Oasis Songs: Musings from Rav D Tuesday, September 8, 2017 / 17 Elul 5777 As part of our ongoing commitment to being good neighbors, here is a link to the flyer about an interfaith potluck that Neveh Shalom is participating in this Sunday from 3-5. Our friends at the Bilal Mosque and the West Hills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship will be there. I unfortunately have another synagogue commitment. If you’d like to attend, please rsvp here. Summary: ... Read More
The best bar and bat mitzvah speeches are the ones where the student clearly owns the information, and the speech is delivered with feeling and with meaning. One of my favorite parts of the rabbinate is helping bar and bat mitzvah students with these speeches.
Over this past week, our eyes and hearts have been fixated on the continuing disaster that is Houston. The scale of this storm is the largest in our nation’s collective memory, and the financial burden to rebuild will be immense. While the death toll will undoubtedly increase as days go by, it seems that the one bright light in all of this is that Hurricane Harvey did not claim nearly the lives that were lost when Katrina ravaged.
I’m sure you’ve shared my shock and horror watching the images of the devastation Hurricane Harvey has wrought on Houston, Texas and surrounding areas in the Gulf. News broadcasts and photos on the Internet bring both a sense of intimacy, as if it were happening in our own backyard, and distance, as we struggle with not knowing exactly how or when to offer help from so far away.
Two days ago, we welcomed in the holy month of Elul. Our daily minyan rejoiced in the songs of Hallel, and then we listened as the shofar was sounded for the first time, as it will be each morning leading up to the Days of Awe. Less noted, that day also corresponded with Rosh Hashanah Lama’asar Behemah, the New Year for Animal Tithes.
When I was at summer camp as a kid, I had a love-hate relationship with the chore chart. Every cabin had a paper plate wheel that matched up your name with a task that was part of cleaning the cabin. The tasks included things like sweeping, laundry, garbage, and table server at mealtimes.
You can only look for blessings in curses for so long until you stop and think . . . is this the best use of my time? Should I be spinning my wheels trying to find some good in a bad situation or should I make my own good situation?
