From the Rabbi

Words of the Spirit, by Rabbi Liz Bolton, Or Haneshamah's rabbi and spiritual leader

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 officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe, killed by the same Hyper Cacher gunman.

Merabet was the police...Read more...

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 a Jewish education, and could read Yiddish and Hebrew. So in addition to the gelt  that I would receive at Hanukkah or...Read more...

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 our “where,” growing our “who,” and contemplating some more “what” and “when.” The big story, now, is...Read more...

“The ground is talking,” says the young commander of the Binyamin Brigade, responsible for the area in the territories between Jerusalem and Nablus, a poignant reference to the unique place the area plays in our Biblical heritage.

Two days before, the former security advisor to the government and Underground fighter, opined that “Real peace needs fundamental political and social change in the Middle East,” and acknowledged...Read more...

The Jewish year cycle can be understood as an object lesson in extremes, at least at the beginning of the calendar year.

We start in joy, celebrating a new year, and wishes for sweetness, but shaded in the colors of teshuvah throughout the days of repentance. Ten days later, we are at our most abject, fasting and praying through an evening morning and afternoon.

A mere four days after breaking the fast, we’re eating a...Read more...