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The Name of Becoming (P. Shemot)

1/12/2025

Who (or What) is God? It's a question (perhaps the question) of the ages, and no blogpost can fully do it justice.

Yet it is exactly the subject of Moses' first encounter with the One we call God: how should the Children of Israel name their liberator?

And nothing has been the same ever since.

"The Days Approached" (P. Vayehi)

1/5/2025

At some point (maybe many points), life teaches us that what we see depends on how we see.

So it is with our perspective on life itself. Few of us go through life deeply inhabiting the ultimate truth of our own mortality. But once we do, the very limits of our lives can help imbue them with greater richness and meaning.

If we let them.

Rabbi's Corner – January 2025: Harnessing Peak Light

1/1/2025

Happy secular new year, Shir Ami! This year's Hanukkah started on Christmas night and ends on New Years night. The secular new year coincides with Hanukkah's brightest light.

And with it, some transitions in our beloved community, and an important opportunity to begin visioning Shir Ami's brightest future.

Showing Up, Taking Responsibility (P. Vayigash)

12/29/2024

It's not my fault. Why should I take responsibility for any part of it? We're all prone to say so.

Yet our penchant to claim rightness has spiritual and practical limits. Our acts and omissions ripple out far beyond their space and time, and Jewishly we claim collective responsibility for much seemingly beyond ourselves.

Just ask the guy whom Jews are named for.

Be A Light (P. Mikeitz)

12/23/2024

It's telling that Hanukkah is one of the Judaism's most popular holidays: more than any other ritual, Jews light candles for the Festival of Lights.

Amidst so much darkness it's tempting to think that the candles we light can't do much – and in truth, wee candles can't do much. They certainly don't automatically dispel the world's darkness.

But that's not the point. The candles aren't the point. We ourselves must be the light.

Pointers Along the Way (P. Vayeishev)

12/15/2024

What if the random nondescript person actually held the missing piece of our puzzle? What if the bad driver who cut us off on the highway actually put us in the right place at the right time?

What if we lived into the possibility that our lives are full of pointers hidden amidst the mundane?

What if they've been there all along?

On Mideast Peace: Is 'Yes' Possible? (P. Vayishlah)

12/9/2024

Is peace possible?

What might it take to imagine real reconciliation between the Children of Israel and the Children of Eisav, the Biblical brothers whose descendants became Jews and Arabs?

If their Biblical relationship could go south and rebound, can our world get past xenophobia?

Rabbi's Corner – December 2024: The Most Important Light

12/1/2024

December sets Jewish sights toward Hanukkah – a holiday that many of us treat as a minor commemoration suited mainly to children. Even in my early years of rabbinical school, I believed that Hanukkah was no big deal.

How wrong I was – and I want to share my personal story (and Hanukkah's historic story) precisely now, when public visibility and pride in Jewish life both feel especially vital and loaded.

Wherever You Put Your Head (Vayeitzei)

12/1/2024

Jacob's dream of a mystical ladder is one of my personal favorite encounters of Torah. Jacob has a transformational experience he didn't anticipate, didn't plan for and didn't fully understand. He learned that he might experience God wherever he went, wherever he put his head.

Same for us.

The Flags Up Front (P. Toledot)

11/24/2024

We're all global citizens of a shared and fragile planet. And at the same time, Jewish life's public vitality – and with it, global diversity and genuine belonging – tends to ebb and flow in cycles of societal turbulence. Yet again, Jews and other minorities face a recurring existential question: who are we relative to where we are? In the U.S. flag's stars and stripes, there is still enough starlight for all of us.

<<Previous

The Name of Becoming (P. Shemot)

"The Days Approached" (P. Vayehi)

Rabbi's Corner – January 2025: Harnessing Peak Light

Showing Up, Taking Responsibility (P. Vayigash)

Be A Light (P. Mikeitz)

Pointers Along the Way (P. Vayeishev)

On Mideast Peace: Is 'Yes' Possible? (P. Vayishlah)

Rabbi's Corner – December 2024: The Most Important Light

Wherever You Put Your Head (Vayeitzei)

The Flags Up Front (P. Toledot)

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