Chanukah 2020: In Darkness Create Light

Due to COVID-19, it feels like an especially dark time to many of us. Even the hours of sunlight are growing shorter, grayer, too gray. Virtually everywhere we turn is news about increasing daily death tolls and ever increasing official numbers of those contracting the virus. Yes, 2020 has been a year to remember because paradoxically we would like so much to forget it and just resume our lives with some sense of normalcy.

In our darkness, along comes Chanukah, our festival of lights.  There are 2 original stories appearing in the Books of the Maccabees which inform our understanding of Chanukah which have the power to lift our spirits.  Coninue reading.

Amichai Celebrates 10 Years

Picture
Rabbi Debra Nesselson
Amichai was founded in 2011 as one response to our changing times. Many participating in Jewish life are also experimenting with new modes of engagement and outreach. Part of Amichai’s journey forward is based upon an understanding that change happens; it is a constant of our lives. We do not discard tradition; indeed, it is tradition’s shoulders we stand upon as we look ahead—blending the old with the new, undeterred and unafraid. We have never been the ever-dying people but, rather, the ever-living people.

Times That Try
​Our Souls

"These are times that try men‘s [and women’s] souls,” said Thomas Paine, the political activist who helped inspire the American Revolution. Wouldn’t it be so wonderful if we could wake up to a world in which everyone was treated equally? Wouldn’t it be so wonderful if superheroes could save us from all the maladies facing the world, a pandemic which continues to take many lives, massive unemployment, food shortages, just fighting the good fight against injustice where goodness triumphs over evil allowing us to be free? This is the stuff that dreams are made of and are no strangers to Jewish life. Too often as history’s victims, we have clung to a vision of God’s redemption, our return to our homeland and the ushering in of the messianic era...continue reading

What is Hateful to You Do Not Do Unto Others

The world feels different these days and all of us are doing our best to adapt to the necessary changes of living in a COVID 19 world. When we emerge from our homes, we may notice we are looking at others we encounter with cautious suspicion while taking a walk or while shopping in grocery or drug stores. We notice people not taking necessary precautions entering our body space, we hear someone coughing and we wonder as we say to ourselves, Uh-oh, is this person getting sick, is this person contagious? It’s not easy adapting to a COVID 19 world when all any of us want is a return to some sense of normalcy...continue reading