Shalshelet
The nearly 305,000 words of a handwritten Torah scroll tell tales, state laws and inspire ideas. It is devoid of some useful things like vowels, punctuation and cantillation marks. Cantillation, or trope, is the musical chanting that can help bring Torah text alive when it’s read aloud, as during services.
It’s Our Story
Last week’s Torah reading was mostly the story of Noah and the Flood. One of the more curious elements of the tale is what happens when the earth dries out enough for the animals and their human tenders to exit the vessel.
Bee Juice
My recent posts...After havdala ended last week’s Galeem (“waves,” our Sunday school), the usual joyful mayhem erupted in the lobby: Kids running down halls for a water bottle, a work of art, a lollipop; parents calling after them “Remember your ________!”; brief...
Welcome to”chol”
A couple days of magnificent weather have been a welcome respite from the bounty of precipitation during Sukkot and the closing festival days. This morning, we stored away our sukkah — unscathed by the nor’easter — for next year.
Free Palestine
“Free Palestine”
To the Editor:
The keys to a state of Palestine — without preconditions, negotiations or genuine expectations — are being handed to a putative leader who is in the 21st year of the four-year term to which he was elected. Is this the reward for his having spent the last two decades building democratic institutions, holding fair elections, addressing corruption, improving universities and industries, advocating for non-biased education at all levels, establishing trade with neighbors, expanding the role of women in society, and other indications of the capability to build a state?
Now we know another meaning of a “Free Palestine!”
(Rabbi) Jonathan Kremer
Ventnor NJ
610-945-7263