In a few days we’ll celebrate one of the emotional peaks in the Jewish calendar, the twice-yearly proclamation that ends the Yom Kippur fast and Passover feast: Next year in Jerusalem. We won’t mean it literally. For most it’s a metaphorical prayer for a better world, expressing faith that history has direction and meaning, with…
When your synagogue attendance can only be described as sporadic, a few panicked thoughts and pangs of regret enter your mind as you step into shul for Rosh Hashanah services. These include, but are not limited to: 1.) I should have volunteered to teach Torah for Tots because they get to eat apples and honey…
‘I’ve got the apples. Now all I need is you, honey.” Okay, so maybe no one’s using that line. But come the High Holidays there’s more than one reason tickets to synagogue cost so much. It’s the hottest singles scene in town. “When I was younger, my mom and I used to sit in the…
Well, the High Holy Days are upon us once again, and from the look of things, it seems the season of repentance and atonement is going to prove harder than ever to slog through this year. Not that we won’t give it our best. The trouble is, it’s hard to repent effectively when you believe…
Two collapsed ceilings led to one big mitzvah for a Brooklyn synagogue and a neighboring church. After its roof collapsed in 2009, Congregation Beth Elohim, located in Park Slope, temporarily moved its services to the Old First Reformed Church, down the block. Two years later, Rabbi Andy Bachman was nearly struck by chunks of plaster…
“Welcome to the Waldorf Astoria,” said the jail guard as he showed me the room I would sleep in, my prison issue bedding (top sheet, bottom sheet, two pillowcases, no pillow) and the vacuum-packed kosher meals that had been prepared for me. This was the beginning of the three days of this High Holy Day…
My childhood memories of this festive season are mixed with being ridiculously inappropriately dressed for the weather. Insisting that I wore my new winter clothes, I would swelter in the heat of an Indian summer. But having new clothes was, and still is, a part of Yom Tov. Rosh Hashana/Sukkot are conveniently placed in the…
Rabbi Jacob Goldstein will lead Yom Kippur services this year dressed not in the black fedora of his Lubavitch Hasidic sect, but in full battle gear at a Combat Operating Base in eastern Afghanistan. And Rabbi Laurence Bazer won’t be delivering the sermon at Temple Beth Sholom, his Conservative synagogue in Framingham, Mass. Instead, he’ll…
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