TEMPLE TALK | NOVEMBER 17
11/22/2023 09:32:29 AM
Shabbat Shalom. We are about to celebrate one of my favorite Jewish holidays of all time: Thanksgiving. Now hear me out. The original pilgrims knew their Bible and after a really tough year, they wanted to celebrate their survival with the fall festival of thanksgiving, namely Sukkot. So really, Thanksgiving has its origins in the Hebrew Bible. But if you don’t believe me, there is another way I can prove it is inherently...Read more...
TEMPLE TALK | NOVEMBER 10
11/16/2023 09:51:24 AM
When I was a little girl, I thought that raindrops were God’s tears. I thought that the wind was God’s exasperated sigh. And I thought that thunderstorms were evidence of God’s anger. And when the sun shined, I knew that God was smiling down on me.
And though I eventually came to understand that mercurial weather patterns were not indicative of God’s emotions, I sometimes catch myself looking into the...Read more...
TEMPLE TALK | OCTOBER 27
11/02/2023 09:13:17 AM
It’s been nearly 3 weeks since we woke up on Shabbat morning to news of the unconscionable atrocities and brutalities that Hamas terrorists perpetrated upon our people on Shabbat Simchat Torah. Three weeks of anger and sadness and tears and loneliness as so many of us lay awake night after night waiting for news, and not knowing what to do or where to turn.
Over these past three weeks, I have found myself...Read more...
D'VAR TORAH | OCTOBER 27
10/27/2023 10:29:48 AM
In this week’s Torah portion, Lech L'cha, God calls Avram (later Abraham) to go forth from everything he has ever known, to a land that God will show him. This call was a great leap of faith into the unknown, and it is also the beginning of our story as the Jewish people. We have been on this journey ever since, which has involved not just physical journeys but also spiritual journeys. The spiritual journeys often involved delving into the...Read more...
TEMPLE TALK | OCTOBER 20
10/26/2023 09:04:42 AM
What does it mean to be witness to unfathomable tragedy and have no real means to comprehend it or combat it? Why is it that my heart is more broken for one set of parents or orphans than for another? Is there a limit to how much we can feel? Is our capacity for empathy and sympathy finite?
I will be honest; it feels like the most real and logical thing. I believe that one can only absorb so much tragedy. We must...Read more...