Blog

Dear Members:

We are excited to share important news regarding our Youth Department. As of July 1, we are creating the new position of Youth Department Director, which will oversee both the administration and the content of all of B'nai David-Judea's youth activities, including Rechov Yeladim, Junior Congregation and Cocoa Club, Tween Minyan, Holiday programming, Minyan for Minions, Teen Minyan and Coffee Club. By having one person...Read more...

Parshat Bo begins with Hashem telling Moshe: בֹּ֖א אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֑ה ,כִּֽי־אֲנִ֞י הִכְבַּ֤דְתִּי אֶת־לִבּוֹ֙ “Go to Paro. For I have hardened his heart…” A few psukim later, Paro tells Moshe to take Bnai Yisrael out of Egypt, only to revoke that permission soon after. Sforno says that Hashem “stiffened Paro’s heart so that ordinary rules of...Read more...

Rabb Yochanan ben Zakai lived through the greatest trauma the Jewish people had even know to that point in history. Over a million dead inside Jerusalem – from famine during the siege, and from the violence that followed it. The Temple was a charred ruin, the city laid waste. The furious hostility of the Roman Empire had been unleashed, and Roman soldiers now warily patrolled every village and town for any hint of remaining Jewish...Read more...

A teaching of the Piaseczno Rebbe:
ב׳ בחינות באמונה ישנן באיש , “There are two types of faith in a person” כשהוא
בהתחזקות ומכל שכן גם בשמחה, אז גם מרגיש את האמונה בודאות , “When you are strong and
especially when you are joyful, you feel faith with certainty”. כשהוא בעצבות ומכל שכן כשחס
וחלילה כולו נשבר, יש...Read more...

What is the most important day in a person’s life? The day she is born? The day he graduates? Gets her first job? Falls in love with his future spouse? What is the most important day in a person’s life?

I’d like to argue that the most important day in a person’s life is a day that, by its nature, is sometimes only recognized in retrospect. It is the day on which he or she summons the will to not break.

There are a lot...Read more...

Dearest friends,

Although the timing was obviously not planned, sharing Iftar with our friends at the Islamic center just two days after the massacre in Orlando was enormously poignant.

The attack in Orlando blended two of the most intense and emotional issues within our society.  One, is the visceral hatred of gay and lesbian people that still bubbles in too many quarters. To me, it is clearer than ever that none of us...Read more...