CBI Blogs

Shalom Chaverim,

Our family is fortunate to have an 11-year-old, black, golden doodle named Lacey. Lacey has trained us that she will go for a stroll twice daily to look after her biological needs. Thanks to Lacey’s habits we have a front row seat to the cycles of the moon. Many nights I will point out the tiny sliver of a new moon and announce how beautiful it is because it...Read more...

Shalom y’all!

I am Morgan Gonzales, the Youth & Family Coordinator at Beth Israel. You may have seen me selling pizza before Hebrew school, measuring parking lots for bounce houses, or running around with a clipboard on Sundays. I would love to share about the foundational spaces where my spirituality was fostered and thus came to be a part of the community at CBI. 

My mother is Jewish,...Read more...

This school year marks the beginning of my eighth year as CBI’s Director of Youth Education & Engagement. Through my years at CBI, from a part-time youth advisor to Director of Community Engagement, working with our youth...Read more...

When I was preparing to leave my first congregation in Norwalk, Connecticut to begin a new chapter at Temple Beth Sholom in New City, NY in 2012, I reached out to a trusted mentor, Rabbi Marcus Burstein z’’l.  I asked him how best to prepare for the new position.

Marcus’ advice was simple: “Read Transitions by William Bridges.”

Transitions, first published in 1980, is a book about the ways in...Read more...

Shalom Chaverim.

What a whirlwind these past two weeks have been. As my husband and I recover from our travels and resettle back into Central time we are a mixture of so many feelings. While, of course, the focus has been the blessing of being back home safely and the safety of our children and loved ones in Israel, sadness for cancelled get-togethers and plans made that couldn’t...Read more...

“All my bags are packed and I’m ready to go…”

Well, at least they almost are, but I could not find a song lyric that was more along the lines of, “All my bags will be packed by the end of this weekend assuming everything goes according to plan…” It’s just not as catchy.

Next week’s Torah portion (Parashat Sh’lach) is coincidentally about moving forward and the steps we need to take as we prepare. Moses...Read more...

For the past few weeks we have been counting the omer every Friday night during services. Every year from Passover to Shavuot we count upward to 49, night by night. When the Temple was in use the people would bring a sheaf of wheat every day to the priests, and that would serve as their tally mark each evening. When they reached their goal, they knew that the next night would be Shavuot, the festival of weeks, also known as chag hakatzir...Read more...

*I wrote this post and then realized that it was very similar to Rabbi Levy's post from last week. Great minds think alike!

I have said and written it many times: I would not be where I am if it were not for Jewish summer camp. Spending four to nine weeks at Camp Livingston from 1984 to 1994 were some of the best months of my childhood (FUN FACT: Janet Stein Elam, formerly of Shalom Austin, was my first camp director there). It is...Read more...

Shalom Chaverim,

The past week and a half has been dedicated to the observance of Israeli Holidays: Yom HaShoah, Yom Hazikaron, and Yom Ha’atsmaut. In both our Hebrew and Religious school classes these holidays were the focus of our students’ learning and, the remarkable ShinShin Eyal Butbul, spent time with our second and fifth grade classes offering firsthand knowledge on...Read more...

A Passover Seder with family can feel like Thanksgiving dinner with higher stakes. The seder is full of themes of freedom and standing up for the oppressed. It invites us to respond in ways that others at the table might vehemently disagree. Many of us feel very strongly about the issues that are in the news today, and we tend to assume that others will agree with us, but that is largely due to the echo chambers of social media through which...Read more...

We’ve reached the moment in our regular Torah reading cycle that many people dread. This week, we begin reading from the Book of Leviticus. The majority of Leviticus focuses on the rules and details involved in offering sacrifices. While we thankfully no longer offer sacrifices, we still read this book each year and find new ways to connect with it. In Hebrew, Leviticus is referred to as Vayikra, which translates to...Read more...

Some of you may recall that my Yom Kippur sermon focused on Zionism. I described my interpretation of Zionism and my vision for the future of Israel. I talked at length about understanding what it means to truly support Israel, to understand what it means to connect with the land, the people, and our history. At the end of my sermon, I explained how we could also have a say in what happens in Israel and how we can partner...Read more...

Shalom Chaverim,

Over and over in Torah we are commanded to care for the stranger, the orphan, and the widow.

In Deuteronomy as the rules for the celebration of Sukkot are spelled out: “You shall rejoice in your festival, with your son and daughter, your male and female slave, the [family of the] Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the...Read more...

In this week's parashah, just after Moses’ visit with his father-in-law Jethro, the Israelites make their way toward Mount Sinai, where they will receive the commandments. The verse says:

They journeyed from Rephidim, and entered the wilderness of Sinai and encamped in the wilderness. Israel encamped there in front of the mountain….(Exodus 19:2)

At first read this feels like an interlude kind of sentence. Just getting the...Read more...

2 years ago, I was blessed to sign my second contract with Congregation Beth Israel. This new contract included a 3 month sabbatical, a real gift that not everyone receives during their rabbinate. We agreed that my sabbatical would take place during the year 5785 and could include whatever I deemed important to me. So, many of you are probably wondering, what did I do with my time off?

Well, I tried to pack in as...Read more...