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 […]
How To Wrestle with God
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar What a joy to be celebrating Noah Schindler becoming Bar Mitzvah with you all. Noah’s Torah portion is vayishlach, and while of course all 54 Torah portions are equally sacred, there is something pretty special about this one, because it’s the one that gives us our name—Yisrael, Israel. Noah’s portion contains the […]
How Not To Measure Our Self-Worth | Investigating Our Own True Motivations
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Last week, we celebrated the Bat Mitzvah of Sarah Tobacman. Sarah’s parashah (Torah portion) was Vayetze a phrase which literally translates to “he left,” as in Jacob, our ancestor, left his hometown of Be’er Sheva—fled it, is more accurate—after purloining the patriarchal blessing of his father Isaac, a blessing which had been intended for Jacob’s […]