Congregation Beth Mordecai
Congregation Beth Mordecai
An inclusive congregation affiliated with the Conservative Movement.
Your Jewish Home for the Soul!
An inclusive congregation affiliated with the Conservative Movement.
Your Jewish Home for the Soul!
July 21, 2016 By bethmordecai no comments.
Dear Hevreh,
Below you'll find a prayer I wrote in honor of the victims of the Dallas shooting which I'll be reading at a vigil today organized by the Perth Amboy Chaplain Corps. I will be speaking on this prayer (and the sources quoted) during my talk tonight.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Ari Saks
Adonai Elohei Haruchot L'khol Basar, God, Source of the breath of all flesh (Numbers 27:15)
You breathed your spirit into the nostrils of the First Human (Genesis 2:7)
Imbuing our earthly bodies with your heavenly spirit (Rashi on Genesis 2:7)
A pure spirit (Talmud Masekhet B'rakhot 60b; Birkhot Hashahar)
So as long as I breathe, I acknowledge Your Presence (Talmud Masekhet B'rakhot 60b; Birkhot Hashahar)
Lord in this moment of hamas, of anger and hostility (Genesis[...]
Category : American Jewish News home Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Tag : #BlackLivesMatter breathe dallas Police prayer rabbi rabbi's journal shooting
September 16, 2015 By bethmordecai no comments.
ROSH HASHANAH -- HINENI -- Listen to Cantor Bronwen Mullin beautifully sing "Hineni," the iconic High Holiday liturgical piece asking God to listen to her prayers on behalf of the congregation
[audio m4a="http://bethmordecai.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Rosh-Hashanah-Day-1-Hineni.m4a"][/audio]
CLICK HERE TO Listen to Cantor Bronwen Mullin's other great teachings and prayers from Rosh Hashanah 2015/5776
Category : videos-archive Tag : Cantor Bronwen Mullin Hineni prayer Rav Bronwen Mullin Rosh Hashanah
April 21, 2015 By bethmordecai no comments.
Dear Hevreh, Hebrew is hard, I know. Though I've spent many years reading, speaking, and singing Hebrew there are many times when I just don't get it. It can feel foreign, but amazingly enough, it can also feel homey. There's something about the cadence, the sound (especially those gutteral sounds that make you sound like you're coughing up something) that speaks directly to my soul, my neshamah. In my latest piece on State of Formation "Praying in Hebrew, Speaking in Tongues," I discuss how the difficulty of understanding Hebrew makes it tough to be a language of meaningful prayer when we want to know what we're saying when we pray. As such, it's important to find language in our mother tongue[...]
Category : Hebrew Publications Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Tag : hebrew prayer Publications rabbi rabbi's journal state of formation
November 10, 2014 By bethmordecai no comments.
Dear Hevreh,
If I were to tell you that this past weekend I went to New York for "Music! Singing! Dancing!," you might have thought that I was going to the latest Broadway show or some other musical performance. But in fact, along with nearly 15 other members of our congregation, we weren't at a show...we were at shul.
To be exact, we were at Congregation B'nai Jeshrun, one of the largest and most thriving Conservative synagogues in the country. It's a synagogue that started in the late 19th century yet rapidly declined after a heyday around the middle of the 20th century. Then in the early 1980s it hired a charismatic rabbi Marshall Meyer, who was an aide to
Category : home Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Tag : B'nai Jeshrun BJ community dancing inspirational music prayer rabbi rabbi's journal services
October 5, 2014 By bethmordecai no comments.
A Moving Tradition
Yom Kippur Day 5775 – October 4, 2014*
Rabbi Ari Saks
Congregation Beth Mordecai
A week ago today, on a quiet Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur a small group of Jews gathered at Beth Mordecai in Perth Amboy, NJ to schmooze, to learn, and to drink some schnapps. In addition to the laughs and the cajoling needed to convince everyone around the table that it was ok to drink before noon, we had some really interesting conversations about our shul and about Judaism in general. One comment that spurred some interesting discussion was when one of our community members, let’s call him David, said “I think that Judaism or all of religion for that matter is about comfort.” As[...]
