Today (the 27th of Nisan on the Jewish calendar) is Yom HaShoah, or, more fully, Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve’laG’vurah / יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה / Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. The 27th of Nisan was chosen when this became a national holiday in the young state of Israel in 1953, because it was the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising…
Shabbat HaGadol (Big/Expansive) is the Shabbat that precedes Passover. This year, as war will cast a shadow on our seder tables and the festival, can we lean into expansiveness? This evening, we enter Shabbat haGadol, the Big/Enlarged Shabbat that precedes Passover. May we all experience an expansive renewing of spirit in this vast Shabbat, and pause before entering the week…
This piece is offered in honor and memory of my beloved teacher, mentor, and friend, Rabbi Ellen Bernstein, z”l, whose love of ecology, nature, science, and Judaism gave birth to an ever growing community of Jews connected deeply to our roots in the wisdom of Earth and our partnership with her and the Divine Abundance. Ellen died, surrounded by love,…
As I share Torah today, the sun is streaming through my windows, and a slightly open window brings a gentle breeze that belies the presence of winter. There is something palpably hopeful about sunlight and the promise of spring. (This, despite the very real concerns about warm days in winter months, and the dire impacts of climate crises on places…
This post is my Shabbat Bo message to the Glacier Jewish Community in the Flathead Valley of Northwestern Montana, where I serve as spiritual leader. …בֹּ֖א אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֑ה כִּֽי־אֲנִ֞י הִכְבַּ֤דְתִּי אֶת־לִבּוֹ֙ … Then יהוה said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh. For I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his courtiers, in order that I may display these My signs…
This piece was written for Glacier Jewish Community ~ my end of week message for the Jewish community I serve in the Flathead Valley of Northwest Montana. This week we welcome the Hebrew month of Shvat. On the ‘טו, tet-vav (pronounced “tu”), 15th of this month, we celebrate the Jewish new year for the trees. Even in the bitter cold,…