‘Rabbi’ Category

Rabbi

March 11, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 619: TOP 5 for Homecoming — #5: Hearing/Sharing Old Stories

Dear Hevreh, Homecoming is FINALLY here! As we undergo final preparations for Homecoming Weekend (anyone free to make goodie bags with hamantaschen today?), I wanted to take a moment to share my excitement for this upcoming weekend of memories, fun, meaning making, and community building. In fact, I want to take 5 moments...a TOP 5if you will, of things that I'm excited about for this weekend. In each journal this week I will share one of my top 5, culminating with Friday's blog that will have the top two things for which I'm excited.    If you'd like to share what you're excited about for this weekend, please email me and I will share it with our community.   And without further ado....   #5 -- Hearing and[...]

Category : Homecoming Weekend Rabbi Rabbi's Journal
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Rabbi

March 7, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 615: Reflecting On the Purpose of Becoming a Bar or Bat Mitzvah

Dear Hevreh, If you take a look around the internet or ask a number of Jewish leaders, you might get the feeling that a bar or bat mitzvah (plural = b'nei mitzvah) is not such a good thing. Too much time focused on the party, too little emphasis on the meaning of "coming of age," too much memorization of random words and phrases in Hebrew of uninspiring Torah and Haftarah portions. If you listen to enough of the noise about b'nei mitzvah you might get the impression that they signal the decline of Jewish life.    I admit that I often agreed with these sentiments, perhaps because when I became a bar mitzvah I wanted to do and lead much more of the ritual service than my peers, including reading all of [...]

Category : Bar and Bat Mitzvah Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Shabbat
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Rabbi

March 6, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 614: The Path To An Individual’s Redemption Is Through A Community

Dear Hevreh, One of the benefits of being the rabbi in our community is being able to help facilitate and offer opportunities for the teaching of Torah by members of our congregation, such as Sharon Bender, Gary Blog, Harriet Pearlman, and most recently Marc Fertik who delivered the D'var Torah this past week while I was away in Scranton. These moments are especially beneficial for me because at times I can get very caught up in my own "rabbinic mind" of how to interpret and teach Jewish wisdom and hearing interpretations of Torah from new voices stemming from the unique Torah of their life experiences helps me reimagine what Torah can teach.    This past week was no different as Marc[...]

Category : Rabbi Rabbi's Journal
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Rabbi

March 4, 2014
By bethmordecai
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The Healthy Growth of Our Minyan

Bulletin Article March 2014 The Healthy Growth of Our Minyan A few months after my first High Holidays at Beth Mordecai in 2012, I was sitting with our (now) President Norman Silverstein to talk about what was happening in the synagogue. The meeting occurred in the middle of the week after another failure to make a minyan[1] on Saturday morning. As we talked about some of our successes like the Pep Rally, Shabbat by the Sea, the High Holidays, and the Installation, Norman also made a critical point about our minyan. He said that the health of our community is only as strong as our weekly minyan because that’s where we spend the most amount of time together. At the time,[...]

Category : Bulletin Bulletin Articles Rabbi
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Rabbi

February 20, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 600: Today I want to try to come even closer to the Holy One Blessed Be He

Dear Hevreh, While many of our traditional prayers date back nearly 1700 years to the time of themishnah, there are elements of our "traditional" liturgy that date only 500 or so years ago to the time of the mystics (m'kubalim) in the holy city of Tzfat. What's amazing is not necessarily that these "modern" prayers, most notably L'kha Dodi and the creation of theKabbalat Shabbat service have been accepted into our traditional liturgy, but that they were universally done so within a single century! For a world in which ancient is defined as yesterday's Twitter feed, a century may seem like a long time for a a prayer service to go "viral." But seen in context of a liturgy that hasn't changed substantially in nearly 1700 years,[...]

Category : Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Shabbat White Out Friday Night
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Rabbi

February 14, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 594: Friday Night Alive

(2/14/14)  One year after college while I was working at Park Avenue Synagogue as a Torah reader, the leadership of the synagogue decided to celebrate the dedication of their new Torah by bringing in Jewish singer/songwriter Craig Taubman, who created a highly successful "rock concert-like" Friday night service in Los Angeles known as Friday Night Live. I remember attending the event and feeling a powerful energy emanating from the music, the crowd, and the spirit of the evening. I could see why this event, which happens on a regular basis in LA, is called "Friday Night Live" - because it makes Friday night comealive.    Perhaps one day we will be able to bring Craig Taubman or a similar performer to[...]

Category : Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Shabbat White Out Friday Night
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Rabbi

February 13, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 593: Snow…Again

Dear Hevreh, As a child, I loved it when it snowed. It felt like an unexpected gift because not only would it (usually) mean a day off from school, but the sight and feel of snow made me feel happy, even a little whimsical. There is such an indescribable beauty to the whiteness covering the earth that you might even call it spiritual. Perhaps that spiritual element is embedded in a teaching from Pirkei D'rabbi Eliezer(chapter 3) which states: הארץ מאי זה מקום נבראת? משלג שתחת כסא כבודו. לקח וזרק על המים ונקפאו המים ונעשו אפר ארץ שנאמר "כי לשלג אמר הוי ארץ" (אויב לז:ו) וכו From where was the earth created? From the snow underneath [God's] Throne of Glory. God took the[...]

Category : Rabbi Rabbi's Journal
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Rabbi

February 7, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 587: Sign Up Today For Homecoming and Bring Our Past Closer To Our Present

Dear Hevreh, In just a few days many of you will be receiving a thick envelope in the mail from the congregation, if you haven't already. This envelope is not your ordinary shul reminder. It does not contain a bill or a yahrtzeit letter or even a thank you note. No, this envelope constitutes a promise to remember where we came from as we move towards where we are going.   See, this envelope contains all of the information you will need about our upcoming Homecoming Weekend on March 14-16, including highlights (like our Schmooze Cruise and Brunch with Rabbis Barry Dov Schwartz and Melinda Zalma), scheduling, and registration forms. But more importantly, embedded within all of these details is the desire to bring our past closer to our present[...]

Category : Family Shabbat Homecoming Weekend Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Shabbat
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Rabbi

February 6, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 586: Reflections On My Retreat: On Being “Border-less”

Dear Hevreh,   The last time I wrote to you, I was on my way to a retreat for the purpose of "refresh[ing] my energy and creativity" with some "rabbinic 'soul food'" (DAY 582: Excited For Some Rabbinic "Soul Food"). Well, I'm happy to report that the retreat certainly delivered on its promise. Through talking, socializing, davening, learning, brainstorming, and relationship building, the retreat helped give me that sense of renewal I was looking for.   Each one of us has hopefully experienced a similar sense of renewal when we go away on retreats/trips/conferences and other similar opportunities. Certainly the setting of "getting away from it all" helps make experiences like these so powerful,[...]

Category : Rabbi Rabbi's Journal
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Rabbi

February 2, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 582: Excited for Some Rabbinic “Soul Food”

Dear Hevreh, I've often talked about the need to "recharge our batteries," the importance of making sure that we take the time to refresh ourselves and rejuvenate our spirits to be the professional/parent/spouse/friend/family member, etc. we want to be. I've often talked about this need in the context of spending Shabbat together because Shabbat is designed to be a natural refresher in the midst of our crazy weeks. It is a kind of "soul food" that feeds us when we need some spiritual nourishment. However, if I'm truly honest with myself,  Shabbat isn't as refreshing for me because...I'm often working during Shabbat :). Now don't get me wrong, I love spending Shabbat together. I find our "soul food" of davening, conversations, learning,[...]

Category : Rabbi Rabbi's Journal
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