Numbers 4:21 – 7:89 This week I have found myself writing and rewriting my Torah Thoughts. The streets are filled with protest, our lives are filled with the pandemic, our hearts are filled with pain. There are no words. Three…
Torah Thoughts – Shavuot – “Putting Kavod Back into Covid”
To turn a phrase our wonderful educational director, Einav Symons, used at our closing ceremony for religious school: “we must put Kavod into Covid.” It is a strange linguistic coincidence that the Hebrew word for honor and the awful virus we…
Torah Thoughts – Bamidbar – Numbers 1:1 – 4:20 – “Getting a True Count of Community”
Numbers 1:1 – 4:20 When it comes to synagogue communities there is an easy way to count and a hard way. The easy way to count at CSS would be to say we have approximately 420 paid family units, with approximately…
Torah Thoughts – Behar-Bechukotai – Leviticus 25:1 – 27:34 – “Lessons Learned in Leviticus”
Leviticus 25:1-26:2 and 26:2-27:34 This week’s double portion, Behar-Bechukotai, marks the end of the Book of Leviticus, a book that has been with us almost since the beginning of the current pandemic. The shortest book of the Torah and usually the…
Torah Thoughts Emor – (Leviticus 21:1 – 24:23) – “Finding Holiness in Unholy Times”
A picture in the Buffalo News this week perfectly captured the sadness of this time and its impact on familial relationships. In it, a small child has a hand on an exterior window as an older woman stares lovingly from…
Torah Thoughts Acharei Mot – (Leviticus 16:1 – 20:27) – “Living In the Domain of After”
Leviticus 16:1 – 20:27 In thinking of this week’s double Torah Portion, Acherei Mot, the opening paragraph of Dr. Sharon Cramer’s excellent April 16th “My View” column in the Buffalo News immediately comes to mind: “Can life change in an…
Torah Thoughts – Tazria-Metzorah (Leviticus 12:1 – 15:33) – “The Torah Portions We Have Been Waiting For”
Leviticus 12:1 – 13:59 & 14:1 – 15:33 This is the double portion, rabbis always try to avoid. One colleague in particular, would plan to conveniently be on vacation whenever it showed up on the liturgical cycle. This is after all Tazria-Metzorah…
Torah Thoughts – Shmini (Leviticus 9:1 – 11:47) – “Celebrate Good Times”
(Leviticus 9:1 – 11:47) In “Bad vs. Worse: The Ultimate Guide to Making Lose-Lose Decisions,” the author, Joshua Paven, presents a B-Mitzvah party dilemma you would likely rather avoid at all costs: having either “Ozzy ‘the Prince of Darkness” Osborne’…
Torah Thoughts – Passover Shabbat – “Climbing Mount Carmel”
This week, while reading my page of Talmud-a-day (Daf Yomi), I was pleased to find the following passage in Shabbat 35a: Rabbi Ḥiyya said: One who wants to see Miriam’s well, which accompanied the Jewish people throughout their sojourn in the…
Torah Thoughts – Tzav (Leviticus 6:1 – 8:36) – “Stuck at Home vs. Safe at Home”
On our Zoom conference call with Dr. Howard Faden this past Sunday, he spoke about the free-thinking nature of Americans and how difficult it would to get the general population to comply with governmental edicts. We simply do not like to be told what to do.