A God Who Cares
This past week we studied Parashat Re’eh—the Torah portion known as Re’eh, which literally means, “See!” as in Moses telling the Israelites to see the choice that has been presented before them between blessing and curse. By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar The parashah (Torah portion) picks up in the middle of a speech Moses is delivering to the Israelites on […]
The Secret Ingredient
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar A couple of weeks ago, we lifted up the strange yet meaningful blessing called Birkat Hagomel which we say when we’ve made it through a harrowing experience, in which we say Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu melekh ha-olam ha-gomel l’hayavim tovot, she-g’malani kol tov: Blessed are you Adonai, sovereign of time and space, who rewards […]
Eternality and Expansiveness in Our Approach to Shabbat
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This past Shabbat, our second in a row in-person together as a community, we studied the weekly parashah (Torah portion) as we always do, probing its depths for meaning, asking what eternal meaning its words lend to our own lives, informing us, pushing us, causing us to think. This week’s parashah was called va’ethanan, which means […]
Reflections on the Donkeys in Our Lives
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This gives me the opportunity to reflect on the Bat Mitzvah celebration and teaching by our own Hannah Davidson. This past week’s parashah (Torah portion) was Balak. Balak was the name of the King of Moab, an ancient kingdom in present day Jordan, who encountered the Israelites as they marched through the wilderness on […]
Our First In-Person Shabbat—Recognizing the Role of Unpredictability in the Universe
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar What a day this past Shabbat was. It was the first time we gathered as a whole community on Shabbat since March 7, 2020—by my count seventy-one weeks of Shabbat in exile from our beautiful, sacred sanctuary. Now, as we know, in exile doesn’t necessarily mean “lesser than.” Wow, did we hold some beautiful […]