From Purim to Pesah I
11/03/2015 09:54:07 PM
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, will escape with your life by being in the king’s palace.”
We know the story has a happy “ending” — that is, we...Read more...
Mardi Purim
18/02/2015 09:53:19 PM
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 Down when religious men are not only permitted, but encouraged, to dress as...Read more...
What’s God Got To Do With It?
09/02/2015 09:52:43 PM
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 Haneshamah — with personal reflections, some old-fashioned teaching, and a little exercise. Here are a few excerpts from the...Read more...
Tending the Fruits of The Garden
26/01/2015 09:52:08 PM
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 the prayerbook, the holiday of Tu B’Shvat brings an annual opportunity to celebrate what was...Read more...
Mourning Muslins and Jews, French men and women
12/01/2015 09:51:41 PM
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...
Don’t DO something, just SIT there!
06/01/2015 09:50:59 PM
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, there’s a great compulsion to consider – once we’ve done all of our recapping and best-of...Read more...
Lives of Blessing
30/12/2014 09:49:58 PM
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...
That Holiday on the 25th of the Month
15/12/2014 09:49:18 PM
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 over the years at school, work and elsewhere. Everyone knows something about this 8 days...Read more...
The W5s of OrH
08/12/2014 09:48:39 PM
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...
Naming Rights*
25/11/2014 09:48:11 PM
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 it come to pass that these two men from the same family used different languages for a place name? They were...Read more...
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