Marc Cohen’s Zikronot
The Jewish New Year is referred to as the Day of Remembrance!But in the year 2025 / 5786, memory has become overrated — maybe even useless. For example, we do not need to remember our way home; we can just ask Waze or Google Maps. When I asked one of my patients what his wife’s […]
Moments of Clarity: Connecting With the Divine
Rosh Hashanah 5786 by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar In the course of my prayers these days, I do a lot of just sitting and listening: sitting and letting my heart, my spirit, wander, seeing what comes. Recently, what has come to me was a leadership course I took in rabbinical school during which we were asked […]
Tova Stifano’s Shofarot
There is nothing quite like the sound of the shofar after the moments of silence that are broken immediately preceding the call for its blowing. It is hard not to be moved and respond physically and emotionally to the soul-stirring sounds of the shofar. The long, unbroken sound of Tekiah rouses us from our day-to-day […]
Commemorating The Cycle of Life
Erev Rosh Hashanah 5786 by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This is a special moment. We’re welcoming in Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. It’s a moment of beginnings, of the conclusion of one cycle and the beginning of the next. The earth continues its revolution around the sun, as the moon, relevant to how Jews have marked […]
The Heart As Agent For The Divine
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar In a few moments, we’re going to sing the beautiful words and haunting melody of Ahat Sha’alti from Psalm 27, a psalm which tradition teaches that we chant every morning and every night from the beginning of the month of Elul, the last month of the Jewish year, through Rosh Hashanah […]