Click to view the July/August 2023 issue of Neveh Shalom’s Chronicle Please note that the file is large, thank you for your patience.
I can sympathize with Korach. That’s not to say that what he and his followers did was right, but I know what it’s like to be consumed by strong emotion. If you know me, you know I’m passionate when it comes to certain subjects.
This past week, a number of “spoof” emails went out, impersonating me and asking for help from you. In one of these, the purported email noted that I was busy in meetings and requested that you text me rather than call. Meanwhile, a number of internal phishing attempts were sent to our professional staff pretending to come from our IT department.
Caleb and Joshua pave their own path in this week’s Torah portion. They’re able to escape the influence of the collective voice to show the power of the individual and some positive thinking. That’s not to say that the individual is always right or that going against the majority is always the preferred method.
A few years ago, some researchers at three Israeli universities (Bar Ilan, Tel Aviv, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem) turned their attention to the last dregs of some very stale beer. Specifically, they found living yeast in 5000-year-old clay vessels from Tel Es Gafi—the ancient site of Gat, where Goliath was born—the same giant that young David would defeat with his slingshot. The shape of the vessel was one commonly used to store beer or wine.
As I walk into my tenth High Holidays this fall at Neveh Shalom, you probably know by now that one of my main goals in my rabbinate is instilling a love of Judaism built on everyone feeling safe, joyful, and welcomed in our community, and that starts with our youngest congregants, because that’s when those positive (or negative) memories are made.
Four and a half years ago, on an ordinary Shabbat in October, Jewish life in America took a radical if historic turn. That was the day that an armed gunman entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. The evil gunman now stands trial—why it takes so long to hold someone accountable is a question I can’t answer, yet as a consequence, the organized Jewish and non-Jewish communities are discussing antisemitism in a much more robust way. It is once again part of the national conversation.
