Category: blog archive

Disability Awareness Month

18 years ago, when I became rabbi at Congregation Or Ami, I was very thoughtful about what should be  the first policies I asked the board to pass.  The policy should reflect deeply held dreams of what a congregation should care about; it should illuminate important Jewish values.

I was thrilled when the board voted that:

Any child of a member has the right to a Jewish educational experience; and any child of a member, who works to the best of his or her ability, has the right and privilege of becoming a Bar/Bat Mitzvah at Congregation Or Ami. 

This policy made clear our priority that children with disabilities – and their families – have a home in this congregation and every congregation. We trumpet loudly our commitment to people with disabilities on a special needs webpage, “No one is more welcome at Or Ami than you!”  We effectuate this by making sure our staff and educators say “yes” whenever asked about whether a child with disabilities can become a Bar Mitzvah, and by ensuring that our learning programs are flexible enough to meet a variety of unique needs.  We educate toward this reality by directing our educational leadership to work with families to ensure that each child finds a productive learning experience at Or Ami.  We partner with Chaverim, a program for developmentally disabled adults, so that Or Ami is their synagogue home.  We sponsor Brandon’s Buddies, a program which brings together typical and special needs children for friendship and play.  We celebrate joyously the numerous B’nai Mitzvah of children with special needs.  We blog about special needs and disabilities regularly.

I was overjoyed to read that the RACblog (of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism) was publicizing the good work of our Reform Movement congregations in the run up to February’s disability awareness month.  (BTW, if you are not a regular reader of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism (RAC) blog, you are missing some important Jewish social justice blogging.)



Perhaps you will come to Or Ami’s annual Shabbat Service celebrating people with special needs on Friday, January 28, 2011 at 7:30 pm.  Families with children with special needs are invited to register for a special Shabbat dinner beforehand at 6:00 pm (there is a fee for the dinner).  

Israelis Tackle … American Football

Hut 1, hut 2, hike, hike…

In Israel, there are two main sports: soccer and basketball.  Over the past years, groups of American olim (immigrants) have made attempts – some more successful than others – to bring baseball to the Holy Land. 

Recently, Israelis are flirting with football – American tackle football.  And, under the auspices of the Israel Football League, it looks like American football just might catch on.  The Tel Aviv-Yafo Sabras, Jerusalem Lions, Herzliya Hammers, the Beer Sheva Black Swarm and others scrimmage, run, pass and tackle.  As the New York Times video reports:

7 things to stop doing now on Facebook

Every Facebook user should consider the following, especially if you are a parent with kids who have their own Facebook account. Thanks to Rabbi David Cohen for the Facebook link to the original Consumer Reports article.

Using a weak password
Avoid simple names or words you can find in a dictionary, even with numbers tacked on the end. Instead, mix upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. A password should have at least eight characters. One good technique is to insert numbers or symbols in the middle of a word, such as this variant on the word “houses”: hO27usEs!

Leaving your full birth date in your profile
It’s an ideal target for identity thieves, who could use it to obtain more information about you and potentially gain access to your bank or credit card account. If you’ve already entered a birth date, go to your profile page and click on the Info tab, then on Edit Information. Under the Basic Information section, choose to show only the month and day or no birthday at all.

Overlooking useful privacy controls
For almost everything in your Facebook profile, you can limit access to only your friends, friends of friends, or yourself. Restrict access to photos, birth date, religious views, and family information, among other things. You can give only certain people or groups access to items such as photos, or block particular people from seeing them. Consider leaving out contact info, such as phone number and address, since you probably don’t want anyone to have access to that information anyway.

Posting your child’s name in a caption
Don’t use a child’s name in photo tags or captions. If someone else does, delete it by clicking on Remove Tag. If your child isn’t on Facebook and someone includes his or her name in a caption, ask that person to remove the name.

Mentioning that you’ll be away from home
That’s like putting a “no one’s home” sign on your door. Wait until you get home to tell everyone how awesome your vacation was and be vague about the date of any trip.

Letting search engines find you
To help prevent strangers from accessing your page, go to the Search section of Facebook’s privacy controls and select Only Friends for Facebook search results. Be sure the box for public search results isn’t checked.

