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June 16, 2017

7 Haiku for Parsha Shelach by Rick Lupert

7 haiku for parsha Shelach (it’s our own personal fringe festival) by Rick Lupert

I
Spy instructions: Check
out the land we may invade –
Also, bring back fruit

II
Any excuse to
go back to Egypt – Life was
hard but familiar

III
Once again God is
talked out of killing us all
by a mere human

IV
Seize the day or you
could end up wandering the
desert forty years

V
A recipe to
serve bull to God is
here if you need it

VI
Even the Lord likes
the smell of homemade bread as
much as the next guy

VII
These hanging fringes
keep the light of the righteous
always by my side


Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created a the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 20 collections of poetry, including “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “Donut Famine” (Rothco Press, December 2016) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.

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Rosner’s Torah Talk: Parashat Shelach with Rabbi Marci Bellows

Our guest this week is Rabbi Marci Bellows, leader of Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek in Chester, CT. Rabbi Bellows earned a B.A. in Psychology from Brandeis University, and she received a Masters in Hebrew Literature and her ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Prior to her current position, Rabbi Bellows worked as both Adult Program Director and as Assistant Rabbi at Temple Shaaray Tefila in New York, NY, and, most recently, she served as the spiritual leader at Temple B’nai Torah in Wantagh, NY from 2009-2016. Rabbi Bellows wrote the popular feature column, “Reform, Really,” on The Jewish Week’s website, was a recurring guest on The Jewish Channel’s “Rabbis Roundtable” television program, and was named one of the top “Jews on Twitter” by The Huffington Post.

This week’s Torah Portion – Parashat Shelach (Numbers 13:1- 15:41) – features the famous story of the twelve spies sent to examine the land of Canaan. It tells about how the people of Israel cry and grumble against Moses and Aaron, asking to go back to Egypt, and about God’s declaration that they will spend 40 years in the wilderness. The parasha ends with a set of commandments concerning offerings to God and with a curious story about a man who is stoned for picking up sticks on Shabbat. Our discussion focuses on the fears facing the spies and on what we can learn from this episode as we face our own fears of the unknown.

https://youtu.be/9tonXMHIalw

 

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