Can we all get along?
Women of the Wall was founded as a minyan of women from different movements coming together on common ground for Rosh Chodesh. (photo by Michal Patelle via Wikimedia Commons) In April 2015 – in the aftermath of the death of…
High Holidays
Mourning Elie Wiesel
Dr. Elie Wiesel was motivated by his experience as a survivor of the Holocaust to become one of the world’s foremost advocates for social justice and human rights. He was also a friend to members of the Vancouver Holocaust Education…
Be present as possible
On Rosh Hashana we will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur we will be sealed, who will live and who will die, who by fire and who by water. It’s a jarring incantation. Religious or not, however, this time of…
We need less awe, more action
“Day of Atonement” by Isidor Kaufmann, circa 1900. “We cannot afford the luxury that accompanies the perception of atonement as an end unto itself. We must look at every facet of our lives, internal and external, collective and individual, and…
Tradition and jazz fuse
Sim Shalom founder Rabbi Steven Blane leads the services and the band on the online synagogue’s new CD. (photo from Sim Shalom) Google “Canada synagogue live streaming” and a handful of choices come up, including Vancouver’s Temple Sholom. There are…
How Tashlich took its form
Yemenite Jews participating in Tashlich, Rosh Hashana, 1926. (photo by Shimon Korbman, Shalom Meir Tower, Tel Aviv via Wikimedia) Readers will perhaps find it hard to believe, but the custom of Tashlich, which has become an integral part of the…
Reminder of fragility
Until this summer’s drought, most Vancouverites would have prayed for weather that made their umbrellas unnecessary. These High Holidays, however, many of us will be joining more wholeheartedly in the prayer for rain. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay) I never gave…
Enriching or superficial?
With the High Holidays around the corner, I have noticed my usual light bout of pre-holiday anxiety. So much always seems to ride on this part of the Jewish calendar. For strong believers, there’s the spiritual reckoning. For the less…
Reform has new prayer book
This month, the Reform movement’s new High Holiday prayer book, Mishkan HaNefesh, is being published. It replaces Gates of Repentance, which has served the movement since 1978, and is a companion to the movement’s siddur, Mishkan T’filah, which was published…
Importance of prayer
The holy month of Elul has begun, the sixth month in the Hebrew calendar. There is a rabbinic allusion that the month was named from the initial letters of “Ani le dodi v’dodi li” (“I am my beloved’s and my…
