Vayikra’s Divine Mystery
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar As we get ready for our Pesah S’darim, our Passover Seders, I’m writing to share the D’var Torah I delivered last week on the range of different ways that Torah conceives of God. In the meantime, I wish you a Hag Pesah Same’ah: May you experience the reminder that we have […]
“Your People Are My People”
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar I’m writing to share the D’var Torah I delivered this past Friday night when we hosted our Scholar-in-Residence, Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, who offered incredible teachings Friday and Saturday. I gave our scholar-in-residence this Shabbat carte blanche to select a topic to teach about, a right she has earned both by […]
Debbie Jaffe
Debbie (she/her) has been the B’nei Mitzvah tutor at Society Hill Synagogue since 2017, but she has been teaching kids how to read Torah since she was 15 years old. She has mentored hundreds of students for their B’nei Mitzvah services in Philadelphia, New York, and Los Angeles since 2000. Debbie received her B.A. from […]
Shabbat of… the Cow?
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar I’m writing to share with you the teaching I delivered this past Shabbat, a Shabbat which called upon us to begin spiritually opening ourselves in preparation for the Pesah (Passover) holiday: There are nine special Shabbatot, special Sabbaths, sprinkled throughout the Jewish year that receive their own name because of special […]
A Five-Year-Old’s Friend, Ukraine, and Our Extra Shabbat Souls
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Dear friends, I’ve been sitting for a while with the events of the last week — the confirmation of the deaths of hostages: the Bibas children, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, ages four years and nine months when kidnapped; and their mother, Shiri; alongside peace activist Oded Lifshitz — may their memories […]