Community Blog

Welcome! Check out Rabbi Lizz's divrei Torah and other community updates here.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach! Chanukah is at its core a holiday about embracing freedom of religion, a pride in being Jewish, and a refusal to change just for the sake of fitting in with those in power. As modern, progressive Jews, we have changed ourselves a bit to keep up with the times, but we maintain our Jewishness and can still appreciate our ancestors who fought for our right to do so. The emphasis of the miracle of the...Read more...

     Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Vayetzei, in which Jacob runs off to his uncle Laban’s house to escape his brother Esau, who in last week’s parasha he twice deceived and claimed what was rightfully Esau’s. In this week’s parasha, Jacob meets and immediately falls in love with Laban’s daughter Rachel. However, in the light of the morning after the wedding, he discovers that the...Read more...

       Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Lech-Lecha, in which we start to learn about Abram. God forms a special covenant with Abram in this parasha which serves to effectively be the betrothal with the Hebrews that will develop into the ketubah signed with the Israelites at Mount Sinai. This parasha shows us a momentous moment and relationship for our peoplehood and faith, but...Read more...

     Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is, of course, Parashat Noach, in which we read about the story of Noah’s ark, the flood that covered the whole earth, and finally a strange little story about a group of people that tried to build a tower up to heaven and were punished with the creation of multiple languages. 

     I am often pretty ungenerous in my reading of...Read more...

Nachas-A Yiddish word meaning that you are happy and proud, especially of the accomplishments of your children

            Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Ha’azinu, in which Moses addresses the Israelites for the final time, singing them a song that warns of the future, containing blessings and curses. It is a beautiful song, but also quite dark in parts, and the parasha is the end of Moses’s life. Next Shabbat we will jump back to Exodus for...Read more...

Good morning and tzom kal. I hope your fasts are moving along as painlessly as possible. Our fasts this day are an opportunity to more deeply connect with our compassion, our humility, our sorrow over the evils of the world, and our gratitude of the beauty of the world and the bounty we enjoy most days.

          We...Read more...

          Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Vayeilech, or Deuteronomy chapter 31. Jews all over the world will read this segment of our holy scripture this Shabbat: some out of the sacred scroll, some from books, and some may not literally read it in its totality but learn about it in Torah studies and sermons. We welcome our distinguished guests to...Read more...

Good evening and gut yontif. We have been vaguely in the season of Teshuvah for a month now, and the High Holy Days are here. Are you prepared to Return, Renew, and Repent? I find I am not sure that I am this year. Even as I am happy to welcome so many of you back into our beautiful sanctuary, I cannot stave off the fear that this is also still unsafe. I cannot stave off the sadness that there are...Read more...

          Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Ki Tavo, in which rules regarding the sacrifice of the first fruits are given, along with rules regarding tithes and Moses’s theatrical blessings and curses on Mount G’rizim and Mount Eival. Of the first fruits offerings, Rashi states: “Not all fruits are subject to the mitzvah of bikkurim (first...Read more...

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          Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Shalach, in which Moses sends 12 scouts, one from each tribe, to scope out the inhabitants of the Holy Land and determine how they will go about conquering the land. All but two return certain of the undefeatable strength of those they wish to dispossess and only Caleb and Joshua assure Moses that the land is good and God is on their...Read more...

          Shabbat Shalom! In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Nasso, we read about the ordeal of the Sota, the suspected adulteress. If a man becomes suspicious of his wife, regardless of any evidence to support his jealousy, he may bring her before the priest in the Tabernacle and they will perform a ritual together to determine her innocence. The central act of...Read more...