Our tradition teaches: “When Adar arrives, joy increases.” But this year, it is all too obvious that joy has become increasingly elusive with each passing day of Adar leading up to tonight’s celebration of Purim. Instead of joy, anxiety has increased as we have watched the spread of the coronavirus (thankfully, not significantly in New Continue Reading »
Pain, medicine, and depression were consuming me. The doctors told me I was winning my battle with leukemia, but I felt I was losing emotionally. The depression that had overtaken me seemed worse than physical disease. As a rabbi I thought I had been trained to deal with depression. I was used to members of Continue Reading »
In our faculty handbook, we offer the following framework for the work of our Religious School: In everything we do at Temple Beth-El, we aim to guide our students in developing a greater awareness that their Judaism is an integral and valuable part of who they are. We strive to educate the whole child — Continue Reading »
What If? by Rabbi David Wolpe Life is composed of finite facts and infinite possibilities. Part of the art of living is to take the possibilities and elevate those which enhance our lives, improve our world and grow our souls…. In the Talmud, one Rabbi has a dream about an upside-down world. By stretching our Continue Reading »
“When God returns the exiles to Zion, we will be like dreamers.” – Psalm 126 The State of Israel is the fulfillment of a dream. As we sing in Hatikvah, the modern return to Zion was a hope — a dream of 2,000 years! Today, on Israel’s 70th birthday, it still seems like a miracle Continue Reading »
Years ago, when Pam and I first joined a Reform congregation, I noticed that the walls of the synagogue were adorned with pictures of young women and men in robes, usually accompanied by the rabbi and cantor. A small engraved plaque identified each photograph as the “Confirmation Class” of some year. The photos stretched back Continue Reading »
Pastor Todd Buurstra, religious leader of the North Branch Reformed Church, and I have been making strides together for some time now. Some have been in the area of advocacy, where we have been strident in our call for justice and compassion for the weak and vulnerable among us: the stranger, our neighbors who are Continue Reading »
Before Temple Beth-El Simon Weil was the first Jew in Somerville, arriving in 1864. In 1892, Weil and others organized the Anshe Chesed Cemetery Association which, in 1907, became Congregation Anshe Chesed, an Orthodox synagogue with some 40 members. Between the two World Wars, many Jews focused their activities on Jewish communal organizations outside the Continue Reading »
A new secular year has dawned, and, as with all things new, it brings the opportunity to greet it with optimism and thoughtfulness for its possibilities. For some of us, the possibility exists of choosing to do something truly different with our lives in this new year. Most of us, however, will find ourselves carrying Continue Reading »
Beth Borrus has a bold vision for the future: Jews and Muslims learning about and respecting one another’s cultures, breaking down walls of misinformation and mistrust, building lasting friendships and living in harmony. Promoting such an interfaith concept truly spoke to Beth as she began to learn more about Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom (SoSS), a Continue Reading »
