There are times when I feel like I’m floating in a chaotic abyss. These are usually moments when there is so much going on that I don’t have time to sit down, take a breath, and center myself on the work I need or want to do. Or I feel like I haven’t seen my kids for days, and my relationship with Duncan feels like it’s made up entirely of texts and online chat sessions.
Jewish time. I’m not talking the tired joke about how all our events start late. Rather, you’ve previously heard me discuss how historically, every culture of substance has maintained its own calendar and its own clock. Time, after all, is the medium by which we measure the space between events. Each culture chooses which events it wishes to remember, celebrate or mark. That’s historical time—the way we carry the past into the present.
For the last 18 months or so, Mel Berwin, Neveh Shalom’s Director of Congregational Learning, has been working on the “Better Together” program, with the goal of more intergenerational programming and community building.
The Kosak family is still recovering from all of our recent festivities. I am catching up on work, so my remarks this week are coming out later than normal. What a wonderful weekend it was last Shabbat. I want to thank everyone who helped celebrate with us as Shayah stepped up to the Torah as a bar mitzvah.
D'var from Friday, March 2-3, 2018 - Rabbi David Kosak. Recorded and edited by Ed Kraus.
As a new parent I had mixed feelings about “lovey” usage in our house. I myself was a lovey kid. In fact I still like to hold my old Snoopy whenever I’m home in Detroit, and I feel an immediate sense of calm. Selfishly, I didn’t want to be responsible for looking for and keeping track of a precious stuffed animal day and night.
Recording from Shabbat Services, February 23-24, 2018 - Rabbi David Kosak (Shayah Kosak's Bar Mitzvah). Recorded and edited by Ed Kraus.
