Building Community: Looking Back, Looking Forward, While Focusing on the Present [February 22, 2019 Installation Service] In the February edition of the ORacle, our monthly newsletter, I shared one of my favorite Jewish stories, Honi the Circle Maker, a Jewish Rip Van Winkle tale.[i] While traveling along a road, Honi the Circle Maker saw an […]

Celebrating Bar and Bat Mitzvah As a Beth Or Community The ORacle, February 2019 Issue Did you know that Madonna’s son, Rocco, had a bar mitzvah!? The party was lavish. That was to be expected. There were some beautiful touches to the event that would make anyone’s rabbi kvell, like having a Torah scroll commissioned […]

A Little Torah on a Snowy Shabbat  In our Torah portion this week, Terumah, God instructs Moses on how to fashion a sanctuary for God’s presence to dwell with the Israelites in the desert. “In this sanctuary,” God says, “the Israelites are to bring me gifts.” The gifts can be of any kind from any […]

Returning to My Roots – Planting Together for Our Future  [The ORacle, February 2019 Issue] The motto of my rabbinic school was “Do what you love.” When people ask, “How did you decide to become a rabbi?” I instantly think of the loving Jewish community that helped raise me. Growing up, I saw my community […]

Engaging with Israel   [The ORacle, January 2019 Issue] It was easy for me to fall in love with Israel, coming of age in the 1990s. I was inspired by the egalitarian army service and the rescue of Ethiopian Jews. I mourned when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated and joined with the majority of […]

Yom Kippur: Life, Death, and Teshuvah Our tradition teaches that on Rosh Hashanah we relive our birth and on Yom Kippur we rehearse our death. We highlight the dichotomy between life and death in the special liturgy and ritual of this season. Rabbi Alan Lew describes how focusing on our mortality is meant to lead […]