Permitting youngsters to use Facebook unsupervised
Facebook limits its members to ages 13 and over, but children younger than that do use it. If you have a young child or teenager on Facebook, the best way to provide oversight is to become one of their online friends. Use your e-mail address as the contact for their account so that you receive their notifications and monitor their activities. “What they think is nothing can actually be pretty serious,” says Charles Pavelites, a supervisory special agent at the Internet Crime Complaint Center. For example, a child who posts the comment “Mom will be home soon, I need to do the dishes” every day at the same time is revealing too much about the parents’ regular comings and goings.

Social Sermon: Pluralistic Preaching or Lazy Clergy

The Covenant Foundation about a move by @DarimOnline to promote the Social Sermon, an attempt to make sermon writing and constructing into an interact, whole congregation approach. Imagine marrying Facebook and twitter with the Shabbat sermon. I like it.

We have been experimenting for the last few months with a communal blog on Jewish Spirituality. A handful of Or Ami congregants have been responding to a monthly question on our blog, Jewish Spiritual Searchers, and then commenting upon their fellow bloggers posts. The conversations are fascinating. (In fact, the blog is up for a national techie award; go vote for Congregation Or Ami’s blog and Twitter feed.) It may be time to check out the Social Sermon soon.

According to the Covenant Foundation article (discovered through it’s Twitter stream):

The approach allows a rabbi, for instance, to compose a weekly sermon by posing ideas from the weekly Torah portion into an online communal conversation and allowing a discussion to unfold on Twitter or Facebook. Come Shabbat, the rabbi’s sermon reflects a communal conversation, not just his or her personal reflections.

Darim Online, a Covenant Foundation grantee organization, is spearheading the concept and encouraging educators, rabbis and other communal leaders to adopt it.

“People who participate in these sorts of decentralized conversations learn the content, connect with the rabbi, educator and/or other members of the community, and have some skin in the game,” said Lisa Colton, president of Darim Online.

“The sermon is no longer developed in isolation. Rather, the Social Sermon allows participants to feel represented in the rabbi’s sermon, or a teacher’s presentation or a Torah study, for that matter. That we can own and shape these teachings and ideas collectively is very powerful.”

For more information about Social Sermon, go to Darim Online’s blog? And follow a communal conversation about Social Sermon on Twitter at #socialsermon.

After talking to my kids, some congregants and Sarah Sherman, I just might check it out.

15 Things I Did on Vacation

We spent a week away in Scottsdale, AZ with my folks and our family. 15 things we did on vacation:

  1. Celebrated my birthday with my family and my parents.
  2. Had breakfast of homemade cookies with Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream
  3. Drove to Sedona, Arizona and marveled at the gorgeous red earth and fabulous mountains
  4. Made a snowman and had snowball fights with my kids just north of Sedona
  5. Had delicious burgers at multiple sports bars
  6. Slept later than I have in years (11 am one morning)
  7. Played baseball with my boys
  8. Bought a new tire for our minvan
  9. Fought food poisoning
  10. Saw Baby Fockers (could’ve skipped it)
  11. Didn’t read email
  12. Hiked in a great state park
  13. Drove home in time to surprise one son by picking up camp friends and the other with tickets to the Lakers-Heat game
  14. Had a great time with my folks
  15. Enjoyed relaxation and time with my wife and kids

And the Next Genocide Will Be In… (Top Ten List)

As this secular year rolls into the next, we will be besieged by Top Ten lists chronicling the year gone by. Top 10 movies. Top 10 Electronic Gadgets. Ten most newsworthy events. Will anyone compile a list of the Top Conflicts Most Likely to Become the Next Genocide?

