Rabbi Kosak reflects on the terrible massacre of two Muslim communities in New Zealand, explores the origins of hatred and how we can overcome it, and invites people to attend a gathering and vigil at the Muslim Educational Trust, today at 2 pm. Details at the bottom of this Oasis Songs.
One would have needed to turn actively away from the news to avoid the fracas over newly elected representative, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Congresswoman Omar has found herself in a maelstrom of critique over a number of her comments, which are evocative of traditional anti-semitic stereotypes that have long been used to justify oppression and hatred of Jews.
Israel will hold new elections on April 9th, and it promises to be one of the most interesting and potentially important referendums there in quite some time. Some new variables are the reason for this. The Israeli attorney general, after a year long investigation by the police, is moving forward with corruption charges against Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
This is our third year running our Soup to the Streets program, originally called Guerrilla Compassion (Next month we will wrap up our services until Autumn 2020.). For three years, people have gathered in my home as we made a few hundred sandwiches and simmered ten gallons of soup. Over that time, we have distributed thousands of meals to our city’s unhoused one sandwich and one cup of a soup at a time.
Growing up, we always had to feed our dog before we could sit down to dinner. I thought it was just our family practice. One day when the family hound had turned five or so, and I was particularly hungry, I tried to eat something first. My mom stopped me and said that in Judaism, we are required to feed our animals before ourselves.
Rabbi Kosak reflects on some scientific advances and space travel and ties those back to some interesting Jewish legal papers that address the ramifications of these new technologies and the possibility of humans living on other planets.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve been sharing my thoughts about what Conservative Judaism is, and how a fundamental feature of Jewish culture is our embrace of change. This week, I want to look at the movement through a sociological lens. After all, for more than a decade, pundits have spoken about the death of the Conservative movement.
