Parashat Ki Teze 5777 Meir Sendor [Please check out four opportunities to connect to an Ellul workshop in Israel, in Pardes Hanna (in Hebrew), Efrat, Jerusalem, and Zikhron Yaakov. You can see more about them here.] Our home borders on…
A Song of Ascents
Parashat Shoftim 5777 Meir Sendor This week the thirtieth annual Klezmer Festival came to Tzfat. For three evenings, first-rate bands gathered from around the world, playing hour-long sets until midnight and beyond, on five open-air stages placed around town. The…
Better and Better
Better and Better Parashat Re’eh 5777 Meir Sendor When we put up our mezuzot in our new home, we said the berakhah “to affix a mezuzah,” plus the berakhah for newly acquiring a house. It was a moving moment to…
The Good Land
Parashat Ekev 5777 Meir Sendor We moved to a new home this week. It’s still in Tzfat, but a different corner of town. Actually, a different mountain, called Har Kena’an, in a suburb of Tzfat. It was a wild experience…
Beyond Our Wall
Parashat Va-etchanan 5777 Noam Sendor Weighed down by severe depression and anxiety, the young German poet Rainer Maria Rilke was invited by patron Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis to seek refuge at the Duino Castle overlooking the Adriatic Sea.…
Hope Springs Eternal
Meir Sendor Parashat Devarim 5777 In these Nine Days approaching Tisha B’Av, our thoughts are on Jerusalem, our holy city, on the crises that engulfed her in the past and the current orchestrated unrest that is a continuing result of…
Where Are We?
Parashat Devarim Guest post by Rav Noam Sendor Last Shabbat our collective heart was broken yet again with the horrific murder of Yosef, Chaya, and Elad Salomon HY”D. Unfortunately, our Facebook feeds were bombarded with the brutal images of the crime…
Stand By Your Word
Parashat Matot-Mas’ei 5777 Meir Sendor תהלים פרק סה פסוק ב לך דמיה תהלה אלהים בציון ולך ישלם נדר: To You silence is praise, God, in Zion, and to You shall vows be fulfilled. Tensions are high on the Temple Mount…
Deep Thought of Journeys
Guest post by Rabbi Noam Sendor Parashat Matot-Mas’ei 5777 What is the meaning of life? It is, of course, forty-two. So states Deep Thought, the computer system in Douglas Adams’ novel “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” after seven and…
