I recently decided to purchase more life insurance. We are a single-income household, and while my wife could go back to work in the event of something horrific happening to me, I wanted to make sure that she and our daughter would have ample time to grieve and decide what made sense for them. I…
America is the “Land of Liberty,” and we hear “freedom” invoked for nearly every political position or campaign imaginable. But there are three “freedoms” (or rights, if you prefer) discussed in our founding documents that exist in inherent tension with each other. These are: the freedom from fear of one’s safety (or the “right to…
Heron overheadLarger than the branch it’s onUnafraid to fall. Branches for the nestBrought back from some other woodsPerfect at their role.
The kingdom of Concumbria was a small but happy one, blessed with beautiful waterfalls, hikable mountains, and soil that grew the most exquisite flowers of all varieties. Its people prospered from the cultivation and sale of exotic plants, and the kingdom thrived for many years, until the monks of the Camellian order set up their…
There are three different ways to become a saint, each indicating something different about the individual involved. If the purpose of reading saints’ lives is to be inspired to live well and become a better person, some of these paths are more applicable to a modern context (at least in America) than others. First, there…
My great-great-grandfather left the Jewish ghetto outside of Kyiv and took his family to the U.S. in 1890. He was deeply involved in my grandfather’s childhood, and I have some stories of his love of learning and his gentleness that I cherish, but as far as I know his entire family also emigrated. I haven’t…
Asceticism and hermitism have fascinated me for a long time, (which might surprise those who know me as a convivial, gregarious person who loves an audience). Judaism’s focus on community are largely incompatible with such practices, so I’m not sure where the interest comes from, but I think it’s a combination of feeling daunted by…
After 6 and a half years of advising MBA students on their job searches, I finally decided to take a new job myself, with an executive search firm. I was genuinely torn about this decision, but hope that sharing my thought process here will help others in their own career decisions. I evaluated the offers…
I was asked by Northeastern’s Consulting and Advisory Student Experience (CASE) club to teach a few virtual sessions on how to approach case interviews. The first session (of four) was on Saturday, and I’m excited to share that not only was turnout fantastic (35 students), but their questions were particularly thoughtful, especially for undergrads. Since…
We moved to our home in the country 5 years ago, and I was not expecting to see so many frogs, or to become so protective of them. They range from the fingernail-sized peepers that sometimes cling to our screen doors, to the fist-sized brown toads I sometimes find in the garden, but after a…
Over the course of a lifetime we come to “know” many things that we haven’t personally studied, about history, science, art, and a plethora of subjects. At best, however, our knowledge is usually informed by the most popular (and hopefully most accurate?) view of the subject at the time that we happened to study or…
I love being a father. It’s the most fun, life-affirming activity I’ve ever had. At the same time, it’s introduced a whole new set of fears and thoughts that I never had before. Not just “what if something happens to my daughter” (though there’s plenty of that), but also “what if something happens to me…
This year was my fourth competing in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and the first time they’ve taken it online. Each year up until this point I’d done better than the previous one, both in terms of overall ranking and in percentile. This year, however, there are ~1000 competitors (versus 740 in 2019), so the…
The American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is going virtual this year! I finished around the top 7% in 2019, and last year it was cancelled. There are likely going to be as many (or more) people than ever competing, since traveling to Connecticut necessarily limited the attendance, but I’m hopeful for a top 5% finish. Sign…
As a relatively new parent, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I owe my children, particularly in terms of their privacy. Extreme cases seem fairly obvious; I can tell friends at a dinner party an amusing anecdote about their (mis)-behavior and not feel that I’ve violated their privacy. But what if I told that…
Jacob K. Lehman 