A Shared Sense of Responsibility
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Dear friends, On Wednesday I bore witness to mourning and remembrance of the horrific events of October 7, 2023, the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage, igniting a conflagration of war, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands more in […]
Sukkot and the Wildness We’ve Forgotten
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Dear friends, I hope you’ll join us Saturday night, October 3 for a rousing Simhat Torah! This is one of the high points of the Jewish year: dinner and drinks, festive dancing with the Torah scrolls, flags waving throughout the sanctuary by people of all ages — it is essentially the culmination […]
The State of the Synagogue 5787
Yom Kippur 5787 by Neil Cohen, Synagogue President Rabbi, Hazzan, dear members and guests, on behalf of the lay leadership of Society Hill Synagogue, I wish you Shanah Tovah and G’mar Tov. It is an honor and a pleasure to address you today. For those of you who don’t know me, allow me to formally […]
God Already Knows, Because God Has Regrets, Too
Yom Kippur 5787 by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar There is perhaps no verse more centrally cited in all of Torah than a verse that shows up in its very first chapter. וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ And God created humankind in the divine image, creating it — creating us — in the image of God. […]
They Have Not Come. They Might Never Come. But They Must Come.
Kol Nidrei 5787 by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar To be a Jew, tradition says, is to have a story. For generations, a singular story tied the Jewish people together. Maybe not always believed literally — religion and literalism rarely go hand in hand — but there was a shared story. This story, observes scholar Elliot Ginsburg, we […]