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18 10, 2008

Sukkot

By ahsilver|2008-10-18T19:10:58-04:00October 18, 2008|

The Festival of Sukkot-Joy or Discomfort?
By Rabbi David Greenstein

The festival of Sukkot is traditionally called “Z’man Simchatenu – The Season of Our Joy.” This follows from the Biblical injunction that specifically emphasizes the mitzvah of rejoicing whenever this holiday is mentioned, whether in Leviticus – “And you shall rejoice before the Eternal One, your Almighty, for seven days.” (Lev. 23:40) or in Deuteronomy – “And you shall rejoice in your holiday (of Sukkot).” (Deut. 16:13)

The primacy of this element is so strong that it endows Sukkot with a unique rule that is not present with regard to other commandments. This rule is the exemption of “mitzta`er – being in discomfort.” According to traditional Jewish law, while one must dwell in a sukkah for seven days in fulfillment of the Torah’s command, this obligation is set aside if doing so would cause a person discomfort. Now we must appreciate how Read More >

25 09, 2008

Rosh HaShanah

By ahsilver|2008-09-25T09:30:51-04:00September 25, 2008|

By Sanford Olshansky

“Take your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will point out to you.” And Abraham arose early in the morning and saddled his ass and took his two lads with him and Isaac, his son, and split the wood for the burnt offering and got up and went to the place [of which] God told him. (Gen 22:2,3)

I have an only son, whom I love. Until recently, he was a sports reporter, covering college hockey. His work took him, in the harshest winter, to isolated places such as Burlington, VT, Hanover, NH and Storrs, CT. After doing post-game interviews and filing his story, he drove, late at night, over icy highways, to his next destination. On many such nights I prayed silently Read More >

18 04, 2008

Pesach 5768

By ahsilver|2008-04-18T11:49:34-04:00April 18, 2008|

To Love Another Person Is to See the Face of God
By Laurie Levy

“To love another person is to see the face of God”
(Jean Valjean in Les Miserables)

I recently saw the show Spring Awakening on Broadway. It is the story of a group of adolescents dealing with the mystifying and consuming discovery of their sexual awakening – all the more dramatic because it is set against the backdrop of late 19th century Germany where information and education about sex was nonexistent. The show is no less relevant for today, when more than we would ever want our children to know about sex is but a website away. Even our Sages understood the need to embrace the awakening of one’s longings and desires in the springtime and so on the Shabbat that falls during Passover, we read Shir haShirim, The Song of Songs, a poem filled with images of spring and nature and about Read More >

25 09, 2007

Rosh HaShanah

By ahsilver|2007-09-25T07:52:18-04:00September 25, 2007|

By Rabbi Leslie Schotz

“In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups-the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.”

You may recognize that opening from a show called “Law and Order” which follows crime from two separate vantage points. The first half generally concentrates on the investigation of a crime by the police; the second half follows the prosecution of the crime in court.

Rosh Hashanah is also called Yom Ha-Din, the Day of Judgment. The liturgy calls upon the analogy of a great trial. On this day, the world is judged. In Franz Kafka’s book The Trial, the helpless victim doesn’t even know what his crime is. Just before the hero is killed, he wonders where was the judge whom he had never seen? But our trial on Rosh Hashanah is not cruel or by an unknown Read More >

25 09, 2007

Yom Kippur

By ahsilver|2007-09-25T07:30:51-04:00September 25, 2007|

Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein

The new year we began just last week stretches before us like an empty canvas and we pause to reflect before it. What are we going to paint on it this year? What will we write upon it? How do we make a difference with our lives? What really matters? It is a fresh start, a new beginning and, like the school kids’ brand-new, blank notebooks, for me it comes with excitement and enthusiasm. How can I fill it, and fill it well?

This year I am concerned about the tenor of our conversations. In an age of 24/7 communication, we often don’t stop to think about the impact of our words in the political world, in our work world, in our congregations or in our families. We forget to take time to think before we speak. We have grown too accustomed Read More >

25 09, 2007

Shemini Atzeret-Yizkor

By ahsilver|2007-09-25T06:52:21-04:00September 25, 2007|

Nostalgia – is it enough?
By Rabbi Robert Waxman

In Webster’s contemporary formulation, nostalgia is “longing for something far away or long ago.”

