Yom Kippur Blessings: For Starting Observance of the Day
On Yom Kippur, we share a holiday meal called seudat mafseket, the concluding meal before the fast begins. We begin the meal with haMotzi, the blessing over the challah
Yom Kippur Worship Services: Haftarah Blessings
The blessing after the reading of haftarah always sanctifies the day on which it is read. Throughout most of the year, that day is Shabbat, but haftarah is also read on the High Holidays.
Reform Jewish Leader Addresses Senate Press Conference on SCHIP
Namath: I ask you to join me in making a new year’s resolution. Let us resolve to do better for 10 million of our children. Let us provide them with the health care they deserve by covering them through SCHIP.
The Shofar Blasts as a Metaphor for Life
If, as the Talmud tells us, the blasts of the shofar are meant to remind us of crying, (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 33A – specifically of Sisera’s mother – but that is another subject!), then I would offer the following.
Pipitada (Melon-Seed Drink)
Rethinking the Holy Days
I’ve come to the conclusion we need to change the date of Simchat Torah. Our Jewish festivals must be re-envisioned as inspirational community gatherings of joyful spiritual Jewish celebration. Every single festival needs to be a time of great community involvement and meaning.
Galilee Diary: Non-collective memory
In recent decades, trips to Poland for 11th graders have become de rigueur in high schools in middle class communities.
Book Discussion: Day After Night
The English essayist and poet Alexander Pope wrote, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast..." That adage is challenged by the four protagonists in Anita Diamant's book, Day After Night.
Galilee Diary: Uncertainty
by Marc Rosenstein
(Originally published in Galilee Diary and Ten Minutes of Torah)