From the Rabbi's Desk

Reading, watching and/or listening to the news is enough to bring a person to tears. Shootings in Virginia and Colorado, college students murdered in Idaho, and a double bombing in Jerusalem is just the peak of the mountain of awfulness in the news at this time. There’s just so much hurt and pain and sadness. When moments like this happen, it becomes hard to see the light through the darkness. When times like this occur, it just feels like...Read more...

On April 20, 1996, I began a lifelong observance I had never considered until that day. I was in Warsaw, Poland and it was Shabbat. We were touring the remnants of the Warsaw Ghetto when our group was harassed by a group of Neo-Nazis. They yelled at us and tried to get ahold of us, but our security was able to protect us and get us back to the hotel. That day, April 20, was a day of celebration for those with malice and hate in their hearts...Read more...

The story of Noah’s Ark has been turned into a children’s story for quite some time. We’ve decorated kid’s rooms with the Noah’s Ark motif and we have toys for them to play with. We imagine the entire episode through the eyes of the floating zoo. We think about the enormous amount of work Noah and his family had to do to keep the ark clean and the animals fed. We think about the ark floating on the water for days and days until it...Read more...