Aging with Vitality

Last updated on: November 8, 2023 at 8:46 am By Hebrew College

By Rabbi Jim Morgan RS ‘08 Parashat Chayei Sarah (Genesis 23:1-25:18) At Centre Communities of Brookline, an independent housing facility in Massachusetts where I serve as Community Rabbi and Chaplain, I have the privilege of working with a surprising number of very old people. By “very old,” I mean folks in their nineties or older, including one person who recently turned 106. Among the questions that come up in my conversations with these residents is why they are still alive:... Read more

A Divine Image Problem

Last updated on: November 3, 2023 at 8:15 am By Hebrew College

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By Rabbi Shira Shazeer RS ‘10 Parashat Vayeira (Genesis 18:1-22:24) “I really prefer Semitism,” one of my teens remarked around the Shabbat table this week, on hearing about an educational program for teens about antisemitism. Understandably, in the wake of Hamas’ brutal attack on Israeli citizens, and the callous support for that calculated act of mass terrorism that we’ve seen in various communities and college campuses, Jewish communities are responding with programs to prepare and educate our teens for what... Read more

Turning Curses into Blessings

Last updated on: November 1, 2023 at 4:57 pm By Hebrew College

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By Rav-Hazzan Ken Richmond Parashat Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1-17:27) Last week, while talking about the news in Israel, my ten-year-old asked me, “Why don’t some people like other people?” I told him about people hating other people because they are different, because they are jealous or scared of them. I talked about competing claims for land or resources. I spoke about the long tradition of scapegoats, of people in power oppressing a populace but channeling their resentment towards Jews or other... Read more

How to Build an Ark

Last updated on: October 16, 2023 at 2:16 pm By Hebrew College

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By Leah Carnow Parashat Noach (Genesis 6:9-11:32) Last year, I interviewed my seven-year-old nephew; we discussed the story of Noah. We spoke about many things—what the story was about, what the characters were thinking, why God made the flood. One of the questions that struck me most was our discussion on a question Torah learners have been asking for generations—why did God choose Noah? In the opening line of Parashat Noach, the Torah teaches that “Noah was a righteous man, upright in... Read more

The Spiraling Cycle of (Re)Creation

Last updated on: October 10, 2023 at 11:00 am By Hebrew College

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By Rabbi Adina Allen Parashat Bereishit (Genesis 1:1-6:8) “I’ve never felt physically aligned with the conception of linear time” writes author Sophie Strand. “Time…layers, compresses, buckles…The past can change and reflux into the present. The present can settle like dust and pollen on other older sedimented events, forming a physical chronicle.”¹ Emerging from the power and intensity of our high holiday season, we end with a celebration of the cyclical, spiraling nature of time. Just last week, on Simchat Torah, we... Read more

Just Me and My Baby

Last updated on: October 2, 2023 at 10:58 am By Hebrew College

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By Rabbi Minna Bromberg Shmini Atzeret / Simchat Torah We are coming to the end of the Jewish calendar’s long season of introspection, accountability, celebration, and many many prayers for rain, for renewal, and for redemption. With Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur behind us, and our sukkot perhaps not holding themselves up so well, every lulav is by now, we hope, very thoroughly shaken. Many of us have had lots of time with family, with community, and with our own best and... Read more

Abodes of Possibility: Sukkot 5784

Last updated on: September 26, 2023 at 1:19 pm By Hebrew College

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By Risa Dunbar Exodus 33:12-34:26 I have always felt that celebrating Sukkot in New England means facing the tension between our physical vulnerability, and our tradition’s description of this season as “the time of our joy.” Some years it has been impossible to sing in the Sukkah while drenched and shivering, or to enjoy dinner as shreds of multicolored decorations are whipped into my food by the wind. But Sukkot, at its best, can serve as a time for grappling... Read more

The Gift of Darkness

Last updated on: September 20, 2023 at 9:03 am By Hebrew College

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By Heather Renetzky Parashat Ha’azinu (Deuteronomy 32:1-52) In his final reminder to the Israelites about their covenant with God, Moshe, embodying the voice of God, says the following: See, then, that I, I am the One; There is no god beside Me. I deal death and give life; I wounded and I will heal: None can deliver from My hand. How does Moshe have so much trust, confidence, and acceptance of God that he can face the people and affirm God’s... Read more

A Message for Rosh Hashana: Welcoming Tishrei

Last updated on: September 15, 2023 at 12:25 am By Hebrew College

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By Rabbi Justin David The other day, I had the pleasure of a conversation with our teacher, Dr. Nehemia Polen. He knows how much I love hasidic texts (as I do all the learning at Hebrew College), so he stopped by my office to share a rich and beautiful teaching we would enjoy exploring together. It was a teaching on Rosh Hashana by Kalonymus Kalman Epstein, the great hasidic teacher and author of the classic Ma’or va-Shemesh, published in Krakow... Read more

Choose Life

Last updated on: September 5, 2023 at 12:40 pm By Hebrew College

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By Rav Rachel Adelman Parashat Nitzavim-VaYelekh (Deuteronomy 29:9–31:30) My father, Howard Adelman (z”l), passed away on July 23rd and was buried on Tisha be’Av. Though he was eighty five, and had lived a full, vigorous life, his death still came as a terrible shock to me for I thought he was immortal. He had survived so many near-misses in his life—from an attack of pericarditis when I first moved to Israel in the mid-‘80s, to a full cardiac arrest in March 2020... Read more