Monica Steiner Hooray!: Abraham the Woman Would Have Stayed Monica has served as a lay leader at CBB for 11 years and on our professional staff for the past 5+, most recently as Director of Donor Relations. This month, CBB wished Monica and her family farewell as they move across country so Monica can begin [...]
Asha Wilkus-Stone: Mourning & The Shmita Year On Rosh Hashanah, we began the new year in the Jewish calendar, 5782. This year is a Shmita year. The Shmita year is often translated as ‘The Sabbatical Year,’ and is likened to Shabbat. Parshat Behar (Levititicus 25:1-26:2) begins with the mitzvah: “Six years you may sow your [...]
Judy Karin: In the Fall We Build a Fort In the fall, we build a fort. I have a childhood memory: we’re stuck in traffic, on the way to visit my grandparents in Queens. I glance out the window and see a field of - I don’t know, it looks like giant ferns. It’s [...]
Forgiveness Was I your Scape Goat? The one the Levities pushed over the edge of the cliff in the Wilderness? Was I your Flame in the gaslight? Was I the sacrificed bird, whose blood is splattered by the High Priest, over your leprocy? Did I clean your Soul? I don’t want to be the sacrificed [...]
CBB Voices blog highlighted at Shabbat services! We celebrated a special "blog post Shabbat" this past Friday, January 22. During the sermon portion of the service, Allan Morton, Judy Karin, and Phoebe Light (pictured here) read posts they've published on the CBB Voices blog. Editor Monica Steiner introduced the panel by describing this blog project [...]
Daniel Sulzberg: Smile Now From a global pandemic, climate change, systemic racism, and other challenges there is no doubt that 2020 has been a stressful year filled with change. From a Jewish standpoint, I found myself asking why would God let these kinds of things happen? Maybe it’s the world’s way of saying that [...]
Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld: A Prayer to the One Who Holds Us All This poem was originally published on the Hebrew College community blog last week. We are excited to share this poem with the CBB community. Of note, its author Rabbi Sharon is the sister of our own Rabbi Steve. -Ed. Offered on Election [...]
Ken Ryals z"l: Oseh Shalom CBB remembers our beloved choir member, Ken Ryals, with this video that he recorded just days before he passed. He brought this setting of “Oseh Shalom” by Michael Ochs to life with his beautiful voice, energy, and special “Ken” flavor. His smile at the end reveals his joy in making [...]
Rabbi Steve Cohen: Yom Kippur Sermon 2020 - Helplessly Hoping Six long months ago, in late March, my sister sent me a link to a video of an Italian teen choir from Rome, singing a song from our youth, “Helplessly Hoping.” [See bottom of this post to view the video -- Ed]. I had never seen anything like it. First one young woman, Irene, singing on her own, in her apartment. She was then joined [...]
Lorne Fienberg: A Note on Covid-19 Indulge me for a minute. Find a quiet place and read one of my favorite Walt Whitman poems -- out loud: I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as [...]