Remarks from Hanukkat Mezuzah — Building Dedication Ceremony
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar I’d also like to share with you the remarks I offered at our Hanukkat Mezuzah, our modest Building Dedication Ceremony on Sunday, in the hopes that they help lay out for us an intention as we occupy our newly revamped spaces, including the Paula Kline Learning Center: Mai Hanukkah. What is Hanukkah? […]
Who’s Directing What?
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This past week we studied Parashat Vayeshev, the Torah portion known as Vayeshev, which means “He [Jacob] dwelled.” The Torah portion begins with Jacob having settled down as the scene shifts to the lives of his twelve sons, most notably Joseph, to whom, as the eldest of his beloved wife Rachel, Jacob […]
Breaking Up Time Is A Sacred Act
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Happy Thanksgiving! Don’t worry (if you were): I’m not writing this email on Thanksgiving; I’m spending time with my family. That’s the beauty of the “schedule send” function that is now so common in email services. But this topic of creating space away from work relates to the remarks I delivered […]
What Got You Here Won’t Aid You There?
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This past Shabbat we studied Parashat Vayetzei, the Torah portion known as Vayetzei, in the middle of the Book of Bereshit (Genesis), chronicling the formative episodes of our ancestors as they develop from a family into a nation. The Torah portion picks up with our ancestor Jacob leaving (Vayetzei comes from the root meaning to leave […]
A Bar Mitzvah’s Reflections on Abundance and Scarcity
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This past Shabbat, we celebrated the Bar Mitzvah of Aldo. Aldo’s parashah (Torah portion) was Toldot. Toldot literally means something like “lineage;” it is related to the common Hebrew words yeled and yaldah, which mean boy and girl, respectively, and which come from the root י-ל-ד, which means to give birth. In the context of Aldo’s parashah, whose first […]