Finding Comfort in a Caring Community
During the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, it is customary to go to the cemetery to pay respects, or as I say, 'visit' those you love. This year, during this time, I was fortunate to be in the same city where my dad is buried.
Galilee Diary: Bat Mitzvah
No thunder sounded. No lightening struck.
-Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, recalling her bat mitzvah, March 18, 1922 - the first bat mitzvah in North America at which a girl read from the Torah. She was the daughter of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionism.
Galilee Diary: Solidarity
Redemption of captives comes before other forms of tzedakah… and one who ignores the plight of the captive violates the commandment, "Do not stand idly by the blood of your fellow." [Leviticus 19:16].
Galilee Diary: Public Education
...If a teacher comes and opens a school near an existing school, in order to attract other students - or even students from the existing school - the teacher of the existing school is not entitled to protest, as it is written: "It pleased the Lord for the sake of His righteousnes
Simchat Torah - To Strengthen and To Become Stronger
By P.J. Schwartz
Yom Kippur and the Gift of Forgiveness
Yom Kippur in Vietnam
Yom Kippur, 1965, I was a Navy medical officer stationed aboard a destroyer off the coast of Vietnam.
Gilad Shalit: A New Beginning, An Old Dilemma
Sermon, Shabbat Bereshit 5772