From Our Rabbis

We’ve Got This

By Rabbi Betsy Forester

Every year at this time, we examine how we lived over the past year and bring to mind where we fell short of our best intentions--where we missed the mark. The High Holy Days offer an opportunity to unpack those experiences and seek their source. Why did we do what w…

Doing Teshuvah in Times of Uncertainty

By Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman

It’s been a difficult month. The joy of summer in Madison – with high vaccination rates and low COVID cases – diminished for many of us as the Delta variant emerged. We wonder whether we should go back to work. We wonder how safe our unvaccinated children wil…

Shavuot - Our Wedding Anniversary with G-d

By Rabbi Avremel Matusof

Just like that, another week has passed by.

Of course, that’s not completely accurate. We celebrated Shavuot on Monday and Tuesday. But, as festivals go, it is so short and quick.

It’s not just how short the festival is. There is nothing dramatic to commemorat…

The People of the Book

By Rabbi Mendel Matusof

This Shavuot gets a quadruple three: 3,333 years of Torah. That's 3,333 years since we stood together as a single nation at Mount Sinai, trembling in awe as we accepted the entire Torah for all generations. 

There has been so much ink spilled discussing Jewish peop…

Striving for Holiness

By Rabbi Jonathan Biatch

There is one theme that stands out in the book of Leviticus, that we will soon conclude, and it is the ideal of perfection.

That heart-attack-causing demon that many of us pursue, each of us in our own ways; that unattainable goal that our parents voicelessly but u…