I hurt my knees this summer, which meant that the ability to run in Israel was reduced to nothing and it’s taken most of August and September to climb back to a point where a few times a week I can pull off a loop or two in the park.
At 44, I’m feeling it.
Mortality all […]
Tonight, while doing Havdalah, one of my daughters said, “You know, when I look at the blood in my hands next to the fire, I think of our ancestors’ blood, and how they did Havdalah, and how I never met them, and yet my blood is their blood.”
Now that’s what it’s all about.
Speaking of ancestors […]
It’s gratifying to be able to say something from the pulpit that resonates with people.
And on Yom Kippur Evening last week, I wanted to open up for dialog and discussion the idea that in our community (as in many others, to be sure) there are a great variety of people seeking a connection to Jewish […]
What the hell is going on with the Swastika?
Did anyone anticipate that we’d be living in an age of its revival? More than sixty years after its demise, we find it popping up all over the place.
In fields.
At US Naval Bases.
And, in its ever-prevalent iteration, scrawled in cowardly, racist manner on synagogue walls in […]
“Today we have progressed to the point where we are again fighting the battles of the sixteenth century–over revelation and reason, dogmatic purity and toleration, inspiration and consent, divine duty and common decency. We are disturbed and confused. We find it incomprehensible that theological ideas still inflame the minds of men, stirring up […]
Two articles just out taking a look at the new Reform Siddur, Mishkan Tefilah, are worth a gander:
Michal Lando of the Jerusalem Post
and
Ben Harris for JTA.
When MT comes to us from the printer, we’ll all have a chance to check it out–an event we’re very much looking forward to.
(By the way : the […]
We will have an outdoor Sukkah this year at CBE.
Come hang out there.
And when you do, come prepared to give Tzedakah–a great mitzvah to observe during a Festival in which we remember our own Exodus from Egypt, our own Triumph over slavery, and turn our hearts to those still suffering in the world today.
CBE Social […]
I used to carry around in my tallis bag a Letter of Accusation from a friend, long dead, who, in the year leading up to his death, was angry over his friends’ inability to save him from his own self-destruction.
The letter was a radical infliction of responsibility that I read once a year: on […]
Lots of ways to skin this cat.
The not so well kept secret in Jewish Education is that some people struggle with 7th Grade. It’s felt to be a tough age all around.
But yesterday’s class got off to a good start.
Here’s the letter I sent home to parents to get the conversation rolling.
Dear Parents
Yesterday was […]
One of the initiatives recently begun has been a quiet and simple Maariv Minyan each Monday at 6.30 pm.
No fanfare, no choreography, no cues: just a straight Evening Service from the prayerbook for anyone willing to drop by and grab twenty minutes of spiritual sustenance at the end of a day.
The first week we […]