Though it won’t appear on the cover of Rolling Stone, Jewish World Watch (JWW) did compile such a list. JWW reviewed and collected material from an array of human rights reports and news sources, creating a genocide risk assessment that did place Congo among the ignominious top ten. The atrocities in Congo just keep escalating; like during Egyptian slavery, the violence and death are almost incomprehensible. Yet according to JWW and the aid agency International Rescue Committee:

  • 5.4 million civilians have been killed by war-related violence, hunger and disease since 1998.
  • Up to 45,000 continue to die each month.
  • Hundreds of thousands of women and girls have reportedly been raped in a systematic campaign to destroy entire communities by using women’s bodies as battlegrounds.
  • 75% of all rapes reported to Doctors Without Borders worldwide occur in the Eastern Congo, considered the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman.
  • 2 million have been internally displaced, often uprooted several times by various warring factions
  • 900,000 civilians have been newly displaced just since January 2009.

Congo is one country where our voices can be heard. We are unwitting participants in this war, implicated by the phones in our pockets and computers on our desks. The armed groups perpetrating the rapes and violence are funded by an estimated $144 million annual trade in tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold. These minerals go directly into the components of electronic products that we use every day, from our iPods to our BlackBerrys.

How do we – children and grandchildren of the post-Holocaust generation, descendants of Egyptian slaves – respond to this conflict? Rabbi Harold Schulweis teaches “To be Jewish is to care for the world. Torah does not say ‘love thy Jewish neighbor’; it says ‘love thy neighbor’ (Lev. 19:18).” Similarly, Torah does not allow us to stand idly by while our non-Jewish neighbor bleeds, because we are commanded to stand up whenever any neighbor bleeds (Lev. 19:16).

The 21 largest electronic companies are poised to accept a campaign committing them to source their minerals to the mine of origin. Jewish World Watch is part of a coalition of stakeholders influencing and directing the Conflict-Free Minerals designation and the international oversight process. Our community must demand an end to the use of “conflict minerals.”

Lo ta’amod al dam rei-acha – Don’t stand idly by while our neighbors bleed. How will you answer your descendents? Take a moment to remember the generations of Israelites who died in service of Pharaoh’s bloody war machine. Then be like Shifrah and Puah, the two Egyptian midwives who refused to stand idly by. Go to JewishWorldWatch to take the Conflict-Free Minerals Pledge. Then leave a comment so I know you signed.

When Caring for Elderly Parents Becomes Irritating

The Wooden Bowl

I thank Or Ami congregant Don Weston (check out his blog) for sharing this Internet chain letter with me.

A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year-old grandson. The old man’s hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred, and his step faltered.

The family ate together at the table. But the elderly grandfather’s shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Peas rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on the tablecloth.

The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess.  “We must do something about father,” said the son. “I’ve had enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor.”

So the husband and wife set a small table in the corner. There, Grandfather ate alone while the rest of the family enjoyed dinner. Since Grandfather had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl.

When the family glanced in Grandfather’s direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye as he sat alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food.

The four-year-old watched it all in silence.

One evening before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor. He asked the child sweetly, “What are you making?'” Just as sweetly, the boy responded, “Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and Mama to eat your food in when I grow up.” The four-year-old smiled and went back to work.

The words so struck the parents so that they were speechless. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though no word was spoken, both knew what must be done.

That evening the husband took Grandfather’s hand and gently led him back to the family table. For the remainder of his days he ate every meal with the family. And for some reason, neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk spilled, or the tablecloth soiled.

Life Lessons:

On a positive note, I’ve learned that, no matter what happens, how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles four things: a rainy day, the elderly, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as making a ‘life.’

I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back sometimes.

I’ve learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you. But, if you focus on your family, your friends, the needs of others, your work and doing the very best you can, happiness will find you.

I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.

I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.

I’ve learned that every day, you should reach out and touch someone.

People love that human touch — holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

Dressing Kids, Petting Cows and Other Ways We Changed the World Today

Guest Written By Karin Pofsky

As a new member of Congregation or Ami, I was excited to begin participating in the many social action opportunities organized by the congregation. As it happened, two projects fell on the same day. Both were so exciting and worthwhile that my kids and I couldn’t pass them up … even when the first one started on a Sunday at 6:00 am!

