This Sukkot, Support Environmental Protections from Border to Border
Question: On Sukkot, we remember our ancestors' struggles to balance their lives with the surrounding environment in order to produce a bountiful harvest each year. But most of us no longer grow our own food or live at the mercy of natural phenomena in the same ways.
Tu Bishvat: Doing Something About It.
I consider myself an environmentalist. I write about the earth, think about the earth, care about the earth. I wrote my rabbinical thesis partly on Judaism and the environment, and I helped found en environmental advocacy committee in my synagogue.
Tu BiShvat: Happy Birthday, You Beautiful Trees!
My commute to work every morning is not typical. I drive through the Roaring Fork Valley with majestic, now snow-covered, mountains on my left and my right. The sky is often a clear, bright blue, and the sun glimmers off the powdery snow that shifts in the wind. I am the cantor at the Aspen Jewish Congregation, and I certainly feel blessed to live and work in such a beautiful place. This quote from Isaiah is particularly fitting for this part of the country, as the people here are very in touch with the nature around them - often finding their spiritual center while skiing a run or hiking in the hills.
Early Hanukkah in 2013: Jewish Calendar Fun
Whenever I'm asked if the Jewish holidays are coming early or late this year, I promptly answer that they'll be coming on time. And that's partially true. Rosh Hashanah will always arrive on the first day of the Jewish month of Tishrei just as Hanukkah will always begin on the 25th of Kislev.
In Honor of Tu BiShvat, Some Facts About Trees
Tu BiShvat, the birthday of the trees (or the new year of the trees) is a minor Jewish holiday.
Galilee Diary: Winter
It is life we want, no more and no less than that, our own life feeding on our own vital sources, in the fields and under the skies of our homeland, a life based on our own physical and mental labors; we want vital energy and spiritual richness from this living source.
S’firat HaOmer: The Omer Period in Jewish Life
The mechanism to connect the Exodus with the giving of the Torah is a simple one-counting the days.
Lag BaOmer, the 33rd Day of the Counting of the Omer
Simultaneous Joy and Pain: The Wisdom of the Counting of the Omer
This year at our Passover seder, I experienced something deeply powerful which I had not felt in the context of Passover before.
Galilee Diary: Round and Round
On the fifteenth day of the seventh month there shall be the Feast of Sukkot to the Lord, seven days. The first day shall be a sacred occasion: you shall not work oat your occupations; seven days you shall bring offerings by fire to the Lord.