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 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…
In a beginning … בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים … B’reishit Bara Elohim … “B’reishit bara Elohim … When God began to create …” This Shabbat, around the world, Jews in synagogues, in homes, online, in bomb shelters, barracks and tents, will read from the opening chapters of Torah. We will also sit with the grief and existential angst that shattered our…