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 […]
Three Steps Forward
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar I’d like to share the D’var Torah (teaching of Torah) I delivered this past Friday night, on the eve of celebrating a young person in our community, Isaac Hohns, becoming Bar Mitzvah: People like to talk about the experience of playing Jewish geography — seeing whether someone Jewish whom you’ve just […]
Syd Bladen
Sydney (she/her) is a recent graduate of Temple University’s Theater and Secondary Education program and attended our Ann Spak Thal Hebrew School through 6th grade, when her family moved to Indiana. Passionate about all things Judaism and a self-proclaimed book nerd, Syd loves spending free time baking, reading, rock climbing, and writing.