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prayers

Just One Shabbat

\”Just one Shabbos and we\’ll all be free,\” religious rocker Mordechai Ben David sang back in the 1980s. Well, for the last decade, one Jewish organization has tried to get people to experience Shabbat at least once a year.

Between the Pages for Young, Young-at-Heart

Let\’s face it. Many people go to synagogue on the High Holidays because they have to. A feeling of poorly understood and unappreciated obligation can pervade this time of year. But it doesn\’t have to. You can put yourself or your children in the spirit and in the know with help from this by-no-means-comprehensive list of titles that elucidate the prayers and customs of the holiday.

City’s Plight Brings Flood of Memories

In New Orleans, the Jews are the only ones buried in the ground. Others, if their mourners have any means at all, are laid with the expectation of eternal rest in stone crypts to protect them from rising waters. My mother used to say, \”Someday, we Jews\’ll all be floatin\’ down the river.\”

Just as in California, where we know that one day \”the big one\” will come, in New Orleans, we knew that someday the water would overtake us. But the denial overtakes the wisdom, and we stay and build lives. I think of Pompeii. New Orleans was so beautiful.

A Prayer for Victims of Hurricane Katrina

Are You watching, God?

Have You seen the innocent swept away?

Are You listening, God?

Have You heard their cries?

Be with them, God.

Be their strength and their comfort.

Let them know You are near.

Work through us, God.

Teach us to be Your messengers on earth.

Wake us up, God,

Show us how to help.

Use us, God, shine through us,

Inspire us to rebuild the ruins.

Open our hearts so we can comfort the mourning.

Open our arms so we can extend our hands to those in need.

Shake us out of our complacency, God.

Be our guide,

Transform our helplessness into action,

Our generous intentions into charity,

Turn the prayers of our souls into acts of kindness and compassion.

Amen.

Boy Scouts Blend Values at Shul Tent

When Boy Scout troop 711 from Alaska lost four of its leaders in a freak electrical accident on the first day of the recent National Scout Jamboree here, the one Jewish Scout in the Alaska contingent was left in a quandary.

On the Sunday morning of the gathering, when jamboree activities were suspended for a few hours, all of Noah Magen\’s troop mates were headed to religious services for their respective faiths. But what does a Jewish Scout do on Sunday?

For Noah, the answer was the Shul Tent, where daily services and special programming were provided for Jewish Scouts.

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.