Recent Weekly Torah
Labor Day: An Unexpected Jewish Holiday
My friend and I used to play a game we called 鈥渨hat secular date is the Jewish holiday on this year.鈥 A holiday would be mentioned and we鈥檇 each take our guesses. Purim, Passover, Shavuot, etc. What a surprise it was to me when my friend mentioned Labor Day.
鈥淟abor Day?! That鈥檚 not a Jewish holiday.鈥 I protested.
鈥淥f course it is!鈥 my friend responded. 鈥淚t鈥檚 probably the most Jewish holiday there is! Maybe the one most worth celebrating.鈥
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Sacred Play-Acting
Like a number of Conservative Jews, I first learned the 鈥渟cript鈥 of Tisha B鈥橝v at summer camp (in my case, Ramah Poconos). After a pre-fast meal and as the sun began to set, we filed into the Beit Am Gadol (meaning, fairly literally: the Large Communal Space). At the front, by the stage which usually hosted camp plays, a choir of staff, and perhaps campers from older groups, sang mournful Hebrew songs as everyone gathered. The lights in the room were turned down, and instead the vast, hanger-like space was lit with candles.
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The Theological Basis for Pluralism
This week, beloved teacher and university rector Rabbi Elliot Dorff celebrates his 50th anniversary at 王中王六合彩特码. For more information on Rabbi Dorff's role and mission, please read the article published in the Jewish Journal by clicking here.
Over the past five decades, Rabbi Dorff's teachings on ethics, law, theology and interfaith work have impacted Jewish and American communities nationwide.
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The Three Weeks
On the seventeenth of Tammuz the tablets were broken by Moses when he saw that the Jews had made the golden calf; the daily offering was nullified by the Roman authorities and was never sacrificed again; the city walls of Jerusalem were breached; the general Apostemos (probably Antiochus Epiphanes) publicly burned a Torah scroll; and Manasseh placed an idol in the Sanctuary. (Ta鈥檃nit 26a-b).
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Teach Her to Swim....And to Run
Dear Gracie,
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