Halloween Torah: The Akedah is a bloodcurdling tale of a menacing father who almost murders his kid, a nightmare waiting to keep you up all night.
Category: High Holy Days
When Youth Engagement Works: Teens Lead Younger Students
Youth engagement succeeds when teens have real life responsibility for their own Jewish learning. After years of adequate adult-led youth services we reached out to our teens. Their involvement as High Holy Day service leaders resulted in more spiritually engaging youth services and also the development of a cadre of teens capable of leading their younger peers in meaningful worship.
Differentiating Between Need and Want
Do you know what happens when we fail to correctly differentiate between need and want? In the space between those two concepts, that’s where sin is born.
Listen and Unleash Your Compassion
We can listen better. Especially us, Jews and Jewish families, who are heirs to a tradition of compassion that calls us to bear witness to the vulnerable. Listen to people of color, to people struggling through life, to the people next door.
Kvetch or Kvell: The Post Yom Kippur Conundrum
Be the blessing you intended to be and buck the trend. When deciding whether to kvetch or kvell about the High Holy Day services, be a kveller.
Do Your Spiritual Homework for the High Holy Days
Your spiritual homework for the High Holy Days is to review your relationships and to begin the process of cleaning them up.
6 Steps of Teshuvah (repentance)
Judaism teaches us 6 steps of teshuvah. The High Holy Days are a reminder for those procrastinators among us to get moving on this life-fixing process. These 6 steps of teshuvah are distillation of the medieval rabbi Maimonides’ Laws of Repentance.
Cleaning Out Closets for Rosh Hashana
Cleaning out closets for Rosh Hashana leads us to the real work of the Hebrew month of Elul, preparing ourselves spiritually for the High Holy Days.
Making Teshuvah on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
Teshuvah (turning) is the process of making your life better, particularly on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It's time to start turning.