Author: Temple Sinai

What a week!…We celebrated Tu B’Shevat yesterday. We are observing International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a ceremony at Abbot Hall in Marblehead today at noon and in a special interfaith Kabbalat Shabbat service tonight at 6:00pm at Temple Sinai, while this Shabbat morning is “Shabbat Shira”, the ‘Sabbath of Song.’ Rabbi Batya Ellinoy will help…

I assume that, like me, you will have a couple of secular calendar dates echoing through your head this weekend: Tomorrow is January 6, four years from the infamous January 6 in 2020. And then on Sunday during the expected snow it will be January 7, grimly marking three full months since October 7. Can…

One of my great teachers was Reuven Hammer, z”l, from whom I received my rabbinical ordination. He was a prolific writer and a pioneering Jewish leader in both the US and in Israel. The following words of Torah about this week’s Torah portion, Vayechi, were shared by Rabbi Hammer and published in the book, To…

Last night (Thursday) we lit eight candles for Chanuka, dispelling the darkness with bright and hopeful light. What will we do tonight, then, when the darkness returns? We’ll light Shabbat candles, and their glow will have to be enough. And it will be enough. This situation reminds me of something taught by my friend and…

This Hebrew month of Kislev is – in the northern hemisphere – the darkest month of the year. To me (a relative newcomer to Massachusetts!) the first really cold days which also take place this month feel colder as they shock the senses and portend the long winter that is settling in. Yet in Kislev,…

My colleague, Rabbi Ken Chasen, has suggested a very good answer to a question that has been weighing on my mind and on the minds of our entire family: What would my father-in-law, Rabbi David Forman, z”l, tell us about what is happening? In what way would he be speaking out, as he always did…

This Shabbat November 4 will particularly remind me of another Shabbat November 4 which was exactly 28 years ago. Like the week that began that Saturday night, this Shabbat we read Parashat Vayera, which includes the story of Akedat Yitzchak, the sacrifice (nearly) of Isaac. This story is familiar of course from its reading on…

It’s been three weeks since the horror of terror and war was launched by Hamas against Israel and the Jewish People. The shock and grief and outrage persist. The worry for friends and family and people-in-general in Israel is a heavy weight, as is the worry for Israel itself. A mix of disappointment, disgust, and…

There are not enough words… There are no words at all. And yet somewhere in between “not enough” and “none at all” we continue… Searching Crying Wishing it wasn’t true. Grieving Raging Loving one another and all of our siblings in the whole House of Israel. Words have to begin, and maybe they quite rightly…

Long ago, the existentialist Biblical poet Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) stared life in the eyes and declared at the start of his book: הֲבֵ֥ל הֲבָלִ֭ים הַכֹּ֥ל הָֽבֶל Hevel ha-hevelim, ha-col hevel… Futility of futile, all is futile Encouraging, isn’t he?! You could also translate it more spiritually and “Eastern” as “Emptiness of emptiness, everything is empty”; Or…