Search

One of the privileges and responsibilities that I have as a congregational professional is serving on the faculty of the Union for Reform Judaism's summer camps.

I hate camping. The thought of sleeping on the hard ground among the bugs makes my skin crawl.

The home-repair season is drawing to a close in my part of the country, and I still have not fixed my roof. That omission weighs on me. I want to protect my household and my house; I think each of us does. So we build our roofs and our walls and try to live safely. But Rav Kook is right: That is not enough. Destruction can still come, whether by flood or by poverty or by airplane. Sukkot reminds us of the vulnerability with which we live.

It was a quiet Jerusalem day at the Wall, one of those brutally hot June afternoons with the sun beating down on the sandy hues of Jerusalem stone. The day seemed familiar yet something was different.

This Shabbat is known as Chol HaMo-eid Sukkot. The very description is curious. Sukkot is a holiday that lasts for seven days.

Focal Point

• What has been will be, what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.

Focal Point

Adonai said to Moses: "Carve two tablets of stone like the first, and I will inscribe upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered." (Exodus 34:1)