Dear Friends, Still counting…. What are we counting? At times, we are counting the days of Corona….At times, we are counting the days of the Omer. At times, all that we are counting blurs into a sense of needing to count our days and to make every day count. As Jews, we are still counting Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, What does our weekly Torah portion have to do with Rabbinic and Congregational Resilience in the Covid-19 Era? Here’s my story and here’s my take on the connection between this question and our Parsha…. I will begin by saying that, in truth, being a rabbi during this time is challenging. Thankfully, I have Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, Our weekly Torah portion, Emor, reminds us that in the midst of life….we celebrate! Every week, at the end of the week…we celebrate Shabbat! What is Shabbat if not our weekly celebration of life at its best?! We pause. We reflect on what we have accomplished. We appreciate the vastness of the creation. Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, This Friday night at our abbreviated Kabbalat Shabbat service, we will celebrate Shabbat and the Confirmation of Zoe Epstein and of Pearl Kluger. I hope you will join us for our special “Zoom Confirmation” Service. Mazal Tov to Zoe and to Pearl and to their families. We rejoice with the families as we Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, Weathering the storm is the current challenge. We are all in this together, even though we are experiencing the storm in very different ways. Some of us are alone, isolated. Some of us are together, isolated. Some of us are on the front lines of service. Some of us have lost jobs and Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, Passover has come and gone. We are back to eating chametz! If we observed Passover traditionally, for the whole week of Passover, we limited our food to Kosher for Passover foods. And this limitation that we set on ourselves had meaning for us. We limited ourselves to remember that we too were Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, One thing is sure….This Passover is going to be different from any Passover we have ever experienced. But, having a different Passover may just give us new perspectives on the holiday. We will have an extra zoom session during the intermediate days of Passover, after the Seder/s, and I would love to hear Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, Here we are trying to figure out ways to gather together virtually and we happen to be reading the double Torah Portion of VaYakhel-Pekudei. The Hebrew word VaYakhel means: And he (Moses) gathered the people. We have been rising to the challenge of gathering together using the technological medium of Zoom! As I Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, In light of our current situation which includes recommendations of “social distancing”, I share with you a wonderful reading by Rabbi Yosef Kanevsky: “Every hand that we don’t shake must become a phone call that we place. Every embrace that we avoid must become a verbal expression of warmth and concern. Every inch Continue Reading »
Dear Friends, Although a Jewish community as a whole is supposed to do everything in its power to ensure that there is a minyan present at all services, there is usually no personal obligation for any Jewish individual to be present at any particular service….However, this Shabbat is the exception to the rule! On this Continue Reading »
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