Yom HaAtzmaut Will Make You Believe in Miracles
After Yom HaZikaron, we make the heart-wrenching, 180-degree transition from deep mourning to joyous celebration of the miraculous feat of independence.
Yom HaZikaron: A Day of Pause and Reflection
Starting in the evening on Tuesday, May 10, Israelis and supporters of Israel around the world will mark Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Remembrance for Israeli fallen soldiers and victims of terror.
The Sound of Shofar: Leading Us to Revelation and Freedom
Count off seven sabbath years — seven times seven years — so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. (Leviticus 25:8-10)
In this week's portion, the Jubilee year is established. Called yovel, our parashah explains how every forty-nine years — seven weeks of seven years — in the seventh month, on Yom Kippur, the shofar of freedom is to be sounded throughout the land for all its inhabitants. This iconic verse to proclaim freedom throughout the land is inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.
Comedy Helped My Catholic Family Embrace its Jewish Secret
I was born in 1961, baptized, confirmed and given First Communion. But when I was 9, my father began telling me bedtime stories about his narrow escape from the Nazis in Vienna, his entire family murdered – how my maternal grandmother was assassinated in my mother’s childhood home in Bremen, Germany, on Kristallnacht and how, by a miracle, my mother survived.
Connected at the Core: Remembering and Celebrating in Israel
Growing up in Israel, I took part in my school’s Yom HaZikaron (Israeli Memorial Day) memorial ceremony every year, commemorating Israel’s fallen soldiers and terror victims. It was always sad and always painful, though I experienced it differently each time.
The Sound of Silence: My Musical Mode for Victoria Day
The relationship between music and time has always played an integral role in my life. As a cantor, I chant particular nusachaot (traditional musical modes) to alert the community to specific times in the calendar. The melodies tell my congregation not only the time of year, but also the time of day. For example, the nusach of this niggun (wordless melody) foreshadows the High Holidays just as the chromatic, haunting tones of Kol Nidre usher in Yom Kippur.
It's New Board Season! Are You Ready?
Let the Union for Reform Judaism help you maximize the full potential of your entire board by getting them in The Tent, the communication and collaboration platform for Reform Movement leaders.
Teaching Children about Respect (Kavod)
How to Raise Spiritually Healthy Jewish Kids
In Jewish Spiritual Parenting: Wisdom, Activities, Rituals and Prayers for Raising Children with Spiritual Balance and Emotional Wholeness (Jewish Lights), husband and wife team Rabbi Paul Kipnes and Michelle November, MSSW, draw on Jewish ethical and mystical teachings as well as their own experiences as parents of three children – Rachel, Daniel, and Noah – in creating a valuable resource that is intentional, inclusive, and well attuned to the realities of Jewish life today.
Is Time Ours or Is It God's?
In Parashat Emor, the verses in Leviticus 23:1-44 name and describe the sacred times of the Jewish calendar: Shabbat, Rosh HaShanah, Yom Kippur, and the Pilgrimage Festivals of Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. Time becomes a holy thing, and the "normalcy" of time — of one day being no different than any other — is forever differentiated by the weekly Sabbath and by these special festive days.