Phoebe Light: Shabbat in the Time of Corona My relationship with Jewish life had always been, up until a couple of years ago, off-and-on. Jewish summer camp a couple of times. A Birthright trip. A year playing guitar at Hillel in college. Even a three-year stint living in Israel, not that I ever really explored [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Rabbi Steve Cohen: Two Abrahams Shabbat Shalom! This evening I am thinking of our two great Abrahams. First, Abraham the father of the Jewish people, who lived about 4,000 years ago and whom we meet once again in this week’s Torah portion. And also Abraham Lincoln, who 150 years ago led the United States through [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Susan Rakov: Getting Ready for the High Holy Days at Home One year, I was sick in bed during Yom Kippur. I didn’t try to watch a whole day of services on my computer, but I did tune in for the livestream of Kol Nidre. I could see the bimah, the rabbis and the cantor, [...]
Evely Laser Shlensky: The Miracle of Denmark Creating a sometimes tolerable, occasionally rich life during the pandemic has been an ongoing challenge. While many opportunities are presented daily for online learning, for me the more interesting encounter at times has been with my past. With too much time on my hands during the lockdown, I [...]