From the Rabbi’s Desk – Archive

Congregation Beth Shalom is a member of the Union for Reform Judaism, an organization that represents more than 800 Reform Congregations. Rabbi Rick Jacobs is the President of the URJ, ...

Remember this phrase from television many, many years ago? The robot warns Will Robinson that there is danger ahead of them. I offer this same warning today. It is appropriate to ...

Dear Lizzie – In more than 30 years of serving congregations, I have never missed a wedding or a Bar or Bat Mitzvah until I missed yours. Words cannot express how ...

This last week, Karen Friedman, President of Congregation Beth Shalom, and I attended a meeting put together by the Jewish Community Relations Council. This meeting focused on a program run ...

Jewish tradition teaches us about the notion of Derech Eretz, which is usually translated as “the way of the world”.  However, much more than that, Derech Eretz is the code ...

Any Yom Kippur in Spokane, Washington, 50 years ago would have found the shul bursting at the seams for Kol Nidre, of course, and for Yizkor.  As Yizkor was about ...

This last Monday, April 24, 2017, the Indianapolis Jewish Community commemorated Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. The event was hosted by the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation, and their Rabbi, Brett Krichiver, ...

For many Reform Jews, Passover is the High Holy Days of the spring. Like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the family gathers together more than any other holiday, and while ...

This coming Friday, March 24th, Congregation Beth Shalom will commemorate the 106th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire which killed 146 mostly Jewish and Italian garment workers in 1911. The ...

For a holiday that seems to be directed so very much towards our children, and so very little towards adults, Purim sure does raise a lot of troubling issues. Esther is ...

In high school I was a geek. My fellow geeks and I built a radio tower out of empty beer cans-–Bob’s father was an alcoholic. We also re-labeled all the ...

One of the first plagues God visited on the Egyptians was the plague of frogs. In our imaginations we visualize thousands, maybe even millions, of frogs exiting the Nile and ...

It is hard to believe that it has been more than forty-five years since Dorris Lessing’s Briefing For a Descent Into Hell, one of my favorite books, was first published. ...

In the learning of Torah, we often find that the core values and lessons that can add so much meaning to our lives are presented in a very subtle manner. ...

From the earliest times, Judaism has faced the challenge of being in the Diaspora (in Exile), living as a sometimes oppressed minority, and maintaining the strength and beauty of our ...