We drove in the dark to Kohl’s Department Store in Woodland Hills for the Calabasas synagogue’s Foster Kid Childspree, a morning of chaperoned shopping for children in foster care and needy students from a nearby public school. On the ride over, my kids Samantha and Jacob were talking non-stop about meeting their “new friend” and helping her shop at Kohl’s with a $100 gift card donated by the temple. We were met by a well-organized team and quickly checked in, ate bagels and were matched up with our new friend, 11-year-old Kattia. My 5- and 8-year-olds immediately made friends with Kattia, and were pushing the shopping cart through the store, making suggestions on things she might like. We quickly learned that she loved anything sparkly and purple, which made it easy to help her pick things out. The kids had a great time learning about all the things they had in common, from sparkly things to baseball to math. Our whole family helped out, with my youngest pushing the cart and my oldest adding up our purchases in his head. Once we had everything Kattia wanted and then picked out a gift for her mom and her teacher, we went upstairs and had snack together. The kids realized once again how much they had in common, as they all chose the same healthy snacks.

I was so pleased that being with Kattia was like being with just another friend, who had the same likes and dislikes that we did, who loved math and the color purple. My kids realized that she wasn’t different. Kattia was just a kid, and that was a great way for her to feel and a great lesson for my kids to learn.

From Kohl’s, we drove straight to The Gentle Barn in Santa Clarita, a farm which adopts and heals animals who were abused or neglected. Visiting The Gentle Barn, a social action priority of Congregation Or Ami, as part of Congregation Or Ami’s Jewish values and Social Justice curriculum, the entire Mishpacha Family Alternative Learning program of 73 participants gathered to learn about our responsibility to care for animals. We met Ellie, the founder of The Gentle Barn, and heard about how visits by children who had experienced abuse brought healing to both the kids and the animals. My own kids were unable to contain their excitement about getting to hug the cows and pet the sheep. We got pictures of Rabbi Kipnes and a group of children hugging the cows. The experience was unbelievable. Both of my kids, usually afraid of large animals, fell in love with the horses and the cows. We went back for a second turn to both of those areas.

Thanks to the Mishpacha Coordinators Greg Weisman and Joel Abramovitz, we learned how Judaism teaches that we must care for all of the creatures of the earth. We explored how people and animals are not so different, that they often have similar stories and maybe even similar feelings. Interestingly, this was a similar lesson to the one we learned at Childspree earlier in the day.

After hearing her daughter Sarah say, “This is the best Sunday school I’ve ever been too!”, her mom Karen Brownlee said, “Between helping out at Childspree and attending Mishpacha at The Gentle Barn, I was intellectually-challenged, gave back to the community, and was able to spend a meaningful day with my children.”

I was reminded, and my kids began learning today, how even a small gesture, whether it’s shopping with a child who does not normally get that opportunity or hugging a cow which was rescued from abuse, can make a big difference in the world. I want my children to grow up understanding how lucky they are to have what they have and feeling responsible for giving back in some way. If they can do this in a warm and welcoming community, like at Congregation Or Ami, where they feel safe and part of something bigger than themselves, I think they have the best possible chance to grow up to be good, caring, compassionate human beings. If I can accomplish that, then I have not only achieved my own personal goal, but I have helped the world in another small way, by sending two more human beings out there, who will continue to make a difference long into the future.

He Died, He Mourned, A Community Reached Out

It warms my heart whenever a community reaches out as we hope it would. We received this from a congregant, following the burial of his 91 year old father:

Dear Friends at Congregation Or Ami,

My father of almost 91 years old passed away on Monday, November 29th. I cannot tell you how special it was to get emails and calls from members of the Temple. Some of these members I can honestly say that I did not know too well. The warmth and the sincerity was overwhelming. I put a call in to Rabbi Paul Kipnes the same day and got a return call immediately. After making plans with the mortuary all was confirmed and Rabbi Paul did an excellent job officiating the service on Wednesday, December 1.

The Rabbi admitted to me which was honest that unfortunately he learned more about my dad after he passed away as he really never got the chance to know him. At the service he said the same thing but when he was speaking everyone realized that he was a quick learner.

Once again, I want to thank everyone for their words of support and our family is so glad to say that we are members of Congregation Or Ami.

