Life Reflections
A Pre-Seder Pesach Prayer
Posted by Shulamit | Tags: Life Reflections
Blessed be all those who attended to the logistics that make a Seder possible, especially, the women who, for centuries, did it all by themselves. Because making the home ready for Pesach includes: Cleaning the house, including closets and windows; Getting clothes for everyone in the family and...
Customs
Posted by Shulamit | Tags: Life Reflections
In 1961, I was returning from my first trip to Israel. At JFK at that time, there was a balcony, with a glass wall, from which people could watch arriving passengers go through customs. My father z”l, the traditional conservative rabbi, watched as I went through the required interrogation. I...
Dispatch from a Normal State
Posted by Rabbi Menachem Creditor | Tags: Life Reflections
Sitting here in Jerusalem, just waiting for the pre-Shabbat siren, I realize something has changed. I've been here many times, shared this holy place with my wife, my children, my parents, and now my extended family, some of whom have made Aliyah. But something is different this time. The...
The Power of a Jewish Voice
Posted by Rabbi Menachem Creditor | Tags: Life Reflections
Nicholas Patruno has written that: "[During the Sho'ah, the Nazis' attempts at] the suppression of language served as a cruel reminder that there would be no voice left to tell. ...But in Auschwitz, Primo Levi soon concluded that his survival, in physical and moral terms, depended largely on his...
Dynamic Connections: The Theology of the Runaway Bunny
Posted by Rabbi Menachem Creditor | Tags: Life Reflections
The children's classic "The Runaway Bunny", written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd, might seem an odd place to begin a theological reflection. The Runaway Bunny begins with a young bunny who decides to run away: "'If you run away,' said his mother, 'I will run after you....
Jewish Elasticity and Values
Posted by Rabbi Menachem Creditor | Tags: Life Reflections
Elasticity describes a ratio of change, a useful tool whose work is independent of units. To measure a ratio of change is to come to terms with the specific language and factors in any given situation before stating an observation. It is a brave thing to step into this world of elasticity, where...
Women on a Beit Din
Posted by Rabbi Menachem Creditor | Tags: Life Reflections
In the fifth year of rabbinical school, Rabbi Joel Roth had typically requested that soon-to-be ordained female rabbis not sit on Batei Din. (During my fifth year Rabbi Roth was teaching at the Conservative Yeshiva, and so Rabbi Mayer Rabinowitz was the instructor.) I felt then, and feel even...
A Prayer for Thanksgiving 2008: "Reaching for Gratitude"
Posted by Rabbi Menachem Creditor | Tags: Life Reflections
Dear God: On a day in which the needs of the world have suddenly gained urgency yet again, in which the internal sense of stability in our country is increasingly fragile, we turn to You. Today is a day for invoking gratitude. But today, when we sit at the table with cherished friends and...
Spiritual Authority in a Participatory Congregation
Posted by Rabbi Menachem Creditor | Tags: Life Reflections
In a world of individual empowerment, what is the place for authority? Is there one? Should there be? Inherited faith traditions locate the source of religious authority in text, the heavens, or a religious leader. Something tangible and limited. That is likely not the way our communities...
Kisses and Memory
Posted by Rabbi Menachem Creditor | Tags: Life Reflections
Yom HaShoah VeHagevurah 5768: "Kisses and Memory" Rabbi Menachem Creditor There are days in which the simplest things carry incalculable meaning. Today is one such day. Yom HaShoah VeHagevurah, our Day of Holocaust and Heroism, amplifies every experience of life to a heightened place. A...
