Yesterday, England approved the distribution of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine against Covid19 as the first batch of the vaccine was sent to the UK from Belgium. Earlier in the week, a colleague reached out because one of their congregants had claimed that Judaism does not permit people to take vaccines because they are (often) derived from animals, and therefore are not kosher.
As we approach Thanksgiving, I wanted to share with you one of our tradition's beloved stories. It is the only Jewish story I know which features a turkey, and that makes it seem appropriate for this week. I hope you will enjoy this video.
Friends, I don’t know about you, but the recent news from Pfizer and Moderna did me a world of good. Yes, it will still be quite a long time before vaccine production can be scaled up sufficiently so that we can return to a semblance of the life we all knew before this pandemic. I liken it to the old aphorism of the light at the end of the tunnel.
I have been reading a memoir about home by author David Biespiel. If you are unfamiliar with him, David is an acclaimed author, poet and memoirist who lives in SE Portland and is the Poet in Residence at OSU.
If you were around in the 1980’s you most likely remember the “united colors of Benetton.” It was a remarkably successful ad campaign for the clothing company, which pitched and celebrated diversity as its brand identity. Well, let me share with you the united colors of Neveh Shalom.
This is the story of Thelonious Monk and Danny Scher. It’s a tale about race relations, economics, violence on the streets, hope and despair. The possibility and limitations of activism. Even unanticipated unity. That’s a lot, because this story starts with the dream of a 16 year old boy to organize a concert at his high school in 1968.
A careful reader of the Torah, and indeed all of Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible), might notice that voting doesn’t much figure in the earliest strata of our sacred writings. In the rare cases where the popular will is depicted, such as in the rebellion of Korach, it doesn’t end well.
