The Holiness in the Pang of Regret

I am very excited that this week we are welcoming Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum to our community as Scholar-in-Residence. To me, she is a teacher, role model, and friend. Her arrival comes on the heels of her being named this week to the BBC’s 100 Women: the BBC’s list of 100 inspiring and influential women from […]
Rabbi Kleinbaum on Resilience; Exploring Memory in the Amidah

First of all, I want to make sure you mark your calendars for the Shabbat of Friday evening, December 6 and Saturday morning, December 7, when a friend and teacher of mine, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, will be the Scholar-in-Residence at Society Hill Synagogue. Rabbi Kleinbaum was CBST’s first staff member, brought in when the community […]
The Election and Our Shared Resilience

As I’ve written about before, to be Jewish, to be in relationship to the Jewish people, entails a Jewish identity that is concerned not exclusively with traditionally “religious” considerations, but with the grand sweep of history, too: with the way in which the Jewish people and the loved ones in relationship with them find themselves […]
Shabbat as Our Anchor and Honoring Our Community

We’re in the middle of a trying week, with a highly consequential election nearly upon us, settling down from the rhythms of the Jewish holiday season back into the traditional rhythms of our year where, week in and week out, the primary anchor we have as a spiritual community, to quiet the outside noise, to […]
Sukkot, Voting, and the Call to Build a Better World Together

We are amidst the joyous season of Sukkot — Sukkot is Zman Simhatenu (literally: the time of our joy), the season which immediately follows the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe, or, alternatively, the Days of Intensity. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are days that are felt intensely: we gather, we pray, we repent, nourishing […]