Balancing Acts
A common complaint of the unaffiliated Jew is having to buy tickets for the High Holy Days services they choose to attend.
A common complaint of the unaffiliated Jew is having to buy tickets for the High Holy Days services they choose to attend.
Every year, amidst the cooking and the planning and the cleaning, we prepare for the many traditions associated with Rosh Hashanah. Each autumn we eat round challot, listen to the shofar and serve apples.
Have you ever really studied Torah? Really studying means you take one verse, one legal phrase, even one word, and look up every commentary on it, and then the commentaries on the commentaries, and then you and the medieval and contemporary sages work together to dissect and extrapolate and interpolate until that one word yields a bounty of wisdom that leads to a stunning insight that gives you a spiritual boost like no other.
All evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale\’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down. – \”Moby Dick\”
Kevin Macdonald never expected his documentary \”One Day in September\” to win the 2000 Academy Award. Wim Wenders\’ \”Buena Vista Social Club\” was the docu favorite, while \”September\” already had raised eyebrows.
One of the most prolific playwrights in America and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Richard Greenberg is produced quite often in Southern California, with his plays regularly presented at the South Coast Rep.
If ever there was any doubt that Jewish music is a universal language, these records put it to rest.
When I was a child, too young to understand the difference between the Days of Awe and the Day of Atonement, my only clue that the High Holidays were coming were the religious smells wafting out of our kitchen.
At our home we greet our family and friends with apple slices, fresh challah, and a bowl of honey, and we always end the meal with an apple dessert.
The following outlines some of the fundamental flaws in the L.A. Jewish Population Survey of 1997 not reported by other respondents.