Lies My Brother Told Me

I happen to know a Jew, who is not a fan of the organized religion part of Judaism. He likes the values, most of them.  He appreciates the commitment to family, usually. But the whole religious part – you know, the organized prayer, the specific stories of Torah, various beliefs about God – just turn him off. He can appreciate the Jewish stuff brings meaning to others, but not for himself.  He will use any excuse to stay out of temple, so that his friends give him specific honors so he is forced to attend the family simchas. 

And ritual, he has a special dislike for the “do’s and don’ts” of ritual. Formulaic, ritualistic, primitive, boring. I thought he just didn’t like ritual.  And then, he began to tell me about his Thanksgiving dinner.  And all of a sudden, I realized we had much more in common than I thought.  Turns out that the ritual-disliker was really a ritual-creator, at least in relation to Thanksgiving.

They invite a 25-30 people for dinner, which he, his wife and friends have labored over for a few days. Appetizers galore, main course, fancy wine and beers, delicious desserts. Upon arriving, people nosh and shmooze. Everyone gathers around the tables, sitting and salivating, awaiting the ritual which allows them to dig in.

Each guest speaks about what they are thankful for this year. Although the participants sometimes laugh and at other times shed tears, the ritual is structured and serious.  There’s no eating in this house until everyone – concluding with the host and his wife – has named their blessings, and all give thanks. 

It turns out, that for these Thanksgiving diners, this ritual is meaningful, inspired and for many, their primary connection to the Holy One.  Let us give praise where praise is due, lest we descend into sin by labeling each other as good Jews or bad Jews. There are many paths to the Holy One!

On Sukkot (Judaism’s Thanksgiving), the rabbis connect the four species of the lulav and etrog to four different kinds of Jews: those with Torah learning, those with good deeds, those with both and those with none. Their lesson is that it takes all kinds of Jews to complete the Jewish community.

May Thanksgiving remind us that we Jews are all brothers (and sisters), each approaching tradition, ritual, and belief in unique ways, from different perspectives.

7 Reasons Why Thanksgiving is Deeply Spiritual

There is something very spiritual about Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because of GRATITUDE. Gratitude is especially spiritual. When we slow down and take the time to articulate the blessings in our lives, we necessarily venture into a higher plane of existence.  We transcend our yetzer harah (our inclination toward lustful neediness) to get in touch with our yetzer hatov (our inclination toward the good).  We discover the holy amongst the regular.

Gratitude is profoundly spiritual. 

As part of a bi-coastal family, I enjoyed the opportunity to twice articulate my gratitude: first, over the phone, to my East Coast family gathered at my brother’s home, and again, at our own California dinner table.

7 Reasons Why I Think Thanksgiving is deeply spiritual:

  1. I spend the week before and after, trying to touch base with members of our congregation who have lost loved ones since last Thanksgiving.  A caring community needs to remember those who have an empty seat at their holiday tables.  (Passover and Rosh Hashana are also great times to reach out.)
  2. Thanksgiving food is universally delicious.  When the senses (taste buds, smell, sight) are heightened, we recognize the beauty and holiness more).
  3. I usually get in a deeply restful nap between the meal and dessert. A rested person is more apt to recognize the spiritual.
  4. We gather family together for a non-rushed, gratitude-filled evening. Spirituality blossoms when we are relaxed.
  5. We try to open an especially good bottle of wine. (See #2.)  The smell of a great wine is as delicious as its taste.
  6. This rabbi has no responsibilities beyond helping prepare the meal.
  7. The family gathers for dinner at a normal time because this rabbi does not have to run out to lead services. (See #4)

In what ways do you find Thanksgiving spiritual (e.g., meaningful, inspired, transcendent)?

What Am I Supposed to Do at Prayer Services?

“I show up at services to pray,” he said. “But what am I supposed to do there?”

There we sat at the coffee shop. He drinking his latte; me a spiced apple cider. While I tried to formulate an answer to his question, he hit me up with a barrage of questions intended to crack the cryptic code of the Jewish prayer service. One minute we were ordering our drinks; the next we were deep in a conversation about the frustration of being at services, and of trying to converse with God through the mysterious medium we call “Jewish prayer.”

