Entries by Rachel Barenblat

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From the Rabbi – May 2023

Late this month we’ll reach the festival of Shavuot. When the Temple stood Shavuot was one of the Shalosh Regalim, the three big pilgrimage-festivals when we would travel en masse to Jerusalem to make offerings at the Temple. Shavuot is the culmination of the seven weeks of counting the Omer, and was once a harvest festival. (It still is, among Jews who farm.) But today Shavuot is best known as the holiday when we celebrate receiving Torah at Sinai.

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From the Rabbi – April 2023

This year the month of April opens with Pesach. I love all of the shining moments around the wheel of the Jewish year, but ever since I was a kid, Pesach has been one of my favorites. (And it still is.) Studies have shown that the Passover seder is the one Jewish ritual most commonly celebrated in this country — from Jews who aspire to experience Shabbat each week, to Jews who may only engage in one avowedly Jewish celebration per year, this one is always on the list.

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Take a Lamb: Shabbat HaGadol 5783

“…Granted, change may not be easy. Our spiritual ancestors went from Pharaoh’s frying pan into the fire of forty years of wilderness wandering. But the fact of a new path is hopeful even if the path is hard. Because nihilism and despair and paralysis say: nothing’s ever going to be different. What’s broken will always be broken and can never be mended, so it isn’t worth even trying. But it is worth trying…”

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Hate Has No Home Here

“…If we’re feeling uncertain about how we’re going to get to a better place than this, we’re in synch with our ancient spiritual calendar. The story of the Exodus is one of venturing into the unknown. It’s a story of stepping into the sea, not knowing whether or how the waters would part. I take heart in remembering that now, as then, we don’t have to cross the sea alone….”

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