Gut Yontif! Preparing for my d’var was probably one of the harder elements of this b’nai mitzvah process. My initial framework included a loose scaffolding…
Service, War, Fatherhood, and Return to the Ancient Path
Today I read the Grimm fairy tale “The Fisherman and His Wife.” The story is simple on its surface, yet it functions as a sustained…
Today I turned the pages of Drake’s Great Armada (narrated chiefly by Captain Walter Bigges), an account of Sir Francis Drake’s West‑Indian expedition of 1585‑86, published by Thomas Cates. The narrative…
Today I read a passage from Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle, specifically Chapter 17, “The Galápagos Archipelago.” Several impressions linger: Lesson for 2026:Slow down. Take deliberate notes.…
March 31, 2011 It’s been about a week since I last wrote—mainly because I’ve been focused on preparing for deployment. These past 20 days of…
I was born דוד חכם on May 8, 1984, at 11:32 AM to John Alan Wise and Sandra Dee Cude at the West Anaheim Medical…
October 9, 2009 I was exactly one month into my third overseas deployment, this time as a Marine Corps Staff Sergeant and Explosive Ordnance Disposal…
“And all the days of Mathusala were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died.” I was recently musing about the fragility of life. Perhaps…