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 […]

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 […]