Torah
Why we’ll still be celebrating Shabbat 100 years from now
Ki Tisa Exodus 30:11–34:35 Two strong men once faced off in a tree-chopping contest. They were tasked with chopping down as many trees in a forest as they…
Torah
What we can learn from the Temple’s ‘eternal incense’
Tetzaveh Exodus 27:20-30:10 Tetzaveh begins in light and ends in smoke. Aaron and his sons are first commanded to ensure that a “ner tamid,” a…
Local Voice
In an epidemic of loneliness, celebrate the role of the Jewish burial society
Though as a rabbi I have officiated at several funerals, I have only once had the merit of serving on a chevra kadisha. It was a happenstance of meeting a…
Torah
As in Torah, Camp Newman will (re)build with a community’s offerings
Terumah Exodus 25:1–27:19 “The Eternal spoke to Moses: Tell the Israelites to bring Me terumah [offering]; accept my terumah from every person whose heart…
Religion
For scholar of New Age Judaism, there's no place like Berkeley
Tomer Persico, a visiting Israeli scholar and an expert on Jewish New Age practices, was on his way to Lake Tahoe with his family when he stopped into a…
The Matzo Chronicles
My nephew, the minyan-making hero
Downstairs at the historic Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York City, 10 men in yarmulkes daven. Upstairs in the women’s section, I sit by myself,…
Torah
When getting it all done gets to be too much
Yitro Exodus 18:1–20:23 Part of what makes Moses so relatable is that, throughout the Torah, he appears as a real human being, a man who is fallible,…
Art
Healing the soul with artistic altars in nature
Six years ago, Day Schildkret was mourning the end of a relationship that left him devastated and heartbroken. But his dog still needed walking. It was on…
Music
A concert of cantors will pay tribute to the Jewish music of Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein’s legacy as a composer is based on “West Side Story,” “Candide” and other classics from the post-World War II era, but he also focused…