Shabbat Hayye Sarah: Mourning the Dead

Once again, gun violence leaves us breathless, and leaves some of us dead. We have reached a point in our nation where, when we see an American flag at half-mast, it is no longer clear to us why. There is so much death around us, so many incidences of murder by gun. And once againContinue reading “Shabbat Hayye Sarah: Mourning the Dead”

After Another Tragedy, Remembering Dawn and Mary

Once again we find ourselves silenced by the horrified recognition that once again this has happened, as we all knew that it would happen, again. We who are alive today, who so recently chanted the words “who by fire, who by water,” we once again see that the world we live in is punctuated byContinue reading “After Another Tragedy, Remembering Dawn and Mary”

Shabbat VaYeshev: Do You Believe In Your Life?

Do you believe in your life? Enough to lose it? The media reports that people are frightened. More and more, the ordinary activities of daily life seem to be places in which a mass shooting might occur. “When I drop off my child at school,” “when I go to the mall,” “when I am at work,”Continue reading “Shabbat VaYeshev: Do You Believe In Your Life?”

Shabbat Bereshit: We’ll Keep the Light On

The earth was formless and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep (Bereshit 1:2) First comes darkness, then light.  (Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 77b) At the beginning, there is darkness. This is not only true of the account of Creation as we find it in the Book we call Bereshit, known in English as “Genesis”.Continue reading “Shabbat Bereshit: We’ll Keep the Light On”