What's Happening in the Torah? Rosh HaShanah Activities for Families
Torah Readings for Rosh Hashanah
The Torah and Haftarah readings for Rosh Hashanah all connect with, and illustrate, one or another of the themes of the holiday. I use the plural advisedly here, because there have been a variety of readings from early on-long before the onset of modernity and the Reform movement.
Mishkan HaNefesh, Rosh HaShanah Morning and Torah Reading Options
The most traditional texts for the Torah reading on Rosh HaShanah morning are Genesis 21 and Genesis 22. In many congregations that observe two days of the holiday, it is most customary to read 21 on the first day and 22 on the second day. Genesis 21 begins with the notion that God remembered our matriarch Sarah and enabled her to have a child. The idea of remembering is tied to a name of Rosh HaShanah in the Bible: the Day of Remembrance. This is the lesson: God remembers us as God remembers Sarah. To paraphrase a very different cultural artifact: “God knows when we have been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.
Pursuing Social Justice: Yom Kippur Activities for Families
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.
Beyond Apples and Honey
Who Should Teach About Hanukkah and What Should They Be Teaching?
Now that my daughter is in preschool, I've come to realize that hearing about cultural and religious practices directly from the practitioners only emphasizes our otherness.
Torah Cantillation for the High Holy Days
There are many elements which make the High Holy Days a unique experience. Often, congregations swell to double or triple their usual size, the musical settings of even common liturgy are different, and some might alter their dress by wearing either traditionally all-white garments or more formal wear than they would sport on Shabbat. Some congregations even have unique garments to dress their Torah scrolls in white.
What It Means to Have a Rare Disease in the Family
My faith in God has never been more important to me than in the last two-plus years – ever since my son became extremely ill during his freshman year of high school.