These days, it can be confusing knowing which "hat" I'm supposed to wear when, since I’m doing most of my job as a rabbi from home. The lines have further blurred between work life and home life. When am I a rabbi? When am I a mommy?
When Brian Rohr and I began our planning for this class last summer, the world was a very different place. We began with your desire to learn about Jewish ethics and then sought ethical topics that we hoped would speak to you. Most of us, after all, learn best when we feel connected to the topic, to the instructors and to our fellow classmates.
For the entirety of our existence as a Jewish people, the Torah has imagined a world where we’re not stratified and strangulated based on income or job description. Imagine if every 50 years (or every 7 years) we reevaluated and took a serious look at where we’ve been, what we need to continue to thrive, and how we can help others to do the same.
Next Wednesday, May 20th at 7PM marks the graduation of our 7-11th graders, with special honor given to our Tichon 12th graders. This celebration has long been a milestone of the CNS calendar year, as we learn from our graduate’s poignant wisdom before they head to new adventures.
The Talmudic reason we don't blow the shofar on Shabbat is because Shabbat is holy enough without it. And our memories are strong enough that we can recall things like the sound of the shofar, the sight of the Purim costumes, or the smell of kiddush lunch at shul, and it’s like we’re there.
I have been ruminating for some time on a statement often ascribed to Winston Churchill, “never let a good crisis go to waste.” It's one of the lenses I continue to use during this pandemic. Although there is no evidence that Churchill said this, the wisdom remains. A crisis often allows us to get things done that were not possible before.
This Sunday, from 5-6pm, we are going to have a mask-making workshop to provide masks to our homeless neighbors, a project I first talked about in last week’s Oasis Songs. Several people wrote back in support of the project, but wondered if there was some way non-sewers could participate.
