On Sunday night, June 2, we gathered at Congregation Nevei Kodesh for The Internal Fable of the Ancestors, a rare and beautiful evening dedicated to the healing of body, soul and community.

I have a soft spot for July Fourth. I think it's because my grandparents all found refuge and opportunity here, and their gratitude magnifies my own for this great country, which opened its gates to so many for so long.

Passover is here with all of its beautiful spring bustle. Like many Jewish traditions, this 8-day holiday offers us a variety of doors to enter. There is the nostalgic door, through which we savor the familiar tunes, aromas, wine-stained books, and fragrant foods—all invitations to the childlike heart.

Last Friday’s attack on Muslims in two mosques as they prayed in Christchurch, New Zealand, was a shocking act of hatred and terror that desecrates all that we hold as is holy and sacred.

Did you see the majestic phenomenon of the solar eclipse last week?

Before Election Day, I had myself convinced that humanity was making slow (if sometimes halting) progress in the direction of liberal democracy, and that the light of reason would ultimately prevail.

It's fascinating to watch the theatre of the mind, what slides by and what refuses to be forgotten. This week a fleeting image on a screen caught my eye and stuck in my psyche, echoing for days like an alarm that refused to be silenced.

This week the old Jewish cemetery in my hometown was vandalized. Almost 200 gravestones were crushed or knocked flat off their bases, many in the historic section dating back to the 1800's. My eldest brother Danny is buried there outside of St. Louis, as is my little cousin Menachem who died at seven.

It took me decades to understand my family's tragedies: a brother's suicide, a sister's psychosis, the callous cutting of ties between parents and siblings, between siblings and each other. What made us so volatile, so unloving?

Let me tell you how my world shifted on its axis last month when I traveled to Standing Rock. The first time I set eyes on the encampment was early dawn, just as the dark was lifting.

Back in our camper, by the light of the Shabbat candles, I 'm musing on this astounding week. We arrived at Standing Rock still flummoxed by election returns, and fixated on daily newscasts out of Washington and New York.

I am not an activist. I avoid crowds and cold weather if I can. So why was I was drawn to this relentlessly frigid, straw-colored landscape filled with people this Thanksgiving?

There is a certain pageantry about Jewish holidays in New York City. It is Monday morning, the first day of the Jewish New Year, and teems of well-attired families make their way down the streets of Manhattan's Upper West Side.

It was the smallest thing really. A little bump on the road. I was driving north on I-36 yesterday when I saw a little clod hit and spun around by the car in front of me.

We are nearing the end of our ancestral pilgrimage now. Here I am in front of the Volksopera in Vienna between the feet of the Wicked Witch of Oz, proclaimed dead and powerless amidst bells and revelry.

This morning my head is swimming at the remarkable events that unfolded yesterday in Uhersky-Brod—a verdant, sweet-smelling town in the Carpathian Mountains of the Czech Republic. This is where our great-great grandparents Moses and Tzilka lived and bore their children, so we rented a car to come see what we could find.

I write this from a train, rumbling through the Czech countryside on our way to the tiny towns where our grandparents and families lived and died.

My sister and I had an exuberant day in Prague today, on our feet for nearly seven hours as we drank in the sumptuous sites of the Prague Jewish Quarter.

This is a picture of my little girl. Her name is Emily and she just turned 30.

I remember looking into these eyes for hours at a time…

It is well known that the borders of a child's psyche are highly permeable. Like the feelings that echo between people—what we now call mirror neurons[1]—mental images can be transferred from parents and other adults to younger generations. Although actual memories are not transferred, it is not uncommon for parents and caregivers who have experienced extreme psychic trauma to transmit to a child what has been called an image deposit,[2] that is, a mental picture of the excruciating events that they and others from their group have endured.