There are 305,805 letters in the Torah. Given this, the middle point occurred several weeks ago in parashat Tzav in Leviticus 11:42 in the form of the letter vav in the works Gachon, meaning belly. This is a section pertaining…
Torah Thoughts – Tazria-Metzora – Leviticus.12.1-15.33 – “Returning to Good Times”
Last Shabbat, CSS member Robert Altman celebrated the 64th anniversary of his Bar Mitzvah by reading from the same portion he did as a 13-year-old. After he finished, I asked him how it felt all these years later? Was it…
Defensive Driving Class
Torah Thoughts – Shemini – Leviticus.9.1-11.47 – “Mourning the Loss of a Child”
I was in Israel for the first time in 1989, a few years after the Children’s Memorial opened at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem. Approximately a million and a half children were murdered at the hands of…
Sisterhood Shabbat
Ballroom Dancing
Torah Thoughts Tzav Leviticus 6:1-8:36 “All Night Long”
There are three nights a year Jews pull all-nighters: Slichot, the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah, Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, and the Passover Seder. The late night element adds a measure of danger and fun to traditional rituals. On…
Passover Haggadah Project
Torah Thoughts Pekudei Exodus.38.21-40.38 “Limiting What We Pay Attention To”
On any given day, there are so many things happening around us that it is difficult to tell what is most important. If you are like me, you scroll through your newsfeeds and social media to try to get a…
Torah Thoughts – Vayakhel – Exodus 35:1-38:20 = “On to the Next Thing”
As soon as the curtains went down on our wickedly funny Purim spiel last Thursday night, a transformation began to occur in our CSS sanctuary. The amazing sets put together by Julia and crew, the exquisite costumes sewn by hand…