As we gather for Yizkor a wave of nostalgia fills the room. We are looking back, remembering. For some, we are looking back at a safe distance. For others, memories of loss and disappointments are as close as this past year.

Nostalgia is a big part of religious thought, for we can’t rely upon fate or biological ancestry to cultivate Jewish loyalty. Yet, we can’t return to shtetl nostalgia to assure Jewish continuity either: Tevya’s cry of “tradition” is no answer for his children’s questions. In fact, Tevya failed with his children. “Fiddler on the Roof” is musical entertainment, not reality. The shift has turned from external to internal, from fate to choice. Our children ask “what for?” They must be persuaded morally, spiritually, intellectually of the meaning and merits of Jewish Read More >

25 09, 2007

Sukkot

By Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD|2007-09-25T06:50:15-04:00September 25, 2007|

By Rabbi Jill Hammer

The quintessential image of harvest-time is the bundle: the sheaf of wheat, the bushel of apples, the cluster of grapes. The arba’ah minim, the four species of the lulav (- palm branch, etrog – citron, willow and myrtle), is the Jewish harvest-bundle, bringing together four different kinds of plant into a beautiful, fragrant bouquet. We wave this bouquet in the six directions, tethering ourselves to the Divine Presence dwelling in every corner of the earth. Symbolically, we show how different elements come together to make holiness. Sukkot, in many sensory and spiritual ways, allows us to experience the unity and multiplicity of our world. It is the festival of the web of life.

This theme of the bundle, of bringing together multiple aspects into a whole, abounds throughout Sukkot. The Temple sacrifices of Sukkot, which we read about in Read More >

2 08, 2007

Rosh HaShanah

By ahsilver|2007-08-02T13:30:26-04:00August 2, 2007|

By Dr. Ora Horn Prouser

As we finish preparing for Rosh Hashanah, I would like to offer a few words of Torah. The traditional Torah reading for the first day of Rosh Hashanah includes the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael from Abraham and Sarah’s home. As they wander out in the desert, Hagar, unable to watch the agony and anticipated death of her son, places him under a bush and sits down at a distance in tears. When the angel approaches Hagar explaining that she needn’t fear and that they would not die, she is directed to pick up her son, and ‘hold him by the hand.’ She then is able to see a nearby well; they drink, and survive the horrific experience. It is significant that God did not need to tell Hagar to drink or to provide water for her son; she knew to do that. Read More >

21 05, 2007

Shavuot 5767

By ahsilver|2007-05-21T08:37:21-04:00May 21, 2007|

Shavuot
By Rabbi S. Robert Waxman, AJR ’79

During these weeks since the Festival of Passover we have been moving toward Shavuot ‘ Pentecost, the Festival of Weeks, the time of the giving and receiving of Torah.

What is Torah? That is a basic question. As we look into possible answers to this question we will have to begin by asking additional basic questions.

What is our goal in life as modern Americans? It is to have a life in community and a life of meaning. As we pause in our journey at Mount Sinai, let us consider how the Torah may be understood in terms of community and meaning.

Let us consider where each of us is with regard to our own personal religious life. The first question is not what each of us believes. No, our beliefs are likely to change with time. It is where we stand in relation to our tradition, what Read More >

29 03, 2007

Passover 2007

By ahsilver|2007-03-29T07:54:29-04:00March 29, 2007|

Appreciating Freedom
By Neal L. Spevack

How can one fully appreciate freedom?

The abstention from eating hametz (leavened bread products) is a symbolic activity designed to help us appreciate our freedom. And the absence and presence of hametz in the house can be thought of as a symbol of the morally right and wrong choices acted upon in our life. In the Passover holiday we imagine ourselves as slaves. `Avadim hayinu, “we were slaves,” is the first response in the Haggadah to the Four Questions that the youngest family member recites at the Seder table.

In the home the seder observance of Passover is filled with symbols such as the four cups of wine, the four questions, the four sons, karpas (vegetables), the shank bone, the roasted egg, salt water, matzah, maror (bitter herbs) and so on. One symbol, the salt water, reminds us of the tears of our ancestors as they experienced Read More >

All shall unite to do God's will with an open heart.

All shall unite to do God's will with an open heart.

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