Blog

The answer is such a classic, that we rarely pay any serious attention to the question that precedes it.  The answer is, “on a day when the books of life and death are open, would you expect that Israel would be singing?!” 

It’s an important answer, epitomizing the unsettled, even anxious feelings that we bring into the day. But it’s an answer which creates a...Read more...

Dear Community Members,

As we are all aware, there has been a significant increase of COVID cases locally. We are encouraged by the careful adherence to the safety precautions that our synagogues have undertaken in order to enable safe, outdoor, masked and distanced minyanim to continue. These minyanim are COVID-compliant, outdoor events, in line with the latest LA Department of Health guidelines, where we work...Read more...

Beginning Tuesday night July 21, we will transition from the "three weeks" to the "nine days". The conceptual difference between the two is that while during the three weeks we refrain from celebratory and musical events that are beyond the typical daily routine, during the nine days we diminish even simple everyday pleasures. In the words of the Mishna, ממעטין בשמחה, we consciously diminish our joy. The premise of this practice is...Read more...

October 2018. It was the day of Aiden Nelson’s bar mitzvah. Word filtered into shul about the shooting and numerous casualties at Tree of Life in Pittsburgh.

We had all sort of been in heightened state of alert especially over the past 14 months, since the white supremacist rally happened in Charlottesville. But nothing like this had ever happened before. Not in the entire history of the United States of America.

...Read more...

Dear members:

We know these are anxious times. We want to take a measured response to the coronavirus while we strive to protect the health and safety of our shul community.

It is important for all of us to follow the best advice being dispensed by government health authorities. As such, we are writing to...Read more...

A Model for Drafting, Debating, and Adopting  a Gay and Lesbian Inclusion Policy in an Orthodox Shul 

Over a period of 15 months, our shul, B’nai David-Judea Congregation in Los Angeles, conducted a process of communal thinking...Read more...

The man who would later be known as St. Augustine was enthralled by the power of memory, a power which enabled the human mind to transcend time and space. “Even when I dwell in darkness and silence”, he wrote, “in my memory I can produce colors…  I [can] discern the breath of lilies from [that of] violets, though smelling nothing…”

Indeed, who has not had the experience of being transported by a memory to an earlier...Read more...

Friday night, two weeks ago, we davened in Rome’s Great Synagogue. And although we found the Great Synagogue to be a little too, well, “great” for our usual davening taste, I actually experienced something so moving that evening in the Great Synagogue,  that it literally and unexpectedly brought me to tears.

The Great Synagogue, as you know if you have visited, is situated in the corner of what from 1555 until 1870 had...Read more...