Responding to today’s news about the passing of comedy legend Sid Caesar, Los Angeles community members praised the veteran comic’s ability to win over an audience.
“The epicenter of the earthquake was under our kitchen. The house jumped 10 feet in the air, and my wife and I woke to the beautiful view of the San Fernando Valley,” Rabbi Ed Feinstein, 59, senior rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, recalled with dry humor.
For the High Holy Days this year, the Jewish Journal invited three rabbis — Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple, Rabbi Laura Geller of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills and Rabbi Ed Feinstein of Valley Beth Shalom — to respond to a series of questions related to teshuvah, the task of making amends during the High Holy Days.
\’There are no villains in this story.” Those were the calming words of Natan Sharansky, renowned human rights champion and Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel.
On May 11, Rabbi Ed Feinstein, senior rabbi at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, will be feted for his two decades of service to the synagogue. He talks in this edited version of an interview about changes in synagogue life, his theology and what he prays for.
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the podium at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., on March 5, it became clear why more than 13,000 Americans…
One evening last February, 1,500 people poured into the vast sanctuary of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, filling every inch.
We\’ve come to expect that anything authentically Jewish must be hard, painful, difficult. No chrain, no gain.
Each morning and each evening, the people of the daily minyan gather to recite the obligatory prayers. It isn\’t exciting. The melodies aren\’t particularly uplifting. Sometimes there is a word of learning, but no sermon; none of the flourishes, trappings and trimmings of professional homiletics.
It is the Torah\’s most exciting, most cinematic story. The Israelites, newly freed from slavery, were camped at the shores of the sea when suddenly the sounds Pharaoh\’s approaching chariots filled the air. Realizing they were trapped, the ex-slaves cried bitterly to Moses, \”Were there too few graves in Egypt, that you brought us to die here?\” (Exodus 14:11) Moses prayed for deliverance, and was commanded: \”Tell the Israelites to go forward. And you lift up the rod and hold out your arm over the sea and split it.\” (Exodus 14:15-16)
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.