Tag: Shavuot
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The Spirituality of Volcanoes
This posting was originally posed on the Rabbis Without Borders blog on My Jewish Learning. You can read the original here. While perhaps we are more familiar with the destructive nature of earthquakes and hurricanes and tornados, since they occur more frequently and make the national news more often, I have come to understand the…
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Don’t Just Mark the Jewish Holidays, Mark the Jewish Intervals
This post originally ran on the Rabbis Without Borders blog. You can read the original here. The Jewish calendar is a bit interesting since we also live on Gregorian time. The fact that it is a lunar-based calendar means that every year the Hebrew dates shift vis-a-vis the “regular calendar” so that certain holidays, while…
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Counting Cards
In the Jewish calendar we are currently in the period of the Omer. Originally, in the Torah, the Omer is a means to mark harvests. An omer is a sheaf of barley, and we are told to count the days between the festivals of Passover and Sukkot, to count the time between harvest seasons. As…
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Collaboration + Compassion = Wisdom
Earlier this past week I was back east to attend the board meeting of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, my professional organization. I serve as the 1st Vice President, having been elected to that position by my peers this past March after serving a few years on the Board in other capacities. We meet in Philadelphia…
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Over the Hump
Today is the minor holiday of Lag B’Omer, the 33rd Day of the Omer, the seven week period that spans the weeks between Passover and Shavuot. There are a few associations for this holiday. One is that it is the traditional yahrtzeit of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a Talmudic rabbi known for his deep knowledge…
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Shavuot: Learn, Teach, Read Ruth, Plant, Eat Fruit, Eat Dairy, Commit
Poor Shavuot. In our Jewish calendar, we have minor holidays that get the major holiday treatment. Hanukkah, for example. It is not a biblical holiday, it does not strike major theological notes, yet since it falls in the winter around Christmastime, it tends to get much attention and observance. Then we have major holidays that…
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Atlas
This year I spent a very non-traditional Shavuot on the road, driving north on U.S. Highway 93 from Las Vegas to Wells, Nevada, a drive of almost 400 miles. When we planned this trip, we knew it would take us over the holiday. We were in Vegas at the time visiting family, and although we…
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Mountains and Canyons
There is one blessing I have been saying a lot this trip: Baruch atah Adonai eloheynu melech haolam oseh ma’aseh bereshit Blessed are you, Adonai our God, sovereign of all time and space, who creates the works of Creation. It is the blessing our tradition teaches we say whenever one sees an object of natural…
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