Bryan Gindoff: A Silver Lining My wife, Verna, converted to Judaism this year and that has been hugely important to my own practice of Judaism. But Covid (with Zoom) is running a close second. A classic in the genre of every cloud having a silver lining. Covid has propelled us into celebrating online Shabbats with [...]
Barbara Greenleaf: The Sunday School of Grandma and Grandpa When our younger daughter saw that Sunday school was not going to reopen due to the Coronavirus, she asked her father and me if we would take over her boys’ religious education. We just looked at each other blankly and, frankly, a little panic-stricken. Neither of [...]
Elizabeth Gaynes: A Thanksgiving Prayer Thanksgiving in any other year would bring its share of blessings and challenges. This year, thoughts such as what to prepare, who to spend time with, how to make this Thanksgiving meaningful, high and low feelings, missing loved ones, and just plain getting through the week are even bigger, somehow compounded, and can be [...]
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 [...]
Julie & Sebastian Fishman: Greetings from the Fishmans! Greetings from the Fishmans, proud members of CBB since 2009 when we moved from Richmond VA (granted we’ve been all over the place). Julie and Sebastian had different perspectives on their experience dealing with COVID 19. From Sebastian: This has been no doubt a very weird year. [...]
Rabbi Ira Youdovin: Now It's Our Turn On the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av in the year 586 BCE, the prophet Jeremiah sat somewhere in Jerusalem watching his beloved city go up in flames. Overcome with grief, he wrote words preserved in the biblical Book of Lamentations: “Lonely sits the city Once great [...]
Mrs. Raymond King Myerson: A Word from Our Matriarch At the suggestion of a very dear friend who recognized the value of my experience, I am sharing this information with any who may find it of value. Because of very advanced age and diminution of eyesight I have secured the company of four [...]
Elizabeth Mason: Ruth Bader Ginsberg Our tradition espouses an inspiring concept. It is as follows: supposedly those among us who pass from this life just prior to Rosh HaShanah are those who have purposely been detained by the Divine Hand. This is because our world has needed their influence until the very end of the [...]
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 [...]
Joel Block: The Honest Struggle All of us, throughout our lives, often have to make choices between what we think we ought to do and what we think is good for us. This pandemic has only exacerbated that dilemma. I am a committed Reform Jew, and that means that I believe that it is incumbent upon me, and all [...]