The Golden Calf: From What Are We Distracting Ourselves?
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Dear Friends, This past week at our Shabbat morning Torah discussion, which falls midway through the service for about half an hour each week at approximately 10:30 am, we discussed that it was Shabbat Parah—the special Shabbat in advance of Pesach (Passover), which, in ancient times, reminded Israelites getting ready for their […]
Moses’ Stammering Voice: A Jewish Paradigm for Disability
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar I wanted to begin by offering the D’var Torah I shared this past Friday night—something I offer every week at our musical Friday night Shabbat services from 6-7:15 followed by dinner in our social hall. This past week it was in the context of our participation in Jewish Disability Awareness & […]
Building the Mishkan: Ongoing Efforts to Strengthen and Grow Our Community
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Continuing the theme of my past Kesher articles, our ongoing efforts, as this headline says, to strengthen and grow this community, I wanted to share updates on our latests priorities and efforts to address them: *** As I’ve suggested in the past, I look to use the Kesher article space as […]
Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat of Remembrance: Reflections on a Challenging New Year in Israel
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This Shabbat is a special Shabbat known as Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat of memory. Now, that can encompass many features of Jewish, and human, existence, but Shabbat Zachor, at least on the face of it, refers to a very specific, and somewhat challenging, memory. It comes from a few verses in the Book […]