From Rabbi Jon — my updated list of recommendations of my own Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur words spanning the past ten-plus years that I think stand the test of time: Hope In An Uncertain World (5777/2016) What the Chanukkah dreidel can teach us about four kinds of hope. Who Knows? (5780/2019) How the story Continue Reading »
It’s Friday and here is my current draft of a D’var Torah for Shabbat morning on Parashat Balak, Numbers 22:2-25:9: In the parasha this week, an enemy of the Jews asks a man of powerful words to curse Israel. To say bad things about us in a way to bring us harm. And it doesn’t Continue Reading »
The Temple Beth Abraham Keter Shem Tov Committee is pleased to announce that this year’s honoree is Robin Rubin. Robin and her husband, Larry, joined TBA in 1994, and as their son, Michael, was a toddler at that time, Robin was soon recruited to help organize the following year’s High Holiday Babysitting. During the 30 Continue Reading »
October 2023 October 2023 October 2023 April 2024 April 2024 Five hundred daffodils, obtained as part of Am Yisrael Chai’s Daffodil Project, were planted at our newly created memorial garden at Temple Beth Abraham in Nashua on October 9, 2023. Congregants, neighbors, local and state public figures including Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess planted the bulbs. A mere Continue Reading »
Rabbi Karen G. Reiss Medwed and I recorded this conversation last night, and you can watch it on YouTube or listen as a podcast. The Megillah (the biblical Book of Esther) is a story of anti-Semitism set in the Diaspora in a multiethnic empire where Jews were living in peace. How did the Jews of the Continue Reading »
The Talmud proposes that on Purim we enter a state of mind in which we no longer know the difference between the goodness of Mordechai and the evil of Haman. At a key moment in the Megillah, when the fate of the Jews seems to lie in the balance, Mordechai proclaims to Esther not-so-emphatically “Who Continue Reading »
This is my current draft of a D’var Torah for Shabbat morning, March 23, 2024. This is my closing address of our six-week conference of the Society for the Advancement of Esther-Informed Spiritual Therapy. Today is Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat that comes before Purim. Shabbat Zachor is the dark set-up for a zany festival. Zachor Continue Reading »
This was my D’var Torah for Shabbat morning, March 16, 2024, Parashat Pekudei. which fell this year about a week before Purim. It’s already after the Oscars, but I have a pitch for a new movie — it could even be a franchise! It’s about a pair of young friends who travel the world together. Continue Reading »
Dear Friends: Today is the second day of Adar Sheni, the month in the Jewish calendar highlighted by Purim. Purim seems like a purely whimsical festival, when we dress up in costume and read the story of Queen Esther and eat hamantaschen. But just beneath the surface, it’s a profound story and set of practices Continue Reading »
Introducing Adar Conversations, a series about themes of the Jewish festival of Purim and the Megillah, the biblical story of Esther. I prepared this first part as we approach the first Purim after the atrocities of October 7 and as the war continues. How can we celebrate, and maybe more importantly what can this Continue Reading »