Dear Sha’arei Shalom family, We greet this holiday season with joy as for many of us this will be the first time in several years we are able to gather with family and friends. At the same, we greet our holiday with anxiety about the state of our world, most especially, the devastation and […]
read more »Dear Sha’arei Shalom Friends, Shalom! I hope that this finds you safe, warm, and well in these challenging days and weeks. Earlier this week I went back to revisit my message to you from a year ago as we prepared to mark Tu B’shevat online. A year ago I wrote: I have such fond memories […]
read more »Dear Friends, As we round the corner into the week ahead, and Pesach/Passover, we do so in a highly unusual state. Largely confined to our homes, we enter the Festival of Freedom having lost so many of the freedoms we enjoy in our lives. As we prepare for the Passover celebration, and some for the […]
read more »Dear Friends, I write these words as 2019 winds down to the start of 2020. With last night’s sundown, Hanukkah reached its end for this year. I was so gratified to be with so many from our community as we welcomed the holiday on the first night on December 22nd at Montenegro Square in Ashland. […]
read more »Dear Friends, Those who know me are familiar with the fact that I am often inspired by things I see around me which might otherwise pass unnoticed. One such source of inspiration comes from bumper stickers I see on cars as I traverse the highways and byways of our communities. Several years ago, I spotted […]
read more »Dear Friends, I happened to glance up at the sky last night, noticing the full moon. “Ah,” my rabbinic brain calculated, “it’s about 6 weeks now until Rosh Hashanah.” My glance heavenward comes in a week that has been filled with blessings, two in particular. A few nights ago, our community gathered at the Greenstein […]
read more »Dear Friends, Shalom! I know it may be a bit presumptuous to address this message as “dear friends” as I have not yet met most of you. But I can tell you, from those members of Sha’arei Shalom whom I have met, young and old, and the gatherings I have been attending over recent weeks, I am […]
read more »8/24/2018 Falling in Love Seven years ago I stood before you for the first time – one month after receiving rabbinic ordination, one month before meeting Jeremy and beginning the journey that led me to have my own family. I had become a rabbi to do faith-based social justice work, and assumed I would be […]
read more »I hope this season of blooming and warming is allowing you to spend more time outside, breathe a little slower, and soak up the sun. Yet, even as imminent summer activities urge us to be carefree, LIFE is still happening, sometimes in challenging ways. While some of us may be romping in fields of dandelions […]
read more »Rabbi’s Letter Dear friends, I hope you are well! As many of you have likely heard, I suffered from a bad fall in early January, and have been healing from a concussion and skull fracture ever since. This experience has been challenging and sometimes scary, but has also made me appreciate our community even more. For […]
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