Cries for Help Can Help: How We Shape Our Vessels
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This week’s parasha [Torah portion], is shemot, the first portion of the Book of Exodus. The book begins by letting us know that the individual family with whom we became deeply acquainted in the Book of Bereshit, the Book of Genesis, has now blossomed into a people, an am, a nation, albeit one that finds itself in […]
Nose to the Grindstone/Head to the Stars • the Love of Grandparents
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This week’s parasha is vayehi. “He lived.” Jacob lived seventeen years in the land of Egypt, the Torah portion tells us, after he had migrated there with the rest of his family to be reunited with Joseph—Joseph the eldest son of Jacob’s beloved late wife Rachel, Joseph whom Jacob thought had been killed many […]
Shame as a vessel for transformation?
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar At this past week’s Torah discussion, we discussed a heavy topic: shame. It came up in the context of the week’s parashah (Torah portion), Vayigash, meaning, “he approached.” The older brother Judah approached the younger brother Joseph, decades after Joseph’s older brother’s had sold him to a wandering caravan of traders descending […]
Wrestling with Where We Come From
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This past Shabbat on Zoom — an experience we will have one more time this coming Shabbat to give our staff time off during this holiday season; I hope you’ll join us — we studied Parashat Miketz, the portion of the Book of Bereshit (Genesis) known as Miketz, which means “at […]
The Source of Gift-Giving on Hanukkah
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar We are so grateful to so many of you who have answered the call to give financial support to your synagogue community during this season of giving, the Festival of Lights: Hanukkah. There is speculation about the proliferation of the tradition of giving Hanukkah gelt. The now-ubiquitous chocolate coins did indeed stem from a longstanding […]