Given the past week and all that came with it, it is hardly surprising that the quieter, subtler things that took place at the same time may have gotten lost in the shuffle. One example is the loss of Ella Jenkins, a lifelong and leading performer of children’s music. She was often called “The First Lady of the Children’s Folk Song,” and lived to...Read more...
11/08/2024 08:27:57 AM
Nov8
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November 8, 2024/ 7 Cheshvan 5785
Dear Temple Beth David,
Many years ago in Pirkei Avot, our rabbis wrote the words “Al Tifrosh Min HaTzibur. Do not separate yourself from the community.” This wisdom has become timeless, especially on our most frightening, difficult days. For many of us, and my heart breaks to...Read more...
We do love the idea of a fresh start. New year. New resolutions. Unveiling the new you. As citizens of the 21st century, we are raised to love the notion of cutting ties with the toxicity or stagnation of yesterday. Modern culture encourages us to move into each new day with fresh perspective, to cut ties with mindsets, habits, and even people who are holding us back. In their place, we are encouraged to open ourselves up to new friends, new...Read more...
Welcome to the new year, and to our last High Holiday at that! Speedy Shabbat, for our youngest congregants and families, is tonight at 5:30pm. A brief Consecration for Temple Beth David’s newest Religious School students will be included. Then at 6:30pm, our main Shabbat service features the unrolling of the Torah, dancing and some traditional hakafot – festive processions around the Sanctuary...Read more...
It’s a chilly autumn day as I write these words. The deep orange of the leaves against a brilliant blue sky animates my view. So does the sukkah going up in our backyard, a step at a time.
Sukkot always comes right on the heels of Yom Kippur, and because of that there’s a danger of the festival going by without the...Read more...
Atonement, at its core, is about making things right, finding places where we have missed the mark, adjusting our aim, and trying again. On Yom Kippur, we ask for forgiveness and commit to renewing our best efforts to repair what is broken—within ourselves, within our relationship to the eternal, and in relation to the world around us. But where do we start? At a time when so many things feel broken,...Read more...
In class this week, one of my students presented a fable written by the late French-Canadian author, Léon-Pamphile Le May. The fable, entitled “Les deux ruisseaux et le rocher,” tells the story of two streams flowing from the same source who encounter a gigantic rock blocking their path. The rock warns them to turn away, and one of them listens, meandering this way and that until it ends up in a forgotten...Read more...
“Bend… dare to bend,” taught the Chasidic master Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. “The curvature of the Shofar is bent… to teach us to bend our stubbornness and our pride. The sound of the shofar includes ‘shevarim,’ the sobbing staccato of broken notes to remind you that ‘teshuvah’ – repentance, the road to reconciliation, is a process… a series of steps. The sound of the shofar is broken, for in...Read more...
Earlier today, I went through the Student Handbook with my advisee group at the school where I teach. We reviewed the Honor Code, Major School Rules, and Statement of Expectations, as we do every year, and my advisees proceeded to sign an electronic statement to affirm that they had reviewed the Handbook and were committed to respecting all the rules. As we talked, sunshine streamed in through the windows and a soft...Read more...
