• From Destruction to Strength: Rethinking Yom HaShoah’s Message

    This week, Kesher Israel held a beautiful Yom Hashoah commemoration. An energetic Holocaust survivor in her 90s spoke about her experiences, memorial candles were lit by children and grandchildren of survivors and victims, and I spoke about the need to remember so that it will never happen again. “Never Again” is the Holocaust memorial refrain.…

  • The Randomness of Life and the Choice for Holiness

    The first of this week’s Torah portions, Acharei Mot, details the Yom Kippur service in the Tabernacle. The entire Jewish people would gather at the Temple in Jerusalem to watch and listen as the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, performed the Yom Kippur service, and on this one day a year entered the Holy of…

  • Balancing Awe and Comfort in the Sanctuary

    Recently we all have undergone a shift of expectations and assumptions regarding Jewish life in the diaspora.   Now we are surprised and a bit unnerved when a synagogue does not have armed guards at its entrance.   How does this change of attitude, this fear, impact us on a communal and psychological level? This…

  • Connecting Through Community in a Time of Separation

    This week’s second Parsha, Kedoshim, begins, “You shall be holy because I the Lord your God am Holy.  A man must fear his mother and father and guard my Shabbats, I am God”.  Rash”i tells us that this parsha was read at Hakel (the gathering of the entire Jewish people in Jerusalem every seven years),…

  • The Danger of Sacrificing What Matters Most

    In this week’s double Torah portion, Acharey Mot and Kidoshim, the Torah tells us:  “Say further to the Israelite people: Anyone among the Israelites, or among the strangers residing in Israel, who gives any of his offspring to Molech, shall be put to death; the people of the land shall pelt him with stones.  And…