Rabbi Avi S. Olitzky serves as spiritual leader of Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
Avi S. Olitzky
By Avi S. Olitzky
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Community A sukkah kosher for coronavirus
We love exiting our homes and entering our sukkot (the plural of sukkah) because of the opportunity to commune with nature and the Divine. Such an opportunity is one of the reasons we are obligated to dwell in a sukkah during the festival. We are taught that, just as the Israelites were protected by ananei…
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Community Like Moses, we carry our brokenness with us
I yelled. I really yelled. It was the middle of Passover, coming off a 72-hour Yom Tov and Shabbat span during Minnesota’s Stay-at-Home order, and I was out of patience. I just could not figure out how to get through to my daughter who just would not stop protesting at bedtime, spiraling. I felt terrible…
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Community “13 Reasons Why” Has Gone From Worthwhile To Dangerous
For several months in 2017, our teenage students spoke of nothing but Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why.” In early April, we had a handful of teens who watched this sleeper show. But in what seemed like mere days, all of our teenagers were binging this series — sometimes staying up all night to watch the entire…
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