The Relationship Between Prayer and Your Imagination
When the words of liturgy are taken too literally, the sacred power of prayer is often lost. In his latest book, Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman offers a way worshipers can transcend the limitations imposed by language.
What Does Eliijah Have to Do with Blowing the Shofar on Yom Kippur?
It is for good reason that Jews close Yom Kippur — just before the blowing of the shofar — with the triumphant cry from the wonderful passage (First Kings, Chapter 19) in which Elijah vanquishes the prophets
The Undesired Fast
For many Jews, the Yom Kippur fast is one of the hardest and most meaningful Jewish acts they will perform during the year.
Kvetch or Kvell? The Post Yom Kippur Conundrum
Yom Kippur has concluded. The break-the-fast has been consumed, and the prayers about becoming the person we could be are now a memory.
What Happens After the High Holidays?
The hard work is behind us.
We prayed, chanted, cried, healed, remembered, re-aimed our arrows of good intentions toward the target of new priorities, and reflected on trying not to deflect.
We focused.
Why The Man Who Coined the Term “Genocide” Is Turning in His Grave
Genocide has been in the news lately. On March 17th, Secretary of State John Kerry declared, “In my judgment, Daesh (ISIS) is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims.” But unless the world’s most powerful nation fulfills its legal and moral obligation under the Genocide Convention, thousands more men, women, and children will fall victim to the crime that once had no name.
Lessons of Nuremberg: Stand Up to Hate and Remember Its Victims
Yom Hashoah arrives this year on the eve of two historic anniversaries: the 80th anniversary of the coming into effect of the Nuremberg Race Laws, which served as prologue and precursor to the Holocaust, and the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, which served as the foundation for the development of contemporary international human rights and humanitarian law. We must ask ourselves two questions: What have we learned? What must we do?
Holocaust Memorial Day: Pink Triangles, Yellow Stars, and Hateful Laws
A less well-known part of the Holocaust is that the Nazis also rounded up gays and lesbians, forcing them to wear pink triangles on their clothes so they could be easily recognized and further humiliated inside the concentration camps.
Being Jewish in Indonesia
The way that Reform Judaism has taken the texts of our tradition, with the traumas of our past, to create a transformative responsibility to pursue social justice is a point of pride for me in my Jewish identity. So, when I was asked not to mention that I a
Remembering Holocaust Victims and Heroes with Music
In North America, Holocaust remembrance services and programs often include special musical selections in memory of people lost during the war and in honor of those who fought against the Nazis. Such music is profound and varied, and often was used as a vehicle of resistance. For example, “Zogt Nit Keynmol” (“Never Say That You Have Reached the Final Road”) was written in April 1943 in reaction to news of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Composed in Vilna by underground fighter Hirsh Glick and set to a Soviet cinema tune by Dmitri and Daniel Pokrass, the song spread like wildfire throughout Eastern Europe, becoming the official hymn of the partisan brigades.