Category: Festivals

Rabbi's Corner – June 2025: Shavuot, Loving Together at Sinai

5/25/2025

Happy June, which this year also means Happy Shavuot!

Rabbi David offers coming attractions about the Shavuot festival of love this weekend, and some personal thoughts about what this festival means to him amidst family challenges.

Holy Gear Shifts (P. Emor)

5/11/2025

As spiritual beings, we can understand life as a constant choice between inertia and change, letting things ride or deliberately altering them. We don't pay attention, or we do. We accept what is, or we try to act.

So it is with most things Jewish, especially Jewish time – a series of holy gear shifts throughout life.

All Together, Then and Now – and Omer Week 2 (Passover)

4/14/2025

We say that each of us was there. In ancestral ways that defy the mind, every soul spark that ever was experienced the miracle of the Sea splitting to reveal our freedom path forward. The moment was so awesome that we all became like prophets. We still carry that vision.

Passover's seventh day is the anniversary of that awesome day. Honoring that we all were there, we bring in our departed ancestors for Yizkor.

You Are the High Priest – and Omer 5785 (P. Tzav & Passover)

4/6/2025

The matzah that is the Passover bread is about many things. Amidst the crunch and crumbles we might find humility, ancestry, community and reminders of liberation.

Hidden in matzah's layers of meaning (and this week's Torah portion) is one more thing – a profound empowerment and call to each of us.

Rabbi's Corner – March 2025: Spring Forward

2/23/2025

The spring quarter of the Jewish spiritual year is all about who we are as a people, and who we are becoming. Each spring holiday and Shir Ami gathering, one after the next, will uplift these themes.

As we spring forward into this season of identity, we'll better appreciate and enjoy the journey if we know more about where we're going.

Rabbi's Corner – February 2025: Prelude to Spring

1/30/2025

Happy February, Shir Ami.

After a cold, dark and bleak January, February ushers in the first hints of spring.

Even now, the first almond blossoms are starting to blossom in Israel. It's time for Tu b'Shevat, Judaism's start of spiritual spring.

If you're not ready, if it feels too early to matter, that's exactly the point.

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.

Omer Week 7 – Presence: Awareness and Sovereignty

6/3/2024

The Omer journey that began at Passover (liberation) leads through this seventh and final week to Shavuot (revelation).

Along the way, we delved into inner capacities and character traits, aligned with the mystical (kabbalistic) sequence borne of the medieval era. Week by week, we've made our way through
love (hesed), strength (gevurah), balance (tiferet), resilience (netzah), splendor (hod) and
foundation (yesod).

It all funnels into this week: presence (malkhut), bringing our full selves into the world so that we can receive Torah anew with our full selves.

About Our Shavuot Together – June 11 and June 12, 2024

6/2/2024

Shavuot at Shir Ami will be sweet and high, deep and meaningful, fun and provocative, cheesecakey and perhaps a bit seductive.

How can one Jewish holiday be all of that, while hiding in plain sight? Here's a nuts and bolts of what we'll do together this Shavuot on June 11 (erev Shavuot) and June 12 (culmination and Yizkor).

How to Receive Torah (P. Bamidbar)

6/2/2024

The approach of Shavuot, our festival of receiving Torah anew, cues us to ask what it means to receive Torah at all, much less anew. How does one receive Torah anyway. And whether or not Torah was given at Sinai thousands of years ago, how to we receive anew what we already got... or are we to receive something else?

These are no idle or mere academic questions. They go to the heart of who we are, and how we walk in the world. Put another way, they go to the heart – full stop.

<<Previous

Rabbi's Corner – June 2025: Shavuot, Loving Together at Sinai

Holy Gear Shifts (P. Emor)

All Together, Then and Now – and Omer Week 2 (Passover)

You Are the High Priest – and Omer 5785 (P. Tzav & Passover)

Rabbi's Corner – March 2025: Spring Forward

Rabbi's Corner – February 2025: Prelude to Spring

Be A Light (P. Mikeitz)

Omer Week 7 – Presence: Awareness and Sovereignty

About Our Shavuot Together – June 11 and June 12, 2024

How to Receive Torah (P. Bamidbar)

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