If art and beauty are in the eye of the beholder, then what about spirituality and community?  And when we feel disconnected from spirituality and community – as everyone sometimes does – then what? This week’s Torah portion (Re'eh) invites us to see that one of the most powerful tools of spirituality concerns "how we see" what we… Continue reading The Eye Is In the Hand of the Beholder: Re’eh 5783

Imagine that you and a small group of beloveds are about to be exiled to a faraway island.  Jewishly speaking, what would you take with you?Speaking personally, my answer isn't a thing at all, but a principle from this week's Torah portion – which comes exactly on time. Stones left over from the Roman destruction of the… Continue reading Jewish Greatest Hits

Welcome to the Book of Deuteronomy, Torah's fifth book about saying it all again. Deuter ("second") onomy ("telling") – Devarim in Hebrew – is Moses' take on what happened during the last three books.  Parts are inspiringly uplifting, some is a "creative" re-telling of the past, and some is downright harsh.  Maybe it resembles our own look-back on this year that,… Continue reading How We Remember

We've heard it over and over, like the opening of Charles Dickens' A Tale of TwoCities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."  Depending on where we look around us, we see either beauty or devastation, despair or hope.  Now is exactly the time that Torah, and our spiritual calendar, call us… Continue reading Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going (P. Matot-Masei)

Happy July, Shir Ami!  As we begin our journey together in sacred community, I want to begin a monthly practice of sharing brief words about where each month invites us in the flow of spiritual time.  By taking stock of where we are in the arc of the year, together we can deepen and heighten… Continue reading From the Rabbi’s Desk: July 2023 and Summer’s Sweet Spirituality of Denial

For my first weekly dvar Torah as rabbi and spiritual leader of Congregation Shir Ami, let's talk about spearing people through the guts while they have sex on the altar.Seriously?  That's the context of how Parshat Pinchas begins.  (Isn't it every rabbi's dream to begin serving a spiritual community with this?)Then again, often Torah embeds beautiful worlds of wonder, depth and redemptive… Continue reading When Peace Isn’t So Peaceful: Pinchas 5783