\”My sense is that people gathering in synagogue for all or part of the night is expanding,\” said Rabbi Mark Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. \”A lot of great learning takes place in the Los Angeles Jewish community on Shavuot.\”
What prompted Agnon, a master of original writing, to create an anthology of rabbinic texts relating to Shavuot? As an author with a deep connection to his religious roots, Agnon related to the experience of Shavuot, a celebration of the centrality of books in Judaism.
It is late in the game for Pharaoh. Mitzrayim has just endured the penultimate plague: Dark. Pharaoh now knows he has little time left: It is, for him, the bottom of the ninth.
He summons Moshe, as he has done so many times before, and for the first time conducts an earnest negotiation. The king of Egypt now concedes the demand Moshe had made earlier — everyone may go, even the women and children. Only, says the Pharaoh, you must leave your cattle behind. Moshe declines the offer, and ups the ante. Not only are we going to take our cattle with us, he insists, but you must supplement the herd with some of your own.
In the course of a lifetime, we encounter any number of friends.
Some are friends by happenstance — friends who happen to attend school with us, happen to work where we do or reside near us. When we graduate from school, change careers or relocate, most such friends slowly disappear from our lives — and we from theirs.
Moshe was one of a kind. \”None ever rose again like Moshe.\” At the same time, in very powerful ways, Moshe and Miriam were two of a kind. Their personalities and passions overlapped generously. And despite being separated over decades during Moshe\’s extended sojourn in Midian, their destinies and their souls remained intertwined. When one of them left this world, the other descended into grief-stricken crisis.
Briefs
Briefs
The retirement of Rabbi Moshe Rothblum after 35 years on the bimah at Adat Ari El.
\”There\’s a challenge for Reform Jews around the observance of Tisha B\’Av, and communities make all kinds of choices,\” said Rabbi Sue Ann Wasserman, the Union for Reform Judaism\’s director of worship, music and religious living.
Last week\’s portion ends with a ferocious battle; this week\’s begins with the after action report and the distributing of medals. We learn the names of those killed
and those rewarded and then all the troops are mustered and counted, to see who remains alive from the fighting.
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