More ways to learn

The Adults Table: Theological Conversations Uncensored

Join Rabbi Mike and his friend Rion for a video series that tackles some of the harder questions and critical thinking that we may experience as adults. The simplistic answers are not enough for our curious brains!

Teach Me Judaism: An Animated Youtube Series

Short YouTube videos that help close the gap between scholars and laypeople, making Judaism relatable, understandable, and fun!

A Priest & A Rabbi Walk Into a Bar Podcast

Join Rabbi Michael Harvey and Father Bradley Pace as they meet at local bars and breweries to try good beer and discuss current issues through the lenses of Judaism and Christianity.

Selected Writings

I am a Rabbi in a Hospital ICU. This is what the COVID surge looks like to our exhausted staff.
The Forward - January 12, 2022

The abortion debate…again, thanks to Texas
The Times of Israel - September 2, 2021

Rebuilding After Egypt, Rebuilding After Trump
T’ruah (M)oral Torah - Parshat T’rumah - 2021

Will we recover from the Trump cult?
The Times of Israel - January 13, 2021

QAnon is the new Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Times of Israel - January 5, 2021

Why keep Kosher?
The Times of Israel - January 16, 2020

Judaism is not a nationality
The Times of Israel - December 11, 2019

The Limits of Communication
ReformJudaism.org - Parshat T’rumah - February 17, 2018

I’m a Rabbi and I Was Bullied - By My Own Congregants
The Forward - October 5, 2016

Resources for Audiobook Listeners

I am happy to provide visuals that are not present in the audiobook version of “Let’s Talk: A Rabbi Speaks to Christians.”

Page 19:

For example, he shows that the author of the Gospel of Matthew removes the “Judaism” from Jesus’s theology and at the same time “systematically intensifies Mark’s many negatives toward the Jews.”6 The best examples of this are found in the differences in Mark 12:28ff. and Matthew 22:35ff. Cook shows these in a table:

Page 115:

The most common versions of the biblical canon used today are that of the Tanakh, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments, and the Protestant Old Testament. In response to the Roman Catholic Church’s Council of Trent in 1546 and its declaration of an official canon, the Protestant churches created their own, with the Presbyterians following “nearly a century later in the Westminster Confession.”20

A visual representation of these versions of the former is below:

Page 127:

The first part of the verse (known as the first stitch) is translatable: “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods.”5 However, JPS indicates it is “uncertain” about the second half of the verse (the second stitch). Any biblical Hebrew/English dictionary can help us define all the words in the stitch:

Page 150:

When serving as a hospital chaplain, I received a Christian pocket collection of liturgy, including the Psalms. When I came to Psalm 22, the book labeled it as “Jesus’ prayer on the cross.” I found myself vexed, since I knew Psalm 22 to have been writ- ten long before the writer of Mark used the words to parallel the psalm. Verses 1, 6, 16, and 18 in Psalm 22 match up almost exactly to verses 34, 29, and 24 of Mark 15, as seen in the following table: