Los Angeles photographer Naomi Solomon capped off her informal summer presentation series \”Settlers: A Photographic Journey of the Life and Disengagement of the Jews Living in Gaza\” at Nessah Synagogue in Beverly Hills last week, drawing more than 150 people.
Each of us lives a spiritual journey. One of greatest tasks in life is to know our journey, to understand its contours and what it demands of us. The Torah teaches us these journeys, these paths into our center.
Couples who have created a partnership and life together consistently talk of the effort involved. Yes, some relationships seem easier than others, but all say it takes time, energy and a true willingness to face whatever comes along on their journey together.
Schlitt spent the past five years transforming a midlife crisis, a professionally disastrous trip to India, and his burning and failed ambition to make a movie about that disaster into a one-man show called, \”Mike\’s Incredible Indian Adventure.\”
Nearly 60 years ago, out of the ashes of the Holocaust, thousands of Jews came with not much more than the shirts on their backs to a land recognizable only as a collective and distant memory.
At a time when the world shunned them, an estimated 20,000 Jewish refugees from Russia, Germany, Austria and elsewhere made their way to Shanghai before World War II.
Lately, more people than ever have been staring at my chest. But it\’s not what you think.
\”I knew this could be a good story because so many different things had happened to people,\” said Dan Klores, sounding more like an introvert than a schmoozer. \”You have a group of guys, and one is homeless, one wins a $45 million lottery, two lose their children and one lives without electricity or running water in Woodstock, N.Y.\”
Through many years of rabbinic traveling and teaching, I\’ve been blessed to serve congregations from Long Island to Maui and from Canada to Australia. I\’ve prayed in shuls from Transylvania to Argentina, and I\’ve discovered that in all the world Juneau\’s community is unique. The fusion of Alaskan life and Jewish tradition never ceases to amaze me.
This week\’s Torah portion, Shemot, finds us studying the Book of Exodus for the first time this year. Probing the text, I began to think about the Hebrew word tevah (ark) that is found only twice in the Torah — in parshat Noah and in this one.
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