“Rabbi,” he continued, “I can recite the prayers from memory. That, at least, I retain from that torture that passed for religious school when I was a kid. Thank God, that Or Ami’s school has more depth, creativity and openness than mine did! (I smiled.) But no one ever explained to me what happened in the synagogue. So I just went in and repeated the words I was taught. It felt empty. I stopped going. I just don’t know what praying is supposed to do. How do prayers work? When do I know if I was successful in saying my prayers? Sometimes I just sit there and absorb Cantor Cotler’s music. It takes me away. Is that part of praying?

Sometimes I find myself getting choked up singing the Mi Shebeirach. Is that emotion or spirituality? Sometimes I find myself so caught up on one of the gems of learning that you share in the service that I lose track of the words as I think the issue through. Is that sacrilegious? Often I wonder, is anyone listening out there?

In the business world, I am a powerhouse. People come to me for advice on how to navigate the world of commerce. Yet I have been a Jew all my life, and in services, or before my rabbi, I feel like a bumbling fool.”

10 Things to Do During Services:

  1. Say or chant the prayers.
  2. Let the music carry you away.
  3. Read through the English translations of the prayers.
  4. Close your eyes and just listen.
  5. Flip through the siddur (prayerbook) and soak up its wisdom.
  6. Meditate upon a single word or two.
  7. Sing loudly or sing softly.
  8. Give thanks to God for all the good things in your life or in the world.
  9. Take a break from the busy-ness of life to recognize the greater power within.
  10. Make up and say a personal prayer in your own words.

10 Purposes of Jewish Pray:

  1. To put you in conversation with God using age-old, time-tested language and sentiments to connect.
  2. To reinforce important Jewish values like Shalom-peace, Shema-Oneness and unity, l’dor vador-connections between generations, Hoda’ah-thankfulness.
  3. To build community (the 20th century German Jewish philosopher Martin Buber said that God can be found in the experience of individuals giving themselves over to each other)
  4. To build community (the 20th century philosopher Mordechai Kaplan said that reciting communally defined words of prayer reinforce the sacred community)
  5. To open us up to be vessels of God’s will (the medieval teacher Sefas Emet, Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib of Ger, taught that prayer can lead us to let go of our own ego needs and thereby allow us to be filled with God’s divine purpose).
  6. To help us slow down and turn inward, thereby focusing on that which is truly important.
  7. To address the national and communal needs of the Jewish people by reciting bakashot, prayers requesting specific needs.
  8. To recognize how thankful you are for the blessings in your life.
  9. To practice the rituals that connect us to our past and to the present.
  10. To address the personal needs of the individual Jew by means of the silent prayer.

On the Airplane: Alone within a Crowd

Miles above the earth, sitting snuggly in my seat, surrounded by 200 other travelers on JetBlue’s LAX-JFK shuttle, I felt alone. Not one to make conversation with strangers on a plane (who, once discovering I am a rabbi, begin to tell me about every Bar Mitzvah they ever attended), the usually outgoing me becomes very introverted. I sat quietly, pondering in silence and sadness about how easy it is for an individual to feel invisible even amidst a crowd of people.  If connecting with others requires openness, self-disclosure, and a willingness to feel vulnerable for a moment, it also needs an impetus: someone or something that invites an interaction. 

It made me think about Or Ami, about how much attention and energy we devote to making people feel welcome, and about how there still must be are people – even members of our congregation – who feel uncomfortable or invisible. Yes, Or Ami does so much to try to break down barriers. We offer explicit welcomes on the website to interfaith, special needs, LGBT, and multicultural/racial individuals and families. We insist on nametags (with first and last names) at all programs and services. We begin each service by inviting guests to introduce themselves.  We call the entire congregation three times a year, just to check in and to convey the message that “you matter to us.” Henaynu, being there for each other, defines our congregation.

Yet thinking about the other me, that man sitting in silence on the plane, I wondered how else might we model a welcoming atmosphere?  What could we do to be more proactive, welcoming those for whom being quiet or introverted are part of their self-definition? Since my best ideas always come from others,  I invite you to share your thoughts.