From Rabbi Rachel Kort

Rabbi Rachel Kort Temple Beth Or, Everett Rosh HaShanah Morning 5781   There is something special about this sermon. I wrote it in the forest at Deception Pass. I did something I’ve never done before. I went camping by myself. Just me, my laptop and a really long extension cord. It was so nice to […]

Words are powerful in our Jewish tradition. The Torah begins with God creating the universe through words: “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). The 15th century German text The Ways of the Righteous explains “with the tongue, one can perform limitless acts of virtue…[and] can commit numerous great and […]

Do you think Rosh Hashanah is a Jewish holiday?i Yes, we are sitting here in the sanctuary. Tomorrow we’ll skip work, and miss school, separating ourselves from the non-Jewish world. But unlike other holidays we celebrate as a Jewish community such as Passover, Purim and Hanukkah which talk about our particular history as a Jewish […]

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 […]