by Rabbi Misha
A few people have reached out to me with concern and questions over this week's events in Israel. Here's a summary of events, with some reflections.
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by Rabbi Misha
This message won’t be helpful. I will suggest a positive, even a wonderful outcome of certain disasters.
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by Rabbi Misha
Several times a day a walk by the Torah scroll in my closet. It took some time to get used to living with it, getting over the fear of something happening to it, of being in the constant presence of such a revered, holy object. Holiness comes with a certain degree of intensity.
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by Rabbi Misha
I’ve been immersed in thinking about nothingness, and then, at a bedtime story to Manu I came upon this. This is my inspiration for Shabbat this week.
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by Rabbi Misha
On Wednesday morning I joined the Shul’s Meditation Chevrutah for the weekly meditation.
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by Rabbi Misha
I walk into a classroom at the Cobble Hill branch of our Hebrew school and find 9 eleven and twelve year olds singing Hineh Ma Tov.
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by Rabbi Misha
Before I say some words about the end times, I'd like to thank all the artists, technicians, designers, curators, activists, prayer leaders, producers and directors of the Kumah Festival.
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by Rabbi Misha
Last year a 14-year-old student told me how a video that he posted on social media went viral. The reason: he was wearing his Jewish star necklace.
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by Rabbi Misha
In 1955 in Queens, NY, a small crowd gathered to say Kaddish for recently deceased Cyral Cottin.
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by Rabbi Misha
This past Tuesday was Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. On Monday, The New Shul will join with dozens of other organizations to sponsor the Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony, and on Tuesday we will celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day.
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by Rabbi Misha
“My son plays soccer right over there,” Shira told us as she drove us into the parking lot on route to Rikers Island. She parked the car, and our small delegation of rabbis and activists picked up our passes that will allow us to drive over the bridge and enter the jail.
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by Rabbi Misha
"In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels."
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by Rabbi Misha
Whenever I hear stories from my polyamorist friends I feel a combination of admiration, jealousy and gratitude.
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by Rabbi Misha
Purim conjures the best and worst memories. Ridiculous feasts, family gatherings, insane Jerusalem karaoke parties, drunken laughter, silly costume duos with friends, moments of the deepest honesty and most liberated dancing.
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by Rabbi Misha
One of my teachers toward ordination was a Hasidic drummer who went by Reb Dovid. Studying Talmud with him, which I was lucky enough to do weekly for seven good years, was a careful text study of ideas in the form of a whirlwind of thought.
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