by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 20, 2022 | Community, Covenant, Kindness and Compassion, Parenting, Pinchas
My children are growing up. Long gone are the hectic mornings of breakfast cereal and desperately packing school lunches. My older son, now grown and living on his own, has inherited the habit of drinking a big cup of coffee (or two) before tackling his day. Though he...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 19, 2022 | Covenant, Faith, God, Israel, Mourning, Pinchas, Redemption, Temple
I was walking past a bulletin board and saw the strangest notice: “I lost it. I don’t know what it is or where it is. I’ve never actually seen it. Some people say that it doesn’t belong to me but I really love it. Whatever it is.” This sounds strange but we do it all...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 17, 2022 | Covenant, God, Messiah, Prayer, Redemption, Seventeenth of Tammuz, Temple
There are many days that are auspicious, commemorated for a powerful event that happened on that date, earning them personal or even national significance. Birthdays and national holidays are like this. The same is true for sad days commemorating tragic events. People...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 29, 2022 | Community, Covenant, Holiness, Humility, Justice, Korach, Leadership, Responsibility
Communism didn’t start with Karl Marx. It actually began 3,500 years ago with a different man – Korah. Korah was the wealthiest Israelite alive when God took the Children of Israel out of Egypt. He was from the tribe of Levi, and thus was never enslaved by the...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 25, 2022 | Bechukotai, Chosen Nation, Covenant, God, Holiness, Israel, Kindness and Compassion, Repentance
There are two passages in the Torah that contain a short list of promised blessings should the Children of Israel adhere to the commandments, and a longer list of curses should they not. The first is found in Leviticus chapter 26 and the second is in Deuteronomy 28....
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 23, 2022 | Covenant, Redemption
With the Exodus, God began to manifest his covenantal promise to the patriarchs. From the outset, God told Abraham that his descendants would be “strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years” (Genesis 15:13). But God...
