My day began in Los Angeles with a reflected view (we were warned to avoid eye contact) of the Celestial Minuet as the full eclipse of the sun completed its circle of light surrounding the darkness in its orbit. What comes to mind when viewing an event that hasn’t shown itself for a hundred years? Awe? Wonder? Yes! But as I watched, my mind went further back, to the biblical references. The best known was one of the ten plagues Jews read about every Passover in the Haggadah.

In these mad times where lunatics blow holes in everything ennobling about life, togetherness, brotherliness and sisterhood, we must not allow ourselves to lose the hope that has sustained us as a society devoted to the highest principles of fairness, reason and identification with our neighbors the world over. I suggest the following mantra: THAT THE BIRDS OF WORRY AND DESPAIR FLY ABOUT YOUR HEAD, THIS YOU CANNOT HELP. BUT THAT THEY BUILD A NEST IN YOUR HAIR, THIS YOU CAN PR

Tu B’Av, the fifteenth day of the Hebrew month of Av, was decreed by the rabbis as a festival of love to be celebrated every year at the beginning of the fall harvest in ancient Judea. Unlike other holy days on the Jewish calendar, Tu B’Av does not celebrate freedom from slavery, miraculous feats like the parting of the Red Sea, or the collapsing walls of Jericho that allowed Joshua and the Israelites to return to their homeland. This is the meaning of Tu B’Av: If we are to