Sep 30, 2020

Reflections on Jewish Values after witnessing the debate last night. (a little glitchy at the beginning and the end, but felt like I was breathing fire between.)

 

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Sep 29, 2020

We Acquitted Ourselves Nobly: High Holidays 5781

 We Acquitted Ourselves Nobly: High Holidays 5781


The more digital teaching and davening I do with communities around the world, the more convinced I am that it is real. It's not that any of us would have chosen this path. I know we would give up every last one of these platforms if it meant saving just one of the over one million souls we've lost to the pandemic to date. And it's also the case the vast majority of the Jewish High Holidays were a transformation of the notion of community, a pivot point in our history.

So many communities that would not have used technology on Shabbat or holidays have invested energy and money in utilizing them to share sacred experiences. Communities that were already utilizing these methods have sharpened and widened their media skills. Many older adults, often late-adopters of technology, were brave and found their ways into Zoom Schmoozes (even if the camera angles could have used some adjusting!), and some families that would not have (could not have) snuggled in shul pews found themselves resting on each other in comfort while soul-stirring melodies and teaching poured out before them.

Friends, I'm not saying we should stop yearning for the physical intimacy of our sanctuaries. Far from it. I ache - deeply - for the sacred space we call "shul." But I am suggesting that we not stop experimenting with new media and that we allow - nay, embrace - this organic, explosive redefinition of community.

During Rosh haShannah and Yom Kippur, my holy wife
Neshama Carlebach
 was lifting countless souls in Rabbi
Jeff Salkin
's community in Florida (and beyond) from her makeshift studio in one room of our home. I was mere feet away from her, in an adjoining room, helping lead davening with the amazing
Congregation Beth El
 community in New Jersey with dear friends Rabbi
Jesse Olitzky
 and Rabbi
Rachel Marder
. Our home has been pervaded during these days by the nervous/ecstatic energy of the chagim that I had previously only associated with physical-shul davening. Now I understand a little better: this WAS shul davening. We, all of us - rabbis, cantors, volunteers, educators, executive directors, production teams, congregants - effectively translated the rituals, and sounds, and visions of our People through the digital platforms into each other's hearts. We did it.

Was it perfect? Decidedly not. Did we ask for it? Certainly not. Did we learn at breakneck speed for the sake of our ancestors, who themselves brought the treasures of Jewish heritage to every new shore they reached? Absolutely. They would be proud. Shocked, baffled, dizzy - and proud. As should we, their pioneering descendants, be.

As my father, my teacher, has said from time to time, "We have acquitted ourselves nobly."
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Sep 27, 2020

One last blessing before Yom Kippur!

 

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Sep 25, 2020

Tonight is Shabbat, and Sunday Night begins Yom Kippur - let's give ourselves the gift of pause, breath, and self-strengthening, so that we can roar into this new year, ready to accept the baton handed us by those one whose shoulders we stand! #ShabbatShalom #GmarTov

 

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ע֭וֹלָם חֶ֣סֶד יִבָּנֶ֑ה Olam Chesed Yibaneh #BuildonLove

 ע֭וֹלָם חֶ֣סֶד יִבָּנֶ֑ה

Olam Chesed Yibaneh

I will build this world in love...
And you must build this world in love...
If we build this world in love...
Then God will build this world in love.


Hebrew: Psalms 89:3 | English/Melody: Rabbi Menachem Creditor | From the album A World of Love


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Select Olam Chesed Yibaneh videos:
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Sep 24, 2020

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz on Teshuvah

"Broadly defined, teshuvah is more than just repentance from sin; it is a spiritual reawakening, a desire to strengthen the connection between oneself and the sacred. The effectiveness of teshuvah is thus frequently a function of one's sense of distance from the sacred. The greater the distance, the greater the potential movement towards renewed connectedness. As one Jewish sage put it, A rope that is cut and retied is doubly strong at the point where it was severed.... All forms of teshuvah, however diverse and complex, have a common core: the belief that human beings have it in their power to effect inward change." 

- Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, z"l


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Crying. Singing. Dancing a little bit. Crying some more. Thank you, Washington Square Minyan, for bringing this to life, for the faces and voices of sweet souls. This. This. Oh, how we need this. #ReturningTheKeter

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