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,…
As we enter the week of our family Thanksgiving rituals, we step into this week with all of ourselves. We hold all of our American identity and our Jewish identity and all of the ways that we identify ourselves. Identity can both entrap us and set us free. The process of identifying ourselves and where we align and identify with…
This Shabbat, we read the Torah portion entitled Chayei Sarah ~ Sarah’s life, though it begins with her death. Torah tells us that Sarah was 127 when she died, however given the length of biblical lives in Genesis (B’reishit), her age is unremarkable. The proximity of her death to the story of the binding of Isaac is read by our…