Category: Uncategorized
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My Jewish Name
When I was seven years old, I began Hebrew school. On the first day our teacher, Mrs. Friedman, gave us an assignment: ask our parents what our Hebrew name was. When I asked my mom, she told me that I had been named after her mother, Mary Dora, and that my name was Mortka Dov.…
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Avinu Malkenu
Avinu Malkenu is one of the most beloved melodies in our High Holiday liturgy. In ancient times, Jews in the Land of Israel would fast and recite this prayer during times of drought. The story is told in the Talmud that Rabbi Eliezer came before the ark at a time of drought and prayed 24…
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The Riddle of Jonah
Today I came upon an article by my colleague and friend Rabbi Steven (Simcha) Bob on the website http://www.TheTorah.com which is of timely interest. On Yom Kippur afternoon we chant the Book of Jonah for our Haftorah. Perhaps better known as a children’s story, the Book of Jonah raises some profound theological issues. Rabbi Bob…
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The Sound of the Shofar
I would like to share a beautiful story about the meaning of the call of the shofar. The story is from <Chabad.org> and was adapted by Suzie Jacobson for her study sheet on <Sefaria.org> The photo above, taken by my wife, Middy in our dining room, is of a shofar that we bought in Sefat…
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Sabbath Rest
Often, we can be “put off” by all of the different regulations that accompany Jewish observance. We may be afraid of making a mistake, of not performing a ritual in the correct way. This may result in us not doing it at all! Or we may feel that if we do not perform all of…
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God is One
Theologian Judith Plaskow writes that it is inaccurate to understand the first verse of the Shema – that God is One – as a statement of numeric specificity. Rather, she says, monotheism is about the capacity to glimpse the ONE in and through the changing form of the many, to see the whole in and…
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Shabbat Shalom
The American Jewish writer Abigail Pogrebin wrote an article admitting that, despite attending services regularly for 8 years she was struggling to find in the observance of Shabbat the “supposed tranquility and blissful disconnection of Shabbat, what Abraham Joshua Heschel called, “the palace in time”. She says she can’t seem to pull off Shabbat. Yet…
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Four Poems for Fathers' Day
My Mother is at the Bridge Table by Leslea Newman My mother is at the bridge table with Loretta, Gert and Pearl, when my father finds his way to Heaven. “Sit down, dear,” she says, patting the seat beside her and barely looking up from the hand she’s been dealt. “The game is almost through.”…
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They Lied to Me in Hebrew School: Parasha Shelakh Lekha
Comedian Seth Rogan A couple of years ago, the actor and comedian Seth Rogan caused consternation across the Jewish world, when, in an interview, he asserted that as a student in Hebrew school he had been “fed a huge amount of lies about Israel….. They never tell you that ‘Oh, by the way, there were…
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A Psalm of Gerry Mendelssohn
Gerry Mendelssohn, our congregation librarian for 40 years, was honored at our Friday night services last week. When an Englishman wants to write a poem of praise, he writes an “Ode”. When a Rabbi wants to write a song of praise, he must write a “Psalm”. But how does one write a psalm? There are…
Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph 