Introduction:
Mensch•Marks
Part
One: Work and Worship
Mensch•Mark 1 A Young Rabbi: Are Exuberance and Wisdom
the Product of One’s Age?
Mensch•Mark
2 Gentleman’s Agreement: How I Learned to Afflict the Comfortable
and Comfort the Afflicted
Mensch•Mark
3 The Santa Suit: Do the Clothes Make the Rabbi?
Mensch•Mark
4 Rising Above the Hate: How Being a Rabbi Has Helped Me to Become a
Far More Loving, Far More Forgiving Human Being
Mensch•Mark
5 Saturday Morning Fever: Touching Souls in a Germophobic Age
Mensch•Mark
6 Mentioning the Unmentionable: Smashing Taboos and Sacred Cows
Mensch•Mark
7 Dancing Sheva: Flowing with the Rhythms of Sacred Time
Mensch•Mark
8 Superrabbi, the Flawed Model: Taking Myself off the Pedestal
Mensch•Mark
9 Shedding the Baggage: Baring My Soul Before God
Part
Two: Loving and Letting Go
Mensch•Mark
10 Fathers and Sons: The Power of Parental Presence
Mensch•Mark
11 The Dangling Knife: The Parent as Sculptor, Mentor,
and Shield
Mensch•Mark
12 Hugging, Blessing, Letting Go: With Every Embrace There Must Be a
Release
Mensch•Mark
13 Leaping with Angels: My Sick Child, My Dying Congregant, and Salvation from
an Unexpected Source
Mensch•Mark
15 The Peter Panning of America: Can the Past Remain
Ever-Present?
Part
Three: The Nobility of Normalcy
Mensch•Mark
16 Living on the Back Pages: Holiness Lies in the Sacred Pulse
of Daily Life
Mensch•Mark
17 The Forbidden Oreo: We Are What We Eat
Mensch•Mark
18 The Invisible Fence: Setting Behavioral Boundaries
Mensch•Mark
19 The Power Grid: Recognizing the Limits and Potential of One’s Power
Mensch•Mark
20 Paradise in a Sandbox: Recovering
the Pure Faith of a Child
Part
Four: Pain and Perseverance
Mensch•Mark
21 The Other Side of the Bed: Healer as
Patient
Mensch•Mark
22 Numb and Numb-er: My Task Is Not to Numb the Pain but to Highlight the
Inherent Beauty of Life
Mensch•Mark
23 Goodness and Mercy: My Sudden Realization of Being “the
Rabbi”
Mensch•Mark
24 Over and Out: The Ultimate Test of Trust
Mensch•Mark
25 The Vale of Tears: A Condolence Call to a Place of
Unspeakable Suffering
Mensch•Mark
26 The Towers: Having the Chutzpah to Reach for the Sky
Part
Five: Belonging and Becoming
Mensch•Mark
27 The Yarmulke Bin: An Unassuming Beanie Became a Souvenir
from Sinai
Mensch•Mark
28 Bar Mitzvah Nation: “They Like Us! They Really Like Us.”
Mensch•Mark
29 My Father’s Huppah: A Catholic Tevye and the Brave New World of
Assimilation
Mensch•Mark
30 Jews of the Jungle: Lessons from the Cruel and Supremely Tranquil
Savannah
Mensch•Mark
31 The Wall and the Mall: Where Is God Truly Found? What Makes a
Place “Holy”?
Mensch•Mark
32 Where Spring Forever Dwells: Discovering That the Promised Land Is Right
Here
Mensch•Mark
33 Kosher Pigs: Hypocrisy Can Be a Good Thing
Part
Six: Failure, Forgiveness, Justice, and Kindness
Mensch•Mark
34 Crisis: My Greatest Test of Faith
Mensch•Mark
35 Championing Civility: It’s Impossible to Avoid Gossip but
Essential to Try
Mensch•Mark
36 “Do You Think I’m Evil?”: The Stain of Hatred on the Human Soul
Mensch•Mark
37 Piercing the Heavens: The Purest Form of Prayer
Mensch•Mark 38 Marching for
Our Lives, Riding on Shabbat: Sometimes Fulfilling God’s Command Can Only Be
Done by Violating It
Mensch•Mark 39 Going,
Going Gone: Overcoming Tribal Loyalties for the Voice of the Yankees
Mensch•Mark
40 Should Jews Turn the Other Cheek? Looking Evil in the Eye
Mensch•Mark
41 Getting from “I” to “Wii”: Overcoming Selfishness as a Key to
Happiness
Mensch•Mark
42 The God of Love: Inheriting a Family Legacy of Unconditional
Love
