Category
shabbat
Eyes open and eyes shut: A pre-High Holy Days meditation
Jeffrey Hensiek
September 4, 2014
Paul Gaugin, the famous 19th-century French artist, commented: “When I want to see clearly, I shut my eyes.”
A Shabbat prayer for the victims of the Sikh shooting
Jewish Journal
August 8, 2012
This prayer was written to recite for the victims and survivors of the August 5, 2012 shooting at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Rabbi Naomi Levy, spiritual leader of Nashuva, wrote the prayer on behalf of the Conservative movement\’s Rabbinical Assembly, which distributed it to congregations around the world.
Reform Jews must refashion Shabbat
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie
December 21, 2007
Communal leaders outside of the synagogue love to talk the language of corporate strategy. They engage in endless debates on the latest demographic study. They plan elaborate conferences and demand new ideas. But sometimes we don\’t need new ideas; we need old ideas. We need less corporate planning and more text and tradition, less strategic thinking and more mitzvot, less demographic data and more Shabbat. Because we know in our hearts that in the absence of Shabbat, Judaism withers.
Fight the Enemy by Being More Jewish
David Suissa
August 24, 2006
A great many of us are consumed by the nasty war of existence Israel has been fighting, by the international diplomatic backlash against the Jewish state, and by the renewed chutzpah of an enemy intent on destroying us. It is natural that we should do anything we can to help, whether through charitable donations, public demonstrations or even prayers at weddings. But in our zeal to do something, in our all-consuming anger at a cowardly and unjust enemy, it is easy to fall into a trap of putting other important things on hold, like our Jewishness.\n
Song of the Sons
Rabbi Perry Netter
June 29, 2006
The centerpiece of the third section of the Tanach, the section known as Ketuvim (the Writings), is the Book of Psalms. The Book of Psalms contains some of the most majestic poetic images in the history of the Hebrew language.
Saying Goodbye 101
Jane Ulman
August 25, 2005
On Sept. 1, my husband, Larry, and I will move our son, Gabriel, into his dormitory room at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., where he will begin his freshman year.
A Prayer Book of Many Colors
Gaby Wenig
January 1, 2004
Lori Justice-Shocket thought that the traditional praying experience was just a bit too black and white. Not the prayers, themselves, per se, but the siddurim (prayer books), with their plain black typeface on white pages and the archaic traditional language, made davening, for her at least, formal, stiff and lacking in the visual and emotional engagement that she thought prayer should have.
So Justice-Shocket, vice president of conceptual development at the Los Angeles-based nail polish company, OPI, decided to take matters into her own presumably well-manicured hands and create a prayer book that could visually and intellectually inspire worshippers.
Sing a New Song
Julie Gruenbaum Fax
September 13, 2001
Craig Taubman remembers a time not too long ago when he and other popular Jewish musicians were branded as destroyers of Jewish culture.
Sbarro’s Aftermath
Rabbi Binny Friedman
August 16, 2001
Her eyes, I think, will stay with me forever. Imploring, beseeching, full of so much sadness.
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Aaron Bandler
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