Jews have blessings for almost every occasion. I recommend we recite one before emptying the contents of our parents’ home after they die.

If on Yom Kippur we rehearse our own death, then on Tishah B’Av (observed last month), we begin the annual process of preparing for death. The seven-week period from Tishah B’Av to Rosh HaShanah provides an opportunity to cultivate our souls, to reestablish our relationship with God, and to reconcile with ourselves and others. We transform the potentially passive experience of judgment into an active process of self-awareness, acceptance, engagement, and transformation.

I had always thought of Jewish cemeteries as solemn places – but that was before going to a hilloula (festivity) 30 years ago in the Moroccan town of Ouazzane on Lag BaOmer, the Jewish holiday that falls on the 33^rd day between Pesach and Shavuot.

You may think it strange for a rabbi to mourn a celebrity's death, but no one said emotions are rational - yet I indulge myself a moment of sadness at the news that Prince Rodgers Nelson has died.

I wanted this poem to reflect that sometimes-jarring feeling of love and remembrance, past and present, what could have been and what is.

When my brother Jerry died, the questions were not just where to sit shiva or for how long. They were more fundamental: Should I sit shiva for my non-Jewish brother at all?

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. I wrote this prayer in memory of my father, Lowell Jay Herman, who took his life on April 20, 2015, at the age of 72. It reflects the pain my family and I have grappled with since that day.

I am dedicated to honoring his

Everyone has a story to tell. Maybe it’s a story about our parents. Maybe it’s a story about how we grew up or what happened to us as adults. Whatever the stories are, they are the experiences of our lives.

The most remarkable thing of all was how much he looked like my father.