Rabbi Sharon G. Forman

Rabbi Sharon G. Forman (she/her) was raised in Norfolk, VA and was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1994. She works in the field of Jewish education, and has served as a b’nai mitzvah teacher at Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, NY for the last 18 years. She is the author of Honest Answers to Your Child’s Jewish Questions and The Baseball Haggadah: A Festival of Freedom and Springtime in 15 Innings, which makes the seder accessible for lovers of these two springtime rituals. Her essays on motherhood have appeared in Literary Mama, Mamalode, Mothers Always Write, The Bitter Southerner, Kveller, Parent.co, and ReformJudaism.org. You can find more of her essays at https://www.sharonforman.com. She resides in Westchester County, NY, with her husband and three children.

Every Home Renovation Needs Holiness in the Foundation

Rabbi Sharon G. Forman

According to Jewish tradition, the home should resemble a mikdash me’at, a small sanctuary that echoes the holiness of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. Renovating this home, however, did not feel entirely sacred.

With All of Your Heart

Rabbi Sharon G. Forman

The mezuzot (plural of mezuzah) snuggle next to one another in a ceramic bowl like a litter of newborn puppies seeking each other’s warmth. Peeking out from painted purple butterflies, the golden crown of a Hebrew letter shin reflects a ray of thin February light bouncing off its companion’s metal covering. Shards of the blue glass my husband stepped on at our wedding sparkle in a test tube inside the twisting copper of another family artifact – a mezuzah designed especially for wedding couples. An elephant trunk on my sons’ Noah’s ark mezuzah has broken in half, releasing the intact parchment scroll bearing 22 perfectly copied lines from the Book of Deuteronomy.