Blogs
Hanging on to Hope Through a Serious Illness
In 1978, I entered the New York City Marathon wearing a T-shirt proclaiming me “The Running Rabbi.” I was just as tireless in my calling as a rabbi in Newburgh, New York. I led a march against the Klan, rallied to free Soviet Jews, and visited ou...
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My Special Eleven Day Mission to See the Iran Hostages
The BBC interviewed me for a Documentary Special about my visit to the 52 hostages held captive in Iran and released after 444 days in January 1981, when President Reagan invited me to greet the liberated Americans in a White House Ceremony. Below is...
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Finding Courage
What does courage look like? Each spring, an award is given to a person who has made a significant contribution to the world. This past spring, a woman was nominated who had spent many years of her life hiding her personal identity, and who had, at l...
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If I Should Meet God
A disciple came to his rabbi and lamented: “Rabbi, I have all these terrible thoughts. I am even afraid to say them. I feel absolutely terrible that I can even think these thoughts. Rabbi, I simply cannot believe. Sometimes I even think that God do...
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Overcoming Depression
Pain, medicine, and depression were overwhelming me. The doctors told me I was winning my battle with leukemia, but I felt I was losing emotionally. The depression that had overtaken me seemed worse than physical disease. As a rabbi I thought I had b...
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Who is Truly Religious?
These days I wonder if people who choose wounding and hurtful words wrestle with their demons. In the Jewish tradition, when we wake up in the morning we say: “Let me be swift as a deer, and strong as a lion to do the will of the Holy One.” We re...
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Unlocking Your Inner Strength in a Crisis
In June 2013, feeling great, I was on a family vacation, walking in the Adirondacks, when my oncologist called with the alarming news that a routine test showed that my lymphoma had returned in a more aggressive form. My wife and I sat anxiously hold...
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What a Dying Christian Taught a Rabbi
When the doctors and nurses saw how depressed I was from the fevers and gnawing pain it worried them and they came to my hospital room to challenge me saying: “Why not be a rabbi and offer encouragement to your fellow patients?” But first we want...
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Words of Wisdom from “The Running Rabbi” on Facing Illness and Adversity
In 1978, I bounded across the finish line of the New York City Marathon sporting a t-shirt with my logo “The Running Rabbi.” I’d never been sick a day in my life and I felt indestructible. That was then. My illusion was shattered six years late...
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There Is a God
Over a hundred years ago in the town of Berditchev, there lived the saintly Rabbi Levi Yitzchak. One day he ordered the town crier to come to him. “What is your wish?” he asked the rabbi. “Go to every storekeeper and shopkeeper in the market pl...
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