Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, Author at JMORE

The Exurban Rabbi? Not So Fast!

by Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg | Oct 6, 2020 | Blogs, Blogs & Opinion

“Alas! Lonely sits the city once great with people! She that was great among nations is become like a widow” (Lamentations 1:1) I’ve dedicated my career to the celebration of urban living and, in particular, urban Judaism. In my adult life I’ve gravitated toward...

Memories of Freddie Gray and those Fiery ‘Five Days’ of Reckoning in Baltimore

by Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg | Aug 11, 2020 | Baltimore, Community, Education, High Holidays, Local, Maryland, National, Religion, Spirituality

In his new book “Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City” (One World), Wes Moore describes his experience on Apr. 27, 2015, the day Freddie Gray was laid to rest. Moore had attended the funeral but left early to catch a plane to Boston for a speech he was...

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

by Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg | Jul 24, 2020 | Community, Religion, Spirituality

Back in February, before COVID-19 struck and the world shut down, I was in Washington, D.C., with a few hours to spare before a class. I found myself in the National Gallery of Art, staring at an 1845 portrait of President Andrew Jackson that looked eerily familiar....

Hidden Wisdoms

by Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg | Jun 10, 2020 | Community, Religion, Spirituality

How do we measure ‘good’ neighborhoods from ‘bad’ ones and change our perceptions of urban Baltimore? The Midrash (Tanchuma) teaches the Torah is written with “black fire on white fire.” This means there is a dynamism at play in the interaction of word and parchment....

Something Greater

by Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg | Feb 28, 2020 | Community, Religion, Spirituality

While driving my daughter to school recently, I saw a bumper sticker which read, God > 1, and spent several minutes trying to figure out what it meant. Was the driver a pagan and this was a polemic against monotheism? Were they a mystic who understands God as...