Our Mission
09/11/2019 11:59:24 AM
Our Mission
Rabbi Ed Feinstein
Clergy Corner, September 11, 2019
There is a story that haunts me this time of year. It haunts every rabbi I know.
It is the story of a young Jew who lived in Germany at the beginning of the century -- a brilliant student of philosophy at the university in Berlin. All of his cousins, and all his colleagues and acquaintances had converted to Christianity, as...Read more...
A Look Within
06/12/2019 11:44:33 AM
A Look Within
Shavuot, 5779
Rabbi Ed Feinstein
Clergy Corner, June 12, 2019
A rabbi I know once brought a nursery school class into the synagogue sanctuary for a tour. He showed them the bima, the ner tamid, the cantor"s and rabbi's lecterns. Finally, the tiny kids stood before the huge doors of the Holy Ark.
"What do you suppose is in there?" he asked them.
"Nothing!" one...Read more...
The Songs of Israel
05/15/2019 02:00:00 AM
Songs of Israel
Rabbi Ed Feinstein
Clergy Corner, May 15, 2019
This week, Israel hosts “Eurovision,” the international song competition. Performers from across the globe are gathering in Tel Aviv to present the best of contemporary music. For Israel, Eurovision eclipses everything. Domestic political struggles, the conflict with hostile neighbors, international affairs, all recede in the presence of the...Read more...
Dangerous Religion
04/09/2019 04:38:34 PM
Dangerous Religion
"In every generation, we must see ourselves as if we personally had come out of Egypt." (Mishna)
Rabbi Ed Feinstein
Clergy Corner, April 10, 2019
This is dangerous religion. Taken seriously it changes everything -- the way we work, the way we play, the way we spend money, the way we vote, the way we dream. Having known the life of the slave -- brutalized, humiliated, dehumanized --...Read more...
Heschel
01/28/2019 11:50:19 AM
The speaker stood at the podium and announced:
“Ladies and gentlemen, a great miracle has just occurred!”
Members of the startled audience would immediately cease talking, lean forward wondering, what miracle could have happened? What miracle did they miss? He would then continue,
“Ladies and gentlemen, a great miracle has just taken place...the...Read more...
What Religion Has to Say to the World - Remembering Rabbi Harold Schulweis
12/13/2018 11:59:54 AM
When the angels of heaven learned of God's plan to create the human being with the divine image, they were aghast.
“How can God plant something as pure and holy as the divine image, in a create as deceitful, base and corrupt as the human being?” So they conspired to steal it and hide it from the human. But...Read more...
A Happy and Amicable Thanksgiving
11/19/2018 05:11:18 PM
Thanksgiving is America at its best. Whether we arrived on the Mayflower, or immigrated generations later, Thanksgiving reminds us that we share a common history of redemption: We came from far away drawn by a dream of freedom. We met adversity with faith and persistence. We discovered opportunity and possibilities here. And now we share gratitude for the blessings of this land. That, together...Read more...
The Famous Sukkah of Rabbi Pinchas
09/26/2018 01:45:15 PM
This is a story I tell to children. But it really isn't for them. It's for all of us who are tired of the phone ringing, the people who ask for just a little time, the family whose demands never end. Did you ever wish they would all go away and leave you alone? And if they did, how long before you'd miss them? How long before you would discover that the greatest joy in...Read more...
A GROWN UP GOD - Yom Kippur 2018/5779
09/26/2018 01:43:05 PM
He sat before me, a typical petulant 13-year old. It was a week or so before his Bar Mitzvah and he had announced to his family at dinner last night that he didn't believe in God and didn't want to have a Bar Mitzvah. They didn't know what to do. Cancel the simcha? The invitations already went out, the caterer had already been paid, the yarmulkas were on order… Send him to the rabbi. So here he...Read more...
AN AMERICA OF HOPE AND FEAR - Rosh Hashanah 2018/5779
09/13/2018 09:58:26 AM
As you drive north along the Eastern slopes of the Sierras, on the way up to Mammoth, just past the town of Lone Pine, you pass a desolate, lonely place called Manzanar. You should stop and visit. Today, Manzanar is a National Historical Site. In 1942, it was an internment site, one of ten along the West Coast, for more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans who were uprooted from...Read more...
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29 Kislev 5785
