Rabbi 360

In response to all that was happening this summer, I was inspired to engage with the words from Isaiah that we read on Yom Kippur in a new and deep way. This is the result, and the video above is what we showed as part of our Yom Kippur service at Temple Beth Hatfiloh. Say…

In March of 1964, in Kew Gardens, Queens in New York City, a 28-year-old woman named Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered outside her apartment. She had returned in the early morning hours to her home after leaving the bar where she worked, and parked her car as she usually did in the Kew Gardens…

The sound of the shofar is such a visceral, ancient sound. When we blow the actual horn of an animal on Rosh Hashanah, it stirs in each of us a unique feeling. The shofar is simultaneously a wake up call, an alarm, a call to assembly, a call to action, and an announcement. This year,…

I know we complain that 2020 can not be over soon enough, but look on the bright side, 5780 is over tonight. It has been a most difficult year. And while gathering like this, virtually, remotely, is a reminder that the difficulty is still with us, we can take comfort and draw strength from the…

I usually like to enter the new year slowly, having enough time to collect my thoughts and intentions. I would have been planning for weeks, though our community has developed its own sweet minhag and customs, and so that very often means planning is smooth. This year is, of course, different. We have had to…

I, like you, am struggling during these times. For me, my number one symptom in response to the pandemic and the disruption it has brought has been my time management. Since this pandemic began, time has become completely upended. School schedules changed, work schedules changed, family routines turned around. Our older son who had moved…

Last week, on the 17th of Tammuz, I was listening to a report on NPR about the (then) potential name change of the Washington DC professional football team. For its entire history, the team carried a nickname that was a derogatory term for Native Americans, and Monday the team announced they would retire that name…

The other day I was driving from the westside to the eastside through downtown Olympia and I just couldn’t believe we had gotten to this point. Everyone who was out, casually going about their day, was wearing a mask, keeping their distance from other people, and walking passed closed and boarded up businesses. It’s not…

Throughout the 40-year journey of the Israelites to the Promised Land, the Torah teaches, the former slaves learn what it is to become a nation. In the book of Numbers, which we are reading as part of our annual Torah reading cycle, the Israelites time and time again test Moses and God as they journey…