Category : Rabbi Ritual Practice Sermons Yom Kippur Tag : Amidah comfort Granting Desires high holidays Jewish Home for Your Soul Jewish prayer Moving New Jersey Star Ledger prayer Rabban Gamliel rabbi rabbi eliezer Rabbi Gerald Zelizer sermons Sh'moneh Esrei tradition Un'taneh Tokef Unetaneh Tokef yizkor Yom Kippur
June 17, 2014 By bethmordecai no comments.
(6/17/14),
The wonderful thing about being outside for services, like at Shabbat by the Sea, is experiencing the natural splendor of creation around us. The challenging thing about being outside for services is that sometimes the natural splendor of creation is not so splendid at all. This past Friday, as we made plans to pray outside, the weather had other ideas -- a downpour arriving close to the beginning of our service forced us to remain indoors, leading our Shabbat by the Sea to become Shabbat in the Sanctuary.
Yet despite the change of scenery, we not only managed to adapt to our new surroundings but we took full advantage of them, whether that was dancing out the front doors[...]
Category : Ari-archive Tag : adaptability adapting memorable nature planning prayer rabbi rabbi's journals shabbat by the sea splendor weather yiddish
January 28, 2014 By bethmordecai no comments.
Dear Hevreh,
Yesterday I wrote about the importance of setting our priorities to do things that are important but not critical otherwise we might never get to those important items. The specific example I raised about myself is the importance of praying and learning every day. As such, I thought it would be appropriate to share with you some of my learning from yesterday which, ironically, was about the importance of prayer.
Rav Nahman of Breslov writes in his book Likkutei Moharan (2:2) that "prayer is the weapon of the messiah" (k'lei zeyno shel moshiah). One of the examples he brings to prove his point is an interpretation of Genesis 48:22, in which Jacob is on his death bed[...]
Category : Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Tag : baba bathra gemara isaiah learning prayer psalms rabbi rabbi's journal rav nahman of breslov Twitter weapon
January 27, 2014 By bethmordecai no comments.
Dear Hevreh,
I am blessed with the opportunity in my role as your rabbi to make my own schedule, a blessing I treasure especially because I know how many of us are forced to conform to other people's schedules. Yet, no matter how much each one of us is able to choose our schedules, inevitably we are faced with decisions on how to spend our time in which we feel like we our schedule runs our lives as opposed to us running our schedules.
At the beginning of each week, I try to plan how I'm going to spend my time during that week, determining which projects will receive attention and which ones will be put on the back burner. Each week I[...]
Category : Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Tag : learning prayer priorities rabbi rabbi's journal
January 15, 2014 By bethmordecai no comments.
Dear Hevreh,
In most sanctuaries, there is a verse from scripture placed above the ark. Residing at eye level with the ner tamid (eternal flame) this scripture is a meditative piece to remind the worshippers in the pews of the intention behind our prayers. One of the most popular phrases to adorn the top of a sanctuary is an adaptation from a Talmudic phrase: דע לפני מי אתה עומד -- Know Before Whom You Stand (Masekhet B'rakhot 28b). We worship before a God, a Presence, so much greater than ourselves, and when we stand in worship, we must be aware of that powerful Presence.
The Talmudic source for this quote indicates that it came as Rabbi Eliezer was on his death[...]
Category : Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Tag : abraham joshua heschel Adult Learning b'rakhot JCC of Middlesex Martin Luther King Neve Shalom prayer rabbi rabbi eliezer rabbi's journal shul Social Justice synagogue talmud Temple Emanu-El
November 27, 2013 By bethmordecai no comments.
(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); Post by Congregation Beth Mordecai.
Category : Hanukkah Ritual Practice Tag : hanukkah kavannah prayer Reb Mimi Feigelson ritual