Blogs

“Will you indeed sweep the innocent along with the wicked?”

Abraham’s challenge to the Eternal in this week’s Torah portion, Vayeira, echoes through the ages. Faced with the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham questions the justice of God’s actions. Surely, God would not kill everyone? Surely, the architect of humanity would not slay those who could...Read more...

Wednesday morning, I tried to put a Band-Aid on a war. Like many of us, I was looking for something to do, something to help myself process the steady stream of horrifying headlines flowing in from Israel and Gaza, with their ripple effects around the world, inciting hate crimes in other places like Belgium and even Chicago. Like many of us, I had no idea where to start. In the absence of any real ideas, I picked up a paintbrush and made an...Read more...

One of the many things that sold me on Cheshire when I first came to visit almost a year ago is the fact that the town boasts a bookstore called Reread. In addition to its high level of community involvement and mission of providing job training to young adults with special needs, the shop’s name intrigued me. Rereading favorite books has...Read more...

     L’Shana Tovah once again!  Tonight, the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanan and Yom Kippur, is known as Shabbat Shuvah – a Shabbat that reminds us, among other things, that this High Holiday season is just that: a season.  The inner work and contemplation does not end with Rosh Hashanah or even with Yom Kippur.  It all goes on. 

     Since its inception, our tradition has also taken up questions as to just what returning means.  If our formative stories were about people who felt at home, who settled and stayed, we would probably all still be enjoying life in the Garden of Eden.  Instead, Adam and Eve’s earliest descendants traveled through deserts, traversed mountain ranges, crossed rivers… all to live here not there, be buried there not here, find a mate for their child by this well, not that one.  Judaism is no more defined by Edenic perfection than it is by being peacefully entrenched anywhere for all our days.  Oh, to live out our days, care for our families, be buried in our birthplaces or in the places we never imagined.  That is the restlessness we’ve inherited, for better and worse!Read more...

Dear Friends,

L’Shana Tovah!  It is with joyful anticipation, and more than a little bit of disbelief, that we at Temple Beth David look forward to welcoming all of you to High Holiday services, beginning with Erev Rosh Hashanah on Friday September 15.   Our congregation is on a path of gladness and growth, a year of taking those first steps together into our future while honoring the richness of our past.  May...Read more...