From Our Rabbis

Celebrating Lag BaOmer: Striving for Respectful Love Amongst Us

By Rabbi Mendel Matusof

Tuesday, May 12 (erev begins the evening of Monday, May 11), we will be celebrating the Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer. Lag BaOmer is the day Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai passed away in the second century CE. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was the first to publicly teach the myst…

Grief and the Pandemic

By Rabbi Renée Bauer

As we begin the sixth week of the “Safer at Home” order from the governor and at least that long living with social distancing protocols, we are feeling the effects of this global crisis. Among the many responses we are feeling, we are grieving. While, tragically, …

There is a Crack in Everything. That’s How the Light Gets In

By Rabbi Andrea Steinberger

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in…

Leonard Cohen, the singer and songwriter who died in 2016, wrote these words. He didn’t often talk about his songs and what they mean…

Resisting Despair: Marking Time In-Between Passover and Shavuot

By Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman

Like most of us, I had never attended a Zoom seder before this year. It was a decidedly mixed experience. While I usually participate in or lead two seders a year, this year that number climbed to five. I had much to be thankful for. Zoom allowed me to celebrate wi…

Humility at a Time of the Coronavirus

By Rabbi Jonathan Biatch

The other morning, I bought coffee at a local store owned by a Muslim friend of mine, and while schmoozing with him – if that is what Muslims and Jews do together – another member of his mosque entered his small franchise and the three of us – mindful, of cour…