A heartfelt prayer for those caring for a loved one with dementia or Alzheimer’s, offering words of compassion, strength, and hope. It asks for patience in the face of loss, love that endures beyond memory, and the grace to cherish what remains.
Category: Henaynu Caring
Leadership in a Time of Crisis: Resources for Rabbis
Reflections
When the Rabbi Feels Trauma in CCAR’s Journal of Reform Judaism (Fall 2019)
By Rabbi Paul Kipnes
So That’s What Rabbis Do: A Rabbinic Student Reflects on a Synagogue’s Fire Response
By (then Rabbinic Student, now) Rabbi Elana Nemitoff-Bresler
After the Fires: Celebrating Thanksgiving When Homes are Lost or Damaged
By Sally Weber MSW and Rabbi Paul Kipnes
How To’s
Rabbi’s Disaster To Do List: 10 Community-Restoring Actions from the SoCal Fires
By Rabbi Paul Kipnes and Rabbi Julia Weisz
Or Ami Outreach Calls Templates (Emergency and non-Emergency)
Template: Congregant Check-in Call Non-Emergency
Template: Congregant Check-in Call following natural disaster
Template: Evacuation Calls (Response Form)
Template: Non-Emergency Check-In Call (Response Form)
Responding to the Ventura Fires with Shabbat Dinner for 120
With Rabbi Lisa Hochberg-Miller and Rabbi Paul Kipnes
Communicating with the Community
Dear URJ Camp Newman friend: When the Sadness is so Deep: After Fires Burned Down Camp Newman Buildings
By Paul Kipnes
Open Letter to Camp Newman Teens, Staff and Alumni from Rabbi Paul (long)
Sermons
Rabbi, Do You Have a Faith That Gets You Through?
God Damn You, God! Taking God to Task in a Messed Up World
Prayers
A Prayer for these Fire-Filled Days
A Kaddish after Gun Violence: For When Humanity Fails Itself
When the Rabbi Feels Trauma
A mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue.A mass shooting in the local dance bar.A raging fire, forcing the evacuation of the synagogue and 75 percent of our congregation. This is the story of when the rabbi experienced trauma after these events.
Letter to Your Future Self: Hold onto those Silver Linings
Write a letter or a make a video to your future self who will exist five or six months from now. Remind yourself about the silver linings you want to continue to embrace. Maybe, just maybe, you will listen to yourself.
Prayer for Rising Waters: Getting Through Covid-19
A Jewish prayer finding strength in the responses of our ancestors to the trials in their lives. Specially written for during the Covid-19 outbreak
Video: What’s Mourning Like?
A video that explores what it feels like to be a mourner, featuring my poem - The Secret Life of a Mourner.
Video: What to Say to a Mourner
A video that explores what to say to a mourner. Of particular significance for me since my father Ken Kipnes died.
The Secret Life of the Mourner
A poem about what a mourner experiences, hidden away from the rest of the world, sometimes hidden even from friends or community members
Rabbi In Crisis: How a Community Conspires to Care
Imagine having to make this decision: to fly home to hold your wife’s hand as she buries her mom on the West Coast or to remain on the East Coast to oversee the diagnosis and care of your mother who just had a major stroke. What would you do?
Creating an Escape for Teens After the SoCal Fires and Shooting
How might synagogues and Jewish communities respond to the needs of teens to express their inner turmoil and to learn new techniques for managing stress and emotional exhaustion?
So That’s What Rabbis Do: A Rabbinic Student Reflects on a Synagogue’s Fire Response
Rabbinic Student Elana Nemintoff reflects on the role of the rabbi during the immediate responses by Congregation Or Ami, Calabasas, to the Woolsey fire.
Hero or Imposter? As a Rabbi Struggles with Post-Fire Trauma
How does a Rabbi deal with the trauma of a fire and some shootings? Here's another peek into the journey.
When the Rabbi Feels Trauma: Lessons from the SoCal Fires
Facing the trauma after the fires. If it can happen to the rabbi, it can happen to you too...
After the Fires: Celebrating Thanksgiving When Homes are Lost or Damaged
When circumstances out of our control - like fires or other disasters - affect our ability to hold our Thanksgiving rituals in our usual way, we can become distraught. When life intervenes – like fires destroying homes or forcing a loved one to be absent – what happens to the ritual? By Sally Weber MSW and Rabbi Paul Kipnes
Resources after a Shooting: For Solace, Support, Action and Talking to Kids
In the aftermath of the shooting in Thousand Oaks, Congregation Or Ami sent these resources - for solace, support, action and talking to kids - to all our congregants.