AMICHAI’S 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY: HIGH HOLY DAY VIRTUAL SERVICES 2020

Amichai celebrated its 10 year Anniversary and we could not have done it without your involvement and support. This has been a strange and difficult year. However, even during periods of isolation and difficulty, we as a people have always found ways to continue to connect with one another. COVID-19 may still be on the offensive but we have our lives to live. We do not take a vacation from life and neither does God. Our souls still stir and we continue to address our spiritual needs.

A personal update follows soon!

Amichai Celebrates 10 Years

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