Blog

We held our first in-person services this past Shabbat, and while I did not have any trepidation about holding a service unmasked with other inoculated people who were also unmasked, I was not sure how people would respond to the opportunity to meet in person. Would fear keep people away? Would the fact that we have not met in person for sixteen months have made religious services superfluous? Is...Read more...

Permit me to tell you about an amazing group of colleagues that I am very fond of – Cantors. This week I have been attending a virtual conference, which is difficult under any set of circumstances, but even more difficult when your colleagues live around the world. What should be the starting time for an event? If we regularly hold evening concerts at 7:00PM, does that not exclude Israeli...Read more...

All of us have subscriptions and contracts that have annual renewal dates. Whether it is insurance policies, vehicle registrations, credit cards, or media, much of what we engage in has an annual renewal date, and most likely an increase in the rate charged. We can lament all we want about the continued increase in costs for these items, as their percent increases are generally not...Read more...

We read the following in Genesis 1:28: God blessed them [Adam and Eve] and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on the earth.”  God then makes provisions to sustain all life on the planet, and at the conclusion of Chapter 1, God found all that God had made to...Read more...

In 1949 and 1950, Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, was observed on the same day as its’ Independence Day. Families of the fallen soldiers expressed concern to then Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who was also Minister of Defense, that the celebratory nature of Independence Day minimized the solemnity of remembrance. In January 1951, Ben-Gurion established the “Public Council for...Read more...