The following is excerpted from Michelle’s Presidential Address on Rosh Hashana to Congregation Anshai Torah in Plano, Texas. Here is a question for you to ponder as we enter the holiest time of the year, a time of soul-searching and teshuvah:   Have you EVER seen ME at a loss for words???!!! I know!  Many of you are hoping that it will happen right now and I’ll just sit down and

Occasionally we are with someone who mistakenly hurts themselves by tripping or dropping something on their toe and we instinctively blurt out “I am so sorry.” This response is usually met with “don’t worry, it is not your fault that I am clumsy!” We colloquially use the words “I am sorry” in situations that are beyond our control but that we wish would be different. We attempt to become closer

As a Wexner Heritage Alumni Delegates Council project, Michele Sackheim-Wein is launching a virtual book salon to further knit together the Wexner Alumni Network through substantive learning and conversation.  Read The Aleppo Codex,by Matti Friedman, and join us for an intimate discussion and Q & A with the author, who will join us from Jerusalem for this discussion on Sunday, October 6th, 5 pm ET. Please email me to receive

Pictured: Wexner NY I “kids” Sara Waxman (daughter of Spencer and Bettina Waxman); Ben Gargano (son of Laura Spitzer and Michael Gargano); and Benjamin Perla (son of Danny and Valerie Perla); at the JDC/Lauder Camp Szarvas, outside of Budapest, Hungary. Camp Szarvas, founded in 1990, offers a unique international experience for 1500 youth each summer, including 75 U.S. Fellows, with campers hailing from over 25 countries. Szarvas, central to Jewish

The expression “Rosh HaShana” never appears in the Torah. Instead, the Torah refers to Rosh HaShana as “Yom Truah” or “Zichron Truah”. “Truah” – the broken blast of the shofar – is the essence of the day. Maimonides writes that the blast of the shofar comes to wake us up, a shock forcing us to engage more fully with reality. What is the shofar waking us up to? The wake-up

The following thoughts were shared last week in Stowe, Vermont, at the 2013 Summer Institute for Current Graduate Fellows and Davidson Scholars. Here we are deep into Elul - the month of introspection, reflection, and contemplation. We hope, as we inch closer to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, that we will be able to gain clarity, say what we need to say to others, say what we need to say

Elul 6: A Generational Plan for Prosperity, by Eric Garcetti   My family’s story in Los Angeles begins humbly. One side of my family crossed an ocean to flee persecution in Poland and Russia. The other half crossed a border to escape war in Mexico. Both sides were looking for a better life and they were able to find it in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. As I

This post is adapted from an article published by the Jewish Journal in Ethical Imperatives: A Blog by Rabbis and Scholars of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.  As pervasive as is the influence of Wexner alumni in North American Jewish life, one finds volatility, frustration, and/or avoidance in talking about Israel. So many of us are losing by this fact, whether we serve as rabbis, lay leaders, or professionals,

We all expect social good from our philanthropy, but can we also achieve positive social impact from our investment capital as well?  Impact investors (families, foundations, endowments, pension funds) are pushing investment capital to do just that – meet financial goals while also aligning with values to achieve positive outcomes for society.  With the introduction of modern socially responsible investing in the 1970s, concerned investors began obtaining data on the

Pictured: Washington DC 13 in Utah at the 2013 New Member Institute. The wildflower-dotted mountains of Snowbird, Utah were the perfect backdrop for the 2013 Wexner New Member Institute, but as I gazed out the clear glass expanse of the large windows to marvel at the mountains’ majesty, I couldn’t shake the woozy feeling in my head. Probably the altitude, I told myself as I heeded the urging of the