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 […]
Forming a Relationship to Loss
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This past shabbat, we studied parashat chukat, a momentous Torah portion featuring the death of Miriam, prophetess and Moses’ sister; the Israelites lashing out at Moses because of their hunger and thirst, and Moses, in turn, striking a rock rather than ordering it to bring forth water, as God had commanded, leading to […]
Being Gentle with Our Inner Rebels
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This past Shabbat we studied Parashat Korach, the Torah portion known as Korach, the eponymous Israelite who features prominently in the parshah’s opening narrative. Korach is notorious in Jewish tradition, standing in for every impertinent demagogue to follow. The parshah begins with Korach “betaking himself… to rise up against Moses, together with […]