Ecclesiastes (and Peter Seeger) are famous for reminding us that "to everything there is a season." Our sacred text continues…the Ecclesiastes one…  A time for being born and a time for dying, A time for… planting and a time for uprooting the planted; slaying and a time for healing, tearing down and a time for building up weeping and a time for laughing wailing and a time for dancing throwing stones and a time for gathering stones, embracing and a time for shunning embraces; seeking and a time for losing, keeping and a time for discarding; ripping and a time for sewing, silence and a time for speaking; loving and a time for hating; war and a time for peace.  We will move through these experiences as we begin again. We begin Torah again. As we rabbis like to say, "We re-read the Torah every year, and the text does not change, but we do."  Life doesn't thrive only in the planting or the uprooting, the wailing or the dancing. Life is what we do in between all that brings … [Read more...]

Everyone just finished the hustle of Rosh Hashanah, the ten Days of Awe, the power of Yom Kippur…and now, the Jewish calendar kicks our tucheses into higher gear and says, "it ain't over, we've only just begun!"  First, of course, we have Shabbat. The perfect chance to join with your Temple Emanu-El community and to bring along all those coats for Project Isaiah that you accidentally forgot to grab from your counter…again.   In addition to Shabbat, if you haven't started, now is the time to begin building your sukkah and to map out who is coming on which nights.   Sukkot begins on Monday evening at sundown.  Sukkot is a holiday categorized as: Z'man Simchateich, literally: the time of our joy, but more commonly understood as: Our time to rejoice!  From Deuteronomy** we are taught to hold the festival of Sukkot for seven days in honor of God. God will choose where we celebrate. God will bless our crops and our undertakings. Then, we will have nothing but joy.    Today, our … [Read more...]

On Saturday night we recognize the destruction of the First and Second Temples, with the holiday of Tisha B'Av, literally the 9th of the month of Av. Often not celebrated by the Reform Movement in decades past, recognizing Tisha B'Av has come to mean that we mourn not only the loss of the unification of the Jewish people in Jerusalem, but also many other dates throughout history in which calamities to the Jewish people occurred: King Edward I's edict, sending the Jews out of England, Expulsion from Spain in 1492, and the start of WWI in 1914.   When Israel became a State in 1948, there was talk of stopping the recognition of this holiday, with some believing her statehood meant a restoration of our biblical Holy Land. However, this opinion was in the minority and commemorations continued.  On the saddest day of the year, we are called to abstain from activities that bring us joy as we mourn not only destructions of generations, past, but of the suffering that continues in the world … [Read more...]

Holy One of Bright Colors, the red, the white, and the blue, may we be showered not only in light this 4th of July, but also with enlightenment.   May that enlightenment come in the form of seeking a collective betterment of our American society. On this holiday, though it is not a Holy Day, we celebrate the camaraderie of the delegates to the 13 original colonies. We pray that in modern times the power of these delegates to come together be reflected back to us.  Divine Creator, you taught us the holiness of words when you breathed the breath of life into the world. Today we long for words to be used for agreement, for the betterment of this world, for a common goal that benefits not only those with strength in step, but that serves the weak as well.  God of Song and Praise, we recall the writing of those longing words for America the Beautiful, "till all success be nobleness, and every gain divine."  An Alternative Prayer:  God of Celebration, may You protect all who engage in the … [Read more...]