An exercise to train yourself for prayer. No matter what the words on any given page of the prayerbook may be or mean, reading them alone is not praying. Consider the newspaper. Not a religious text. Not a spiritual publication. (Trust me I’ve read the some of the stories.) Still, I challenge you to find prayers on the pages. (I did this with some KSDS 8th Graders to remarkable result.) What do we find? Real human experiences and concerns. Real needs and desires... Read More

One recent evening before sunset, I went out and was struck by how the play space we created was in keeping with the rabbinic tradition of dreaming and imagining. Not only is the playground a place of joy and fun but it provides concrete images for our students to dream and behave Jewishly. As I wandered around the playground I could imagine:A child sliding through the enormous green tube pretending to be Jonah being spewed out of the belly of the big fish A... Read More

Shavuot is one of the most anticipated festivals on the Jewish calendar. Anticipating this holiday we count fifty days. Described as the time we commemorate the gift of Torah, Shavuot celebrates God’s revelation to the Jewish people. We prepare to approach such a significant date. That’s why we’ve been counting the days since Passover. We think and get ready to receive Torah anew because we realize that Torah is an actual reflection of God. The gift of Torah... Read More

In Torah, God commands Abraham to walk toward the land he will be shown to become a blessing and a great nation. This is our ancestor’s spiritual liberation, freed from idolatry to know God. Generations later, when Abraham’s descendants are actually enslaved in Egypt they await redemption. Fleeing Egyptian bondage they set out in great haste. This is our ancestor’s physical liberation. We tell both stories at our Passover Seders. We tell the well-known story... Read More

Avinu She Ba shama’yim, Rock and Redeemer of the people Israel: Bless the State of Israel, with its promise of redemption. Shield it with Your love; spread over it the shelter of Your peace. Guide its leaders and advisors with Your light and Your truth. Help them with Your good counsel. Strengthen the hands of those who defend our Holy Land. Deliver them; crown their efforts with triumph. Bless the land with peace, and its inhabitants with lasting joy. And... Read More

I sat here in this Sanctuary several weeks ago at a funeral with many of you, and experienced communal pain as never before. As a congregation we cried together, were profoundly silent together and afterwards we lingered in the lobby and hugged each other. It was heartbreaking, ….and it was astonishing.  Just a few days later, I was a world away in a breathtakingly beautiful town in Alaska. I found myself standing at the town dock with my wife, Leslie, and... Read More

We have begun our annual season of reflection and repentance. The Hebrew month of Elul, the last of the current Jewish year, is a time to look back on our deeds as we look forward to a new year for our lives. Midrash imagines that the forty days during which Moses was atop Mt. Sinai were from the first day of Elul through Yom Kippur. Forty days in God’s presence. Forty days to receive Torah. Forty days to establish the measure by which all of our days have... Read More

Early in the Seder ritual, we break a piece of matzah, wrap it in a cloth, and hide the larger portion of it for after our meal. In some of our homes, children steal the wrapped matzah from the Seder leader and wait for a good “price” to return it. In other homes, the leader hides the matzah and the children search the house seeking it and then return it only after receiving their prize. Everyone knows the Seder can’t conclude until we eat this hidden matzah... Read More

This past Shabbat was Shabbat Parah, the first of four special Shabbatot leading up to Pesah, the festival of witnessing. The purpose of the redemption from Egyptian slavery, the purpose of God’s intervention through the plagues and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in the Exodus narrative was, “So that you may tell the story in the hearing of your children and your children’s children.” (Exodus 10:2) We were redeemed from Egypt so that we might tell the story... Read More

From the first parashah in the book of Shemot, of Exodus, Moses appears or is mentioned in every single parashah until the very last verses of the Torah.  He is written in to every account, every interaction, and every command.  Except for this week in Parshat Tetzaveh.  This is the only week from the moment Moses is born until the moment he records the story of his own death that Moses neither appears nor is mentioned. The Sages suggest two reasons for this... Read More