Rabbi's Message

These past months have been very difficult for our OVS community. All too often, we opened our email and saw the devastating news that a member of our community had died. When God said in בראשית/Bereshit/Genesis “לא טוב היות אדם לבדו/It is not good for people to be alone” (2:18)

I remember walking into my childhood house on a Saturday afternoon. I’d been playing hockey with some friends and I was looking forward to some rest. Instead, when I walked in, my dad was watching breaking news so I sat down next to him. The Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak

Last week I signed a letter with over a thousand of my colleagues from around the U.S. The letter was prompted by the current mayoral race in New York City, but was really about the current climate we find ourselves in, and the continual politicization of Israel and Zionism. Click

In the Hebrew Bible, the תָּנָ”ךְ, there are two epic stories of ships/boats: Noah/נֹחַ and Jonah/יוֹנָה. These two stories have much in common: God tells a prophet that evil has happened and needs to be remedied. A ship is a major part of the mission. And the word יוֹנָה is

There are moments in our lives we can remember in vivid details. We can remember where we were, what we were doing and how we felt at that moment. These moments are etched into our souls and tend to be transformational to us. 24 years ago, I was in my