Community Blog

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Emor, in which we receive some more laws relating to the priests’ duties and how they are to conduct themselves throughout their lives. We also receive rules about the holy days - more about how to observe Shabbat, as well as the expectations of the...Read more...

     Shabbat Shalom. This week’s Torah portion is a grotesquely fitting story for our Yom HaShoa theme. While the first chapter of Parashat Shemini (Leviticus 9) tells of a series of successful sacrifices, the second (Levitucus 10) tells of another sacrifice gone horribly wrong. After Moses, Aaron, and Aaron’s sons are given the instructions for proper sacrifice, they perform each of the required sacrifices...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Tzav, the second parasha in Leviticus, and it continues the detailing of the sorts of sacrifices that will be made in the Mishkan and eventually in Temple service. It also continues several reiterations of the commandment that the fire on the...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Vayekhel-Pekudei, a double portion about - what else - the building of the Mishkan. And of course today is also St. Patrick’s Day, which is obviously not a Jewish holiday, but is it really a Catholic holiday as indicated by the word...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Terumah, in which God starts to give out the instructions on the building of the Mishkan, the holy Tabernacle that will wander the desert with the Israelites and give an earthly home to the Shekhina, the Divine presence, so...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Beshalach, in which we find the song of the sea and the final push of the Israelites’ escape from slavery into freedom. As you know, the holiday of Tu BiShevat is also this weekend. Although trees look dead in North America...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Vayechi, in which Jacob gives his final blessings to his children. He also declares that Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Menashe will be inheritors of Israel as equal as any of Joseph’s own brothers. Jacob prophesies that Ephraim, the younger,...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! As you know, this is our first Family Shabbat of the school year, and since many of our religious school families were not sure they could attend, I wanted to collect some thoughts from our students and their parents to still imbue this service with their presence. This Shabbat is also the reading of Parashat Chayei Sarah, and unknowingly our students and their parents reflected...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Lech Lecha, in which God calls out to our ancestors Avram and Sarai and tells them to leave the land they have known and travel a great distance to the Promised Land. They bring with them some family and all their wealth,...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach! Sukkot is a time for gratitude and joy, focusing on two particular blessings for which we must be grateful and express our joy over. These are the blessings of housing, which I spoke about to some degree on Rosh HaShana, and the blessings of the...Read more...

Tzaharayim Tov! We arc toward the final hours of our holy day and our season of Teshuva, and we remind ourselves once more to choose hope, and as the Torah tells us, to choose life. This afternoon’s Torah portion comes from Parashat Kedoshim, known as the Holiness Code, which details many of...Read more...

Erev Tov. I hope your fasts are starting off easily and meaningfully, and that you are taking good care of your body these next 24 hours. I say that every year, because the emphasis on fasting during Yom Kippur can be dangerous or alienating to some people and I always worry about people who...Read more...

    Shana Tova! Our Torah reading on Rosh HaShana morning is probably the most difficult reading in our liturgical calendar. There are many other pieces of the TaNaKh similarly disturbing, and stories some Biblical scholars call “Texts of Terror,” but the Akeidah is so deeply disturbing on...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Nitzavim, which we read again on Yom Kippur and will hear more about then. The Haftarah this week, from Isaiah chapters 61-63, is the final of seven Haftarot of Consolation, read in the seven weeks between Tisha B’Av and Rosh HaShana. In it, the prophet tells of the shared pain of God and the Heavenly Hosts along with the people of Israel as they endure the hardships of...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom, and welcome to all our guests! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Ki Teitze, in which we find more laws than in any other parasha in the whole Torah, even the one named “Laws”. Among the lists of commandments in this portion are the rules regarding...Read more...