The Torah would go in a dramatic different direction if Gabriel did not point Yosef toward his brother’s in Dotan. READ MORE
I love Stan Rogers. I love his music, the stories he tells in his songs, his tragic life story, and… READ MORE
The possibility to reconstruct, to make a kind of Facebook of the Middle Ages, is just before our eyes READ MORE
Adulting by nature is not just complicated, it is actually complex. READ MORE
Isn’t that the story with all of us? Even if for good reasons, we all find ways to sabotage ourselves. READ MORE
But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then erase me out of the book you have written.
~ Exodus 32:32
My name is Rabbi Avi Katz Orlow. I have always had a deep love for the Jewish people and making the world a better place. It was while building community in the Former Soviet Union for YUSSR that I realized the transformative power of being a rabbi. After spending time learning in Israel, I moved to New York to be a charter student in Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, the Open Orthodox Seminary. After graduating in 2004 until 2008 I served as the Rabbi and ran the program at St. Louis Hillel at Washington University. Now I have the great pleasure of thinking about how Judaism is seriously fun. In my mind I am up at camp every day in my work at the Foundation for Jewish Camp. My wife, Cantor Adina Frydman, and I are the proud parents of Yadid, Yishama, Emunah, and Libi.
Said to Myself
When my son Yadid was four years old he came home from daycare and reported to me that he got into trouble. He got put into timeout for throwing sand at another child. Yadid said,” Myself said to myself, I do not want to be in timeout. Myself said to my cry, I do not want to cry”. And with that we started a conversation about his conscious life. It seemed only fitting to continue that conversation with a blog with the same name.
אָמַרְתִּי אֲנִי בְּלִבִּי
My son spoke in the words of Ecclesiastes, “I said in my heart: ‘Come now, I will try you with mirth, and enjoy pleasure’; and, behold, this also was vanity.” (Kohelet 2:1) My mission is to model a life that is personally meaningful, universally relevant, and distinctly Jewish. I aspire to be frank and to speak of Torah in real life.