He was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, where he received the Cora Kahn Prize from the Cincinnati faculty for the most outstanding sermon delivery and oratory. An alumnus of Princeton University, he received multiple prizes for outstanding scholarship in Biblical and Judaic studies.
He was selected to be a member of the first cohort of Clal’s prestigious Rabbis Without Borders fellowship, a national program that seeks to position rabbis as American religious leaders and spiritual innovators who contribute Jewish wisdom to the American spiritual landscape. Additionally, he was chosen to be in the first group of the Balfour Brickner Rabbinic Fellowship, a a joint program with Clal and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism that aims to integrate Jewish textual tradition with modern social and political issues. He is on the advisory board of several organizations, including the 92nd St. Y’s “7 Days of Genius” Festival, as well as the URJ’s6-Points Sci-Tech Academy.
For seven years, he served as Assistant and then Associate Rabbi of Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester, and appeared on Jeopardy! in March 2016. He lives in Westchester County with his wife Heather Stoltz, a fiber artist, with their daughter and son.
The Torah reminds us that agency should not be for its own sake; the king’s job is not to enjoy the benefits—it’s to lead the people, and, in this text, be subject to the law. Even the king needs guardrails.”
The Forward and Sinai and Synapses brought together leading voices in Jewish thought and technology to explore what a distinctly Jewish approach to artificial intelligence might look like. Watch the conversation on ethics, responsibility, and what it means to be human in the age of AI.
I recently finished the now-classic book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. It had been sitting on my shelf for many years, and I finally felt like I needed to read it, especially given the argument that our society has become post-literate. Postman’s focus is on the rise of television, and how the role of video, instantaneous communication, and entertainment and performance have negatively impacted our civil discourse, our politics, and our educational system. What struck me the most…
“Pluribus” reminds us of two things – first, that it’s good for us to have a sense of personal autonomy, and second, that happiness is less important than purpose.