Rabbi's Week in Review - 4/17/2023
04/17/2023 04:01:43 PM
As we have completed our Pesach celebration — a wonderful seder for Kol Ami and a particularly meaningful celebration for me personally — it is feeling like spring (notwithstanding that, as I write this on a Sunday morning, it is 37 degrees outside). As we begin to spend more time outside, it is a good time to consider the environment in which we live and hopefully enjoy.
This coming Shabbat is Earth Day, a day spent focusing on...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 4/10/2023
04/10/2023 04:12:25 PM
For many years now (excluding the Covid-lockdown years), we have held an annual Congregation Kol Ami second-night Passover seder. Not only has it been a great opportunity to bring many of our congregants together to celebrate a central holiday — really the most celebrated of all the Jewish holidays on our calendar — but it also has served an important role in welcoming others into our community.
I do not think it is an...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 4/3/2023
04/03/2023 03:39:03 PM
It is probably no secret by now that Pesach, our Passover celebration, is a favorite of mine (notwithstanding that the dietary restrictions get a little old by the end). Yes, it is a holiday to celebrate our freedom from bondage, a statement that, in and of itself, raises all kinds of questions about the many forms of bondage we potentially face: bondage imposed upon us and bondage we impose on ourselves.
My favorite part of the chag,...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 3/27/2023
03/27/2023 04:47:57 PM
I had a number of individual meetings, what I refer to as one-on-ones, last week. These meetings could all be characterized as work meetings — meetings with people whom I work with as rabbi in one way or another.
Yet our conversations were not limited to business concerns. In one meeting in particular, we never even got around to discussing business. We spent our time getting to know each other personally, and sharing how the...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 3/20/2023
03/20/2023 03:26:17 PM
Beginning the Book of Vayikra/Leviticus in our Written Torah, we are confronted with what is seemingly the least relevant discussion relative to our contemporary sensibility. Although there are those within the Jewish world who look forward to the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem and the return of the sacrificial cult, no one I know is lining up to bring back, much less perform, animal sacrifice.
Questions do arise,...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 3/15/2023
03/15/2023 12:15:30 PM
I did a ride-along with Officer Dwon Littlejohn of the KCPD last week. Officer Littlejohn is known by our Kol Ami community as the one who either provides us security when we gather together or arranges for other KCPD to provide us security. We appreciate Officer Littlejohn not only for what he does for us with a great generosity of spirit but also for all he does for our Kansas City community.
An overarching observation from...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 3/7/2023
03/07/2023 02:01:46 PM
Wrapping up another Purim celebration this week, a holiday I always approach with some sense of trepidation. I don’t enjoy putting on costumes (although our cats are always in costume, whether they want to or not). The raucous nature of the holiday has been somewhat jarring for me, and I can’t seem to get past the violence of chapter 9 in the Book of Esther.
I did find a new purpose this year in the holiday, however. We speak...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 2/27/2023
02/27/2023 03:41:00 PM
With this week’s Torah portion focusing on the priestly garments and with the costumes worn on Purim, we are squarely focused on the clothes we wear. The purpose of the two could not be more diametrically opposed.
The priestly garments — the clothes worn by the Kohanim — are worn with a sense of lifting up the Kohanim in their role as spiritual leaders. Whether you see this detailed emphasis on their clothes, replete with...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 2/21/2023
02/21/2023 10:35:59 AM
I am thinking, this week, about growing old, and I am thinking about death. I hasten to add that I am not putting the two together — I am not thinking about growing old as a step closer to the inevitability of death. Rather, I am struck by how some people carry themselves with dignity through both experiences.
Among the events that moved me in this direction was a shiva service I led Sunday night. I saw many familiar faces I had not...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 2/13/2023
02/13/2023 05:46:02 PM
Given how I choose to spend my volunteer time, it would be disingenuous for me to suggest that how I interpret our Jewish values and how I choose to live those values are somehow apolitical. Yet I am drawing on two examples of issues that have become politicized but really do not have to be so.
Last week we came together to celebrate Tu B’Shevat, the 15th day of the Jewish month of Shevat, most often referred to as the birthday...Read more...
Thu, May 15 2025
17 Iyyar 5785
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