Friday Shabbat Shalom
Jul 19, 2024
It’s 2AM and I can’t sleep. I’ve got a trip planned tomorrow to the Gaza Envelope and I’m scared. Not for my personal safety. I’m scared for my psyche and the pain I will be putting it through. My group plans to visit the site of the Nova festival and Kibbutz Kfar Aza. I’ve seen footage from these places; I wonder what it will mean to see them in person. The atrocities our people endured there on October 7th are incomprehensible and I don’t really want to stare them in the face.
Jul 12, 2024
This week’s Torah portion, Parshat Chukat, is known for the sequential deaths of Moses’ two siblings, Miriam and Aaron. The loss described in this parsha is personal and national. The Israelites are finally about to reach their destination, but without the beloved leaders who had sustained them along the way. There is also a third family member who “dies” in this week’s parsha, who is rarely spoken about. That sibling is Edom.
Jul 5, 2024
The Korach revolt, described in this week’s Torah portion, reads as pure political fantasy. For anyone who has lain awake at night dreaming of revenge, it is deliciously satisfying -- at least at first. Not only does God publicly side with Moses and Aaron against the rebels who want to usurp their roles, but he also splits the earth beneath their feet, swallowing them whole before the entire nation!
Jun 28, 2024
Fear is a powerful emotion. For people with anxiety, even a little bit of fear can be crippling if our minds get wrapped up in playing over and over again all of the things that could possibly go wrong, regardless of how improbable they are...
Jun 21, 2024
This Dvar Torah is specially dedicated in memory of Marshall Baltuch z”l, a past Director of the Miami March of the Living. Our parsha for this week – Beha’alotecha – is a treasury of teachings that call out to be illuminated in the light of Mussar. Mussar is a Jewish spiritual practice that provides practical guidance on how to live an ethical and meaningful life, based on the idea that cultivating inner virtues can help people improve themselves. I want to focus on the teaching about humility (anava) we find in B’Midbar / Numbers 12:3 that compels our attention above all the other wonderful elements in this parsha.
Jun 14, 2024
Last week I was away on a seven-day silent Jewish meditation retreat led by the Or HaLev organization under the leadership of Rabbi Dr. James Jacobson-Maisels. The idea of a silent Jewish meditation retreat (let alone 7 days of it) evokes one of three reactions from people: 1. Isn’t silent and Jewish an oxymoron? 2. YOU are doing this?!? No Way!!! 3. Oh that’s kind of cool. Tell me more… I’m going to assume, dear reader, that you are the third reaction and tell you a bit more.
Jun 7, 2024
This upcoming Tuesday evening, we will welcome the holiday of Shavuot. Shavuot is the second of Judaism’s three pilgrimage festivals, the Shalosh Regalim, which include Pessach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. In ancient Israel, all three were agricultural festivals celebrated by pilgrimages to Jerusalem, feasts, thanksgiving sacrifices, and offerings of bikkurim (first fruits) to the Temple.
May 31, 2024
This week’s Dvar Torah on Parsha Bechukotai was written by Anita Kurzer Givner, CAJE’s outgoing chair of the Leo Martin March of the Living Committee and delivered to the Committee this week. We thank her for her outstanding service to our community!
May 24, 2024
Israel’s legendary Foreign Minister Abba Eban once stood at the podium of the United Nations general assembly with a Bible in his hand, declaring before the whole world that the Jewish people’s title deed to the Land of Israel is over 3,000 years old. Rabbi Menachem Froman of blessed memory disagreed… “The Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel” has been a longstanding slogan of Religious Zionism, but Rav Menachem, settler leader that he was, never tired of telling all who would listen that the Land of Israel does not belong to the People of Israel. On the contrary, the People of Israel belong to the Land of Israel.
May 17, 2024
Anyone who feels very connected to Israel and has been following the cultural zeitgeist there knows that Yom Haatzmaut was a complicated day for many people — perhaps you as well. How do we celebrate Israel when so many are still held hostage (we hope they are alive) and so many soldiers and civilians are recently deceased due to the war with Hamas? Many Israelis struggled with what to do-- barbecue and go to the beach and have a “fun” day while so many are suffering?
