My recent posts...Jew by choice. Jew on purpose. Jew with purpose In America, writes Rabbi Lee Buckman, we are Jews by consent, not descent. We choose: No one forces us to be or remain a Jew. Buckman continues, The greatest challenge we face as Jews is to be tammim,...

My recent posts... Sell by. Best by. | Rosh Hashana 2 5783 | Rabbi Jonathan Kremer Since the summer of 2020, Ellie and I have been volunteering at the Community Food Bank in Egg Harbor Township. The pandemic made us consider those in need, and we felt the need to...

Last week, I found something new in an ancient psalm.

Ah, memories of summer camp! From being one of the youngest campers (my parents liked to travel unencumbered) to being a counselor for brash-mouthed nine-year-olds, I loved Camp Ram

My recent posts...Too Late So Early | 6 July 2022 a song of our times: Gets too late so damn early these days. We’re slogging through thick purple haze that obscures and confuses, everyone loses. Gets too late so damn early these days. Gets too late so damn early...

The episode of Bilaam and his talking donkey is considered one of the more humorous tales in Tanach, our Hebrew bible. (The scroll of Esther is also in the top ten.)

My recent posts...Sanctity of the Camp This week’s Torah portion, Naso, includes an injunction to send those who are ritually impure “out of the contamination range” (Etz Hayim) of the mishkan, the portable sanctuary at the center of the Israelite’s encampment. The...

My recent posts...Letters…  To the Editor: …about assault weapons, have I been missing something? Such as accounts of civilians bearing AK-47s who thwarted criminal activity, prevented home invasions, chased away drug dealers, and the like. For mass murderers,...

My recent posts...(Prologue to a program held in our sanctuary, during which a nun and a cantor spoke about their experiences with Ukrainian refugees in, respectively, Poland and Barcelona.) There is a war raging, a war that is irrational in its origins, devastating...

Nowadays, the stench of fear is particularly pungent, and it can be paralyzing: Ukraine with the seemingly deliberate killing of civilians and the prospect of more heinous actions, homegrown terror of gun violence, Israel grappling with politically or religiously motivated murders, inflation, world-wide food crises, Covid, and so much more.

Counting the Omer can feel a bit like erratic time travel: We ricochet from Biblical antiquity (the counting itself, Pesach Sheni) to turn of the Common Era (Lag ba’Omer) to mid-20th century (Yom Hashoa, Israel Independence, Jerusalem Reunification) and back.

May you turn even the dreaded cleaning and cooking for Pesach into occasions of joy!