Israel’s Election and The Courage to Be a Beginner
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Of course, not everyone who receives emails from a synagogue is necessarily interested in political developments in Israel. For some of us, our relationship to our Judaism or to synagogue life is primarily religious or spiritual in nature. For others, it may be social: we seek a place to celebrate Jewish holidays, […]
A Shared Sense of Responsibility
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Dear friends, On Wednesday I bore witness to mourning and remembrance of the horrific events of October 7, 2023, the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage, igniting a conflagration of war, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands more in […]
Sukkot and the Wildness We’ve Forgotten
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Dear friends, I hope you’ll join us Saturday night, October 3 for a rousing Simhat Torah! This is one of the high points of the Jewish year: dinner and drinks, festive dancing with the Torah scrolls, flags waving throughout the sanctuary by people of all ages — it is essentially the culmination […]
God Already Knows, Because God Has Regrets, Too
Yom Kippur 5787 by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar There is perhaps no verse more centrally cited in all of Torah than a verse that shows up in its very first chapter. וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ And God created humankind in the divine image, creating it — creating us — in the image of God. […]
They Have Not Come. They Might Never Come. But They Must Come.
Kol Nidrei 5787 by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar To be a Jew, tradition says, is to have a story. For generations, a singular story tied the Jewish people together. Maybe not always believed literally — religion and literalism rarely go hand in hand — but there was a shared story. This story, observes scholar Elliot Ginsburg, we […]