Purim has passed, and even those of us who celebrated together and listened to the story may have missed this verse in Chapter 4. It goes by quickly. Mordechai admonishes Esther, reluctant at first to step into the King’s chamber uninvited to plead for her people: “Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, […]
If it’s “Fat Tuesday,” it must be almost-Purim! When you stop to think, these two fests seem to be like the proverbial twin-separated-at-birth as featured in Mad Magazine. Is Mardi Gras the Catholic Purim? Masks! Costumes! Inebriation! Wild Dancing! And this is a religious feast? Truly, both dates are all about Turning the World Upside […]
This past Sunday, Rabbi Liz spoke at the First Unitarian Congregation’s Sunday morning service while Reverend John Marsh was out of town. Her sermon’s title, “What’s God Got To Do With It?”, made everybody nervous. She managed to put people at ease — just as she would do when she talks about God at Or […]
During our most recent Shabbat morning Torah service, we had a little liturgical announcement: we declared the coming new month of Shvat. It’s hard to identify a more universally relevant topic than the environment. Along with the weekly dedication of Shabbat we sing in our Kiddush honouring Creation, and the prominence of this theme in […]
Were we a community that compiles, prints or announces names to be acknowledged as Mourner’s Kaddish is recited, last Shabbat I would have offered the name Malek Merabet, and those of the four men killed inside the kosher supermarket in Paris — Yoav Hattab, Phillipe Braham, Yohan Cohen and Francois-Michel Saada — and also police […]
IT’S … TODAY! A Bear, a Pig and some Monkees walked into a … Nope, that won’t work. Try this: “What day is it?” asked Pooh. “It’s today,” squeaked Piglet. “My favourite day,” said Pooh. ~ ~ ~ With the secular new year behind us, along with the reading of the whole book of Genesis, […]
As a youngster, I loved Hebrew school, Young Judea, our community summer camp, Camp B’nai Brith, and Friday night services. I went to services on my own, or with friends. I had even asked to attend afternoon religious school! My zayde, my mother’s father, and a pious Jew, was quietly proud that I persisted in […]
One of my favourite recurring queries about the Jewish holidays is “How do you spell [the holiday that falls on the 25th of the Jewish month of kislev]?” It’s a favourite because it invariably leads to wonderfully informative and often entertaining stories of folks’ encounters with this festival, whether in their family of origin, or […]
As an undergraduate, I contemplated a career in journalism and was involved with the student newspapers. I wanted to live in the beguiling shadow of those female film icons with their trench coats and snappy rejoinders, working on the W5 — the who, what, when, where and why of a story. OrH is settling into […]
Jacob said to his kin: Gather stones. They took stones, made a mound, and ate there by the mound. Laban called it Yegar-Sahaduta, but Jacob called it Gal-Ed. (Gen 31:46-47) Two different languages, the same name. Witness-mound. Laban’s name for the site of this peace treaty is in Aramaic; Jacob’s is in Hebrew. How did […]
