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What's Happening in the Torah? Rosh HaShanah Activities for Families
Learn how you and your family can pursue social justice during the Jewish high holidays.
A Rosh HaShanah Family Activity: Make Your Own Bee Hotels
In this activity, we use a recycled toilet paper roll to make a home for bees.
What Goes on the Rosh HaShanah Seder Plate?
When we think of a seder, most of us probably think of Passover. We often associate the seder with the Haggadah, a festive ( chametz-free) dinner, and the ornate seder plate assorted with symbolic foods. However, Passover isn’t the only time of the Jewish year in which we can have a seder.
First (Probably) Annual Rosh HaShanah Sermon Round-Up
What did Reform rabbis talk to their congregations about this Rosh HaShanah? Based on my totally non-scientific survey, Israel was far and away the most popular topic.
Pursuing Social Justice: Yom Kippur Activities for Families
Learn how you and your family can pursue social justice during the Jewish high holidays.
Creating New Rituals and Tradition for the School Year and the New Year
For children, traditions and rituals are significant; they provide predictability, support, and familiarity, while bringing families together and creating unity and a sense of belonging.
How Legos Turned Into a New Jewish Tradition for My Family
I consider myself a dedicated yet anxious Jewish mom. I’m dedicated because I would like my children to have a Jewish upbringing that connects them to our collective stories, history, and values – and I’m anxious because I’m never quite sure whether I’m accomplishing that goal.
Twenty Becomes One: Seeing Our Congregations as Family, Especially During Hardship
In the fall of 2008, I was the executive director of a 1,000-household synagogue. We had recently finished a major sanctuary renovation, and our membership numbers were on an encouraging upward trend. Our finances were sound, and we had big plans for the year ahead. The new president of our board was writing her first Yom Kippur appeal as I was busily taking care of the last details of our High Holiday preparation.
Then, two weeks before Rosh HaShanah, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, after which the bank loan market crashed. Banks large and small suffered huge losses, and during the first week of October, the stock market experienced a sharp downward spiral. That week was was Kol Nidre, and our president ascended the bimah (pulpit) to deliver an appeal for donations on the very day on which many in our congregation had lost a significant amount of money – money they were counting on for homes, for retirement, for food.
The president delivered a masterful appeal that evening, and even on that worst of economic days, we collected Yom Kippur appeal monies in excess of what we had collected the previous year. The next day, on Yom Kippur, the stock market fell 700 points, sending the entire country into a recession that, some would argue, continues to this day.
Galilee Diary: Gedaliah
by Marc Rosenstein
(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Galilee Diary)