holiday

There are some people that know the Torah memorized. These individuals know where each verse begins and ends, and are aware of each and every trope. But even these individuals read the Torah portion every week, even though they know it completely; chapter and verse so to speak …

This weekend, Bend the Arc, The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), our own Reform Movement’s Religious Action Center (RAC) and others are joining together…

I’ve been thinking about memory a lot lately. Two pop culture juggernauts have recently used the concept of memory in thoughtful ways that are appropriate…

A few thousand years before the Holocaust, our people suffered under Pharoah. Lots of troubling comparisons can be made that show similarities between Pharoah and Hitler. Both subjugated and enslaved our people. Both refused to see us as equals, as God’s children. As the Torah says, *Pharoah knew not Joseph.* (Exodus 1:8) The Pharoah refused to see and know Joseph and the Isaraelite people as fellow human beings. We are painfully aware of just how true this was for Hitler and the Third Reich, as our names were stripped from us, replaced with numbers tatooed on our arms

How is a good sermon like a piece of matzah?

They both should take less than 18 minutes!

…

Matzah. It’s the bread of affliction, the afikomen, the basis of the Hillel sandwich. It represents the ferver of excitement as the Israelites were on the cusp of freedom. There was so much to do, so much to prepare, that the bread did not have time to rise. 

The demonstration of sensitivity to difference is what I want to talk about tonight. This is especially important as we live amindst the so-perceived differences of immigrants, the differences of Syrian refugees who desperately need the United States to be a save haven. This week, there has also been a uptick in the introduction of more so-called ‘religious freedom’ bills, which also discriminate amongst those who are different, whether by gender choice or sexual orientation.

How do you explain the miracle of Chanukah to non-Jews? A popular Facebook suggests one to imagine that their cell phone battery is at 10%,…

In a few weeks, Jews around the world will commemorate Tisha B’av. The name of this day is a specific date, the 9th of Av. On this day, the 9th of Av, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed not once, but twice: first by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and again by the Romans in the year 70 CE.

Earlier this week, on Monday morning, fifty Jews became B’nei Mitzvah.

As Natalie [Bat Mitzvah girl on bima] knows, any Bar or Bat Mitzvah is an extraordinary celebration of Jewish life, commitment and continuity. But this celebrationion was different.

It was different because these 13 men and 37 women were not able to celebrate a Bar or Bat Mitzvah when they were 13. When they were teenagers, some of them lived in concentration camps. Some were penniless and could not take time away from difficult laborious jobs to train and tutor. Others hid their Jewishness out of fear. All 50 of these adult B’nei Mitzvah are Holocaust survivors.