Category: Uncategorized
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Ki Tissa – Building Community
Last Sunday morning our synagogue was buzzing. The social hall was filled with booths put up by each classroom in our Religious School. Just imagine about 170 children, with parents in attendance collecting money for various causes. At the booth put up by our Pre-K and Kindergarten class they were collecting for a North Shore…
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Furniture that Speaks to You
Parasha Terumah In our Torah portion of this week we read about the instructions that G-d gives Moses for building the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle is like a portable synagogue where the Jewish people worshipped during their journey through the wilderness after they were freed from slavery in Egypt. This portable temple was basically a tent,…
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Famous Last Words — Parasha Vayechi
Tonight I would like to talk about last words… Jacob Blessing His Sons François MaitreMiniature, 1475 The Hague In Act ll of Richard the Second, Shakespeare tells us that: The tongues of dying men Enforce attention like deep harmony: Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain, For they breathe truth/ that breathe their words in…
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Our Responsibility to One Another
It happens three or four times a year. I will be sitting in my office and I receive a call from a Chaplain at a hospital or a social worker in a nursing home. Upon hearing from the family that they are Jewish, the Chaplain or social worker contacts me on their behalf. “There is…
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The Many Meanings of Chanukah
Rabbi Mark Greenspan tells a story about Chanukah that he heard on a visit to Cuba two years ago. The Island of Cuba had, at its height, a Jewish population of about 15,000 people, mostly in Havana. As a result of the Cuban revolution, 95% of the Jews left the island. Although Jews were discriminated…
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Light One Candle — Parasha Vayeshev
This coming Sunday morning, our congregation will host our fourth annual “Season of Twinning Event”. Members of our Beth Shalom community will join together with members of the local Muslim community to feed the hungry. We are part of an international effort to both feed the hungry and to build relationships between Jews and Muslims.…
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Terror in Paris and Jerusalem
There is a well-known story about the Israeli diplomat who was giving a news conference. A reporter shouts to him, “Mr. Ambassador-in a word, how are things”. “In a word?” he responds, “Good!” Another reporter says to him, “Can you give us a bit more? — How about two words?” “In two words”, he says,…
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For Veterans Day : A Forgotten Story
This evening, in honor of Veterans Day which we observed last Wednesday, I am going to tell you a little known and long forgotten story of courage. The courage that I am going to tell you about was not ONLY about courage on the battlefield. It is also about the courage to overcome bigotry and…
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The Immigrant, the Refugee and the Jewish Experience
The Syrian Civil war has been called “the worst humanitarian disaster of our time.” It has been estimated that there are 7.6 million Syrians that have left their homes for other parts of Syria, and 4 million Syrians who have fled to other countries — two million to Turkey, a quarter million to Iraq, a…
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A Prayer of Unity with the People of Israel
Thank you to Barbara Bernstein for sending me this prayer composed by Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, California El Maleh Rachamim — Compassionate God,We pray not to wipe out haters but to banish hatred.Not to destroy sinners but to lessen sin.Our prayers are not for a perfect world but a better…
Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph 