Displaying 1 - 10 of 31
Stories We Tell: How Do You Use It
Have you ever had a great idea that wasn’t useful until you applied it? This week, join Rabbi Phyllis Sommer of Am Shalom in Glencoe, IL, as she tells the story of a rabbi and a soap maker who explore this idea and realize their professions have more in common than they might have thought.
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Stories We Tell: Zoo Seder
On this special Passover episode of Stories We Tell, Rabbi Mark Kaiserman, Rabbi of the Reform Temple of Forest Hills, tells the story of a little girl who’s excited for a very different Passover seder her family is planning and how a little imagination might be what we all need right now.
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Stories We Tell: My Havdalah Set
Have you ever seen yourself as the “most” important? Have you felt your contributions mattered more than others, only to find out it actually took a group effort to accomplish your goal? This week, we’re treated to an original story by Alice Myers, actress and daughter of Rabbi Lisa Grushcow, who talks about this idea from the perspective of a havdalah set.
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Stories We Tell: The Perfect Seder
What is the real meaning of Passover? Is it ritualizing the seder and reading the Haggadah, or is there something more? This week, Rabbi Esther Lederman, the Union for Reform Judaism’s Director of Congregational Innovation, tells a story about a rabbi, a water carrier, and the prophet Elijah, and asks what it means to truly celebrate this sacred festival.
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Contested Utopia: Jewish Dreams and Israeli Realities
Growing up in the years following the founding of the State of Israel, I, like so many of my generation, was taught that the new Jewish state was the fulfillment of a utopian dream: a Jewish homeland after almost 2000 years of exile. It would be a refuge for persecuted diaspora Jews and its governance guided by Jewish values.
Philip Roth: A Counterlife
Philip Roth (1933-2018), one of the most prolific and acclaimed authors in the history of American literature. He is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Man Booker International Prize. In his complicated private life, Roth was often an unhappy man.
On the Other Hand: Ten Minutes of Torah - Acharei Mot and Kedoshim - "Loving the Stranger" Isn't Always Intuitive
Let's talk about love: Torah talks about three kinds of love - and in fact, the phrase “love the stranger” appears in the Torah 36 times. Why is it written so often? Who is "the stranger," anyway? And who might be the strangers in our own lives? In this episode, which originally aired in April 2017, Rabbi Rick Jacobs talks about what it means to move from strangeness to equality to, finally, closeness and love.
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Stories We Tell: Two Frogs and a Little Encouragement
Has there ever been a moment when you wanted to give up on a goal because others said it was too hard? Has there ever been a moment when it seemed like all you could hear were cheers of encouragement to keep going? This week, we hear a story about two frogs who were in this exact same situation from Rabbi Rachel Greengrass of Temple Beth Am (Pinecrest, FL)
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Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death
Nearly 40 years have passed since Dan White, a disgruntled political rival, shot and killed San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, and Mayor George Moscone in their City Hall offices
I, Sarah Steinway
The specter of a flood-swept future is all too easy to envision. In the past two years alone, catastrophic floods have inundated parts of Maryland, Texas, and Louisiana