Category
Judaism
Torah Portion
You know me, Rabbi. You know how important thesynagogue is to me, how much I enjoy services; you see me at yourTorah classes. You know what kind of Jew I am: I am the only one atthe family seder table who can read the Hebrew side of the Haggadah,but they won\’t accept me, because I wasn\’t born Jewish!\”
Every rabbi has heard these painfultestimonies.
Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz
For their free tickets, worshipers also get a Rosh Hashanah eve \”Schmooze and Cruise Singles Party,\” a study session for women only, by the rabbi\’s wife, Olivia, and songs by the Schwartz Family Tabernacle Choir, consisting of the couple\’s seven sons.
Songs
One of my favorite things to do is write children\’s songs. Over the years, I have written lots of innocuous little ditties for kids as a way of teaching them about Jewish holidays and rituals, ethics and values, and how to treat families and friends.
In Times of Sorrow
\”I am sure,\” said Sinai Temple\’s Rabbi DavidWolpe in his Rosh Hashanah sermon, \”that in almost every pulpit inAmerica from whatever denomination rabbis are speaking about theterrible strife we are enduring — Jew against Jew, as well as Jewagainst Arab — in the Land of Israel.\”
The Dirty Little Secret of the Pluralism Debate
Israel does not actually prevent Conservative or Reform rabbis from convertingnon-Jews to Judaism. It simply doesn\’t recognize those conversions –not for citizenship, not for marriage, not even burial near one\’sfamily.
Torah Portion
Did the first people to read the Bible know they were reading \”The Bible\”? And if not, what was it they thought they were reading?
Accepting Judaism as a Privilege
One Sunday morning, many years ago, as parents came to pick up their kids from the Hebrew school where I taught, I overheard a conversation. \”How was class?\” A father asked his son.The child began to whine. \”I hate Hebrew school,\” he said. \”It\’s boring and stupid, the teachers are mean, and the kids aren\’t nice. I don\’t want to go any more.\” The father stopped, turned to the kid,and said: \”Listen, when I was your age, I went to Hebrew school and I hated it. It was boring, the teachers were mean, the kids weren\’t nice, but they made me go, and, now, you\’re going to go too!\”
What a tragedy.
Holidays
By 1965, I was a well-established suburbanite living in Springfield, whose Jewish community included both a Reform and Conservative congregation. My personal affiliation was with Temple Beth Ahm, the Conservative synagogue, but one of the people in the community whom I liked very much was Israel Dresner, the rabbi of the Reform temple, Sha\’arey Shalom.
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