr. Ruth Wisse delivered the Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Being invited to offer this address is the highest honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities. Her talk, “A Message from the Blue and White in the Red, White, and Blue,” offered…
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Latest Blog Posts
Does Social Media Make You Anxious?
My friends are railing about politics on Facebook again. I’m exhausted. My social media feeds brim with news of violence, incivility, and decidedly un-neighborly behavior with no end in sight. And that’s just in the United States. Does it feel the same for you? Take a deep breath with me. Let’s take a pause from the world’s noise and rest…
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The Bible for the World in 2020
Alasdair Wallace – Bible Advocacy Campaign Manager, Scottish Bible Society I can sometimes forget that when I’m reading the Bible: what I’m looking at is a translation. And not just a translation into English from the original languages of Hebrew and Greek, but a translation from the way it was originally communicated. The historical stories of God’s people in the…
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Join in singing a 280-year-old Christmas Carol
I have a particular fondness for old hymns of the faith. A good hymn allows us to sing Scripture, and when we sing Scripture, we’re interacting with the Bible, which shapes our choices and transforms our relationships. And since we are just a few days away from Christmas, I’d like to talk about one of my favorite Christmas hymns that’s…
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Get ready: Scripture practices for Advent
Every year at Christmas time my family looks forward to watching the “Service of Lessons and Carols” televised from King’s College in Cambridge, England. The singing is exhilarating, and so is the beautiful reading of the passages from Scripture that foretell and narrate the birth of Jesus. The readers’ rhythms and enunciation and subtle accenting of the words make the…
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God Welcomes Your ‘Messiness’
Where did all these feelings come from? All of my life I have been called an “emotional person.” But here is a fact: everyone is an “emotional person.” Emotions are natural and normal, and there are a variety of ways we can express them. Our emotions are created by God, but the way we tend to relate to them is…
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What would Jesus talk about at the table?
I have been thinking a lot about Jesus’s encounters with people at the dinner table. I wonder what it would be like to have him as a mealtime companion. What would he talk about? Would he walk the path of least resistance, trying his best not to bring up uncomfortable topics; or would he hone in on his dinner companion’s…
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