What does Judaism say about the afterlife?
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar I am so glad we were able to have a scholar-in-residence last Shabbat on the topic of Jewish beliefs in the afterlife. Here is what I shared on Friday night to help frame our learning: This need sparked for me at a funeral I officiated for a congregant’s elderly father a […]
Welcoming Guests, Welcoming Ourselves
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This past Shabbat, we celebrated all the new members who have joined this community in the last year or so. In honor of our growth as a community, I offered the following teaching on what it means to make ourselves—all of us—feel more at home in this congregation, and […]
Building New Worlds with our Torah
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar One of the core features of the Bar Mitzvah is when a student offers his own teaching, his own D’var Torah—words of Torah reflecting his interpretation of his Torah portion after a period of wrestling with it. As Rabbis Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman put it, “This is the core of […]
Finding God in Alienation
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Dear Friends, About a month after October 7, my wife Caroline, stretching to find something with which to introduce the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and, more precisely, a pathway through it to a better future — to our daughters Lila, 4 (and a half, she would want me to say), and Nina, […]
Thank you, and upcoming events
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Dear Friends, I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you so much for your collective response to our call for contributions at the end of the year to help us meet this community’s needs. We exceeded our ambitious goal of $45,000 and it makes such a difference in our […]