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In this blog dialogue, Rabbis Elyse Goldstein of City Shul and Ed Elkin of the First Narayever Congregation, friends and colleagues in downtown Toronto, converse on matters of contemporary Jewish import. We publish everytime the spirit moves us, or when you send us a hot-button question. Readers are welcome to submit suggestions for future topics in the comments below.

Hi Ed,

Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services. I imagine how it feels to shul regulars: a fashion-show of strangers, preening, talking, walking in and out, coming late, leaving early. It’s a bad theatre scene— with people exiting before or even during the final act. It’s a concert gone wrong— with fans singing their hearts out while the others don’t know the songs, weren’t there when the band first formed, and don’t understand the lyrics. 

And I also imagine how it feels to those who come only for those days: they’ve…

The following prayers are written in memory of my father, Lowell Jay Herman. He took his life on April 20, 2015. They are a reflection of the pain that my family & I have grappled with.

A Prayer for My Father

Adonai, darkness descended upon him;
cloaking and immersing him in a shroud of shame and sadness.
Mental illness took hold and metastasized into his soul
until he could bear the pain no more.

Adonai, we who loved him are left to navigate the murky waters, the tsunami of grief and the inexplicable pain of his suicide.
Help us not to lose ourselves in the unanswerable question of why, though it is a question we must ask; over and over and over again.
Strengthen us in the face of despair, guilt, shock, anger and overwhelming sadness.
Adonai, help us find the courage to speak the truth, his truth, our truth.

The High Holy Days are just over a month away. The time of the New Year and, ten days later, the time of repentance at Yom Kippur are almost upon us.

As a Jew by choice who will be officially a member of the Tribe only sixteen days before Rosh Hashanah (if I’ve counted correctly), and who had a powerful, meaningful experience at last year’s Yom Kippur, the High Holy Days will probably hit me hard every single year.  Last year, part of what hit me so hard was that we aren’t getting singled out for our sin. We are all confessing, communally, as a community, to grave sins.

This is on my mind today partly because of an article in this morning’s New York Times.  This article is talking about the recent murders of Shira Banki and Ali Saad Dawabsheh by Jewish extremist fanatics. I could quote from…

It’s summertime, and my senses are alive. Feeling the heat on my skin, seeing the lush growth all around, tasting the fresh fruits and vegetables from farm and garden, hearing birds and other animals and smelling fresh flowers.

Yet while I enjoy the summer and the change in routines and the increased time outdoors, I open up this week’s Torah portion, Pinchas, and read this:

In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations. You shall observe it as a day when the horn is sounded. You shall present a burnt offering of pleasing odor to God: one bull of the herd, one ram, and seven yearling lambs, without blemish. The meal offering with them—choice flour with oil mixed in—shall be: three-tenths of a measure for a bull, two-tenths for a ram, and one-tenth for…

Torah from Around the World

Published by The World Union for Progressive Judaism

July 2, 2015 / 15 Tammuz 5775

By: Rabbi Stephen Lewis Fuchs, Former World Union president, author of What’s in It for Me? Finding Ourselves in Biblical Narratives, and Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel, West Hartford, CT, USA. He can be reached at sl.fuchs@comcast.net, and his website.

So many times, I have heard rabbis or Cantors announce, “We begin our service with Mah Tovu!” And then the rabbi, Cantor, choir and congregation or some combination of those resources begin to sing: “How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel!“ (Numbers 24:5)

As thinking Jews, and especially as Progressive Jews, we should not be content to simply intone our prayers mindlessly.

We will enrich ourselves and our worship if we make the effort to understand what they mean, what their literary-historical context is…