• Gathering and Welcoming

    We have been reading in the last few Torah portions about the limits of who can enter the Tabernacle. For instance, those who are impure due to childbirth or the disease of tzara’at, or a Kohen who is drunk, are not allowed to enter. The Tabernacle was not entirely welcoming and accessible.   Synagogues have some…

  • 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…

  • Kedoshim 2022

    This past week one of our older congregants, Michael Gelfand, passed away.  He and his wife Edith are long time members of our shul, generous supporters, and are among those, over the years, who have worked very hard as leaders to make Kesher Israel the welcoming, bustling, thoughtful, community that it is.  Michael was buried…

  • Kedoshim 2022

    In this week’s Parsha, Kedoshim, the Torah writes, “Do not go about as a talebearer among your people, and do not stand idly by the blood of your fellow, I am God.” The Talmud (Sanhedrin 73a) states: “From where is it derived that one who sees another drowning in a river, or being dragged away…

  • 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…

  • The Torah’s Call to Combat Bias and Lashon Hara

    This week we read the double parsha of Acharey Mot and Kedoshim.  Acharey Mot deals mostly with the laws of Yom Kippur and forbidden sexual relations and Kidoshim is filled with a wide variety of laws, both ritual and interpersonal.  In Kedoshim the Torah states: “You shall not be unfair in judgment, do not favor…