Rabbi's Letters

Dear Friends,
 
It has been one of the most trying and challenging weeks for Israel in many years.

Unprecedented barrages of rockets sent millions into bunkers and caused injury and death.
 
Even worse perhaps, widespread inter-citizen violence between Jewish and Arab Israelis put into peril the fragile coexistence of 7 million Jews and nearly 2 million Arabs.
 
Homes, synagogues, and mosques were burned and looted. Mobs on both sides attacked innocent civilians.
 
With Israel at an impasse, we pray for a new revelation for the region that will create new narratives and a new vision.
 
Our tradition teaches that during the days before Shavuot, the people encamped by the mountain and found their unity. They were then "one people with one heart," as Rashi comments, ready to receive the Torah. As the midrash teaches, they had made themselves hefker, ownerless and empty, like the desert, as they waited for a new revelation.
 
Please join us Sunday evening at 7pm for our Shavuot evening service, as we celebrate the confirmation and graduation students who remained engaged with our religious school through pandemic and zoom fatigue.
 
Following our service, we will have four classes with Shavuot themed singing led by Cantor Figa in between.
 
Here are the topics of the four classes:
 
Rabbi Glick - "The Revelation of Ruth"
Marc Stopeck - "God's Voice and the Sound of Silence"
Berit Engen - "Wandering, Revelation, Moving On In Our New Tapestries"
David Schwartz - "Revelation: from Sinai to Today"
 
I wish you Shabbat shalom, a Chag Sameach, and leave you with an uplifting video of Israeli Jewish and Arab employees (click here) at a hospital in Afula singing the Hebrew and Arabic song "Salaam":
 
Peace will come upon us
Peace will come upon us
Peace will come upon us
and on everyone.
 
Salaam ("peace" in Arabic)
On us and on everyone
Salaam, Salaam
 
Sincerely,
 
Rabbi Adir Glick