When we study about Chanukah, we tend to focus on the miracle of the Menorah, and forget about the main purpose of the holiday, the victory of the Maccabees. But it is in this battle that we learn lessons about building a Jewish identity. The historical context of the...
Parshat Korach – Bring our Boys Home
The tragic news this week in Israel of three boys who were kidnapped by Hamas is overwhelming. Yet, at the same time, we need to contemplate what we can ultimately do. There are no words to express the pain that the families of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali must be...
Idea for Parshat Shelach
This week’s parsha tells the famous story of the spies. Moses sends twelve spies to the land of Israel. Forty days later they return, carrying a huge cluster of grapes, a pomegranate and a fig, to report on a lush and bountiful land. But then they continue with words...Parshat Be’halot’cha
LAZY DAYS AT THE BEACH by Benyamin Cohen Torah from Dixie Staff Writer Summertime is here. Every year, we read the Book of Numbers during the summer, and often it gets less attention then it rightfully deserves. So for the moment, let’s catch up with the Jewish...
Treat for Parshat Beha-alotcha
In this week’s Torah reading, the “stiff necked people” in B’nai Yisrael complain about their lack of nourishment. They cry out for meat and fish and even reminisce about the watermelon they had back in Egypt. Our Torah Treat this week features all those foods: gummy...
Recipe for Shavuot
For our recipe this week, I found something both fun and educational for the holiday of Shavuot. It is a Libyan custom that’s certainly not cookie cutter but literally uses cookies to illustrate the essence of Shavuot. Libyan Jews create a child’s cookie...Akiva Calendar
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Rabbi Grossman’s Blog Corner
Rabbi Grossman's Corner
Parshat Miketz/ Channukah – Reconciliation in the past and the present
Parshat Vayeshev – Speech Therapy
This week I would like to share an article by Rabbi Sacks on this week's Parshat Vayeshev: Vayeshev (5771) – Speech Therapy
Parshat Vayishlach – Having it All
Each week the leadership of our school takes the time to study Torah. Our focus this year is on tefilla, the daily prayers, and we are currently studying the morning blessings. The purpose of the morning blessings is to wake us up spiritually and to enable us to be...
Parshat Vayetze – The Symbolism of the Ladder
One of the highlights of the parsha this week is the dream of Jacob, where he has a vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder. There are multiple interpretations of this dream and its purpose in shaping the future of Jacob as the father of the nation of...
United together with Am Yisrael
Kol Yisrael Areivim zeh bazeh. כל ישראל ערבים זה בזה I am writing to you today because our family is in mourning. We are crying together with our family in Israel for the loss of lives of fathers, grandfathers, husbands and friends, who were taken so cruelly...
Parshat Toldot – Praying for Someone Else
We are all feeling an enormous sense of tragedy following the events of the week. Our hearts and prayers are still focused on those families. However, like the men who returned to pray the next morning in that very same synagogue, we must move forward. In the midst of...
Parshat Chayei Sarah- The Lessons of Sarah and Peter Pan
This week’s parsha was my Bat Mitzvah parsha, (sometime in the 1970s shall we say…). As time passes and my kids get older, I reflect more on aging. I often don’t “feel” my age, and whenever I go to weddings, I still feel like a 25 year old. Right then, my kids, (and...
Parshat Vayera- “Pay it Forward”
The theme of “Chessed”, or acts of kindness, is at the core of this week’s parsha. Avraham welcomes the three strangers into his tent with and offers them a lavish meal, freshly cooked, in a way which is above and beyond what anyone would have expected. (In the end,...
Reflections from this week..
This week once again we witnessed incomprehensible acts of violence, in Israel and shockingly, also in our own province and capital. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the soldiers and victims of these acts of terror. As always, we stand behind Israel...
Parshat Noach – Tzelem Elokim – How can I be like God?
The book of Genesis is a book that itself could be studied over an entire year and the reader would still be left with many questions. When we study the books of the Torah and perhaps the book of Genesis in particular, we need to look at the stories and ideas on both...