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Toddlers Turn On to Torah
How can you delight two- and three-year-olds with chanting Torah in ancient melodies called trope? How do you pull them into the storyline, and get them to call out questions and jump out of their seats at the end of each section to shout Hazak! Hazak! Venithazek! (Be strong! Be strong! And may we be strengthened), as if it were a chorus from the latest Disney blockbuster? Rabbi Marisa Elana James did just that as a rabbinical student during her year as director of programming at a congregation in New York City.
https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/toddlers-turn-torah
Posted on: 2000/01/01 - 12:00am
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When the Call Comes, Will Your Congregation Be Ready?
“Do you have any resources about how to deal with guests, calls and emails from people who are interested in becoming a member or are curious about our congregation?”
It’s a smart question.
In an age when people avoid religious institutions, an email or phone call from a prospective member is an opportunity that synagogues cannot afford to lose. But, too often, congregations drop the ball.
https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/when-call-comes-will-your-congregation-be-ready
Posted on: 2017/04/19 - 10:23am
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Waiting for the Messiah - JJS
I was in my mid-twenties, delivering an “Introduction to Judaism” talk to a group of fraternity brothers at Lafayette College, when I first heard the question: Jewish people don’t believe the messiah has come? The young man, who identified himself as a member of the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, lingered long after the program ended to try to understand what that meant. He could not imagine how one could live in such a state.
https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/waiting-messiah
Posted on: 2014/01/10 - 12:00am
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Asking for Help - JJS
It can be extremely difficult to ask for help.
Contemporary Western secular culture prizes autonomy and self-reliance. From a very early age, we are taught that it is better to be independent than dependent, so that corporations have to train their employees to work cooperatively and interdependently.
https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/asking-help
Posted on: 2014/01/29 - 12:00am
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Is God to Blame When Bad Things Happen? JJS
Often enough, I run into people who report that their faith in God was shattered when something terrible happened. If there is a God, they ask, how could He let such things happen?
https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/god-blame-when-bad-things-happen
Posted on: 2014/09/01 - 12:00am
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Where is God in This?
“I’ve hit a wall,” a spiritual direction client recently said to me. “I want to discern God’s presence more frequently.”
https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/where-god
Posted on: 2014/07/22 - 12:00am
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Light Through The Cracks - DW
Recently on the radio, I listened to the new president vigorously assert his belief in the effectiveness of torture. This is not news: he had made his views on the topic clear as a candidate. But this radio report was further evidence, piled onto President Trump’s intimidation of the media and his assertions that falsehoods are truths and truths falsehoods, that we are living in a new reality, where the leader of the free world champions the practices of despots and dictators.
https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/light-through-cracks
Posted on: 2017/02/01 - 2:51pm
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Spirituality and Mental Health
This was originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“Humans plan, and God laughs.”
This Yiddish proverb is not as impious as it might seem at first glance. It declares succinctly an undeniable truth of the human condition: We are not in control. No matter how meticulously we plan, there are innumerable variables for which we can't fully account.
Often enough, we plan, and things turn out the way we want. And then we are tempted to believe that we are in control after all.
https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/spirituality-and-mental-health
Posted on: 2016/06/10 - 12:00am
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Remembering How To Listen: A Reconstructionist Trip to Israel
https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/news/remembering-how-listen-reconstructionist-trip-israel
Posted on: 2017/02/10 - 4:09pm
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Politics from the Pulpit
This year our synagogue is raising up the value of Tikkun Olam – our responsibility to take action to repair the world. If we take seriously our responsibility to repair the brokenness of the world, we have to look at problems that are too big for us to resolve on our own. For example, no matter how much we recycle or conserve energy as individuals, global warming requires systemic responses including governing bodies and cultural change.
Posted on: 2017/01/26 - 9:49pm
