Dear Members and Friends, It was wonderful to see so many of you on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; it always feels like an extended family reunion. After several months of preparation and excitement, then a few days of long and intense prayers, and one long fast day, comes the moment of the last blast [...]

We are just a few days from New Year 5777, and I sense excitement in the air. For Jews, the High Holidays are the spiritual Olympics; it’s time to stretch and give it all we can. It’s time to win ourselves back like an Olympic medal. In a few days, the moon will disappear and will reemerge [...]

In a couple of weeks, at our annual Journal Dinner-Dance, we will celebrate Tifereth Israel’s 115th anniversary. The event will be held this year on Sept. 11, at the Sound View Restaurant. We will see many familiar faces, and we will remember those who are no longer with us. One of the strengths of our Jewish community [...]

Dear Members and Friends, It was a great honor to share the stage with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor at the Orient Annual Heritage Day on July 3. Her words, said on the little porch in front of the Old Point Schoolhouse on Village Lane, are still reverberating truth. The event took place shortly after [...]

Dear members and friends,  “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” (Ps. 116:15) It’s been a week on an emotional rollercoaster. While we were celebrating the holiday of Shavuot — the time when we reaffirm the Ten Commandments in the synagogue, commemorating the highest point in humanity’s spiritual mountain of [...]

Dear Members and Friends, As we count each day of the Omer from Passover to Shavuot, we are reminded of an essential (if not the most important) Jewish concept — learning to separate and set aside. We count 49 days from Passover to Shavuot, separating and setting aside each day. After all, that’s how God created the [...]

The book we use on Seder night is called a Haggadah, which means “the telling,” but the most important message of Passover — freedom — is beyond words. Dear Members and Friends, Great news!  The Jewish people are celebrating Passover again, for the 3,300th time (approximately).  Same table, same matza, same bitter herbs, same togetherness. [...]

A few weeks before my yearly pilgrimage to Israel, I learned that a few members of our congregation were planning to be in Italy, specifically in Sicily. So I decided to take a few days and meet up with them for dinner. We set the date for Thursday, March 17, in Palermo. I was looking [...]

Dear Members and Friends, Two months ago, I went to a football game — for the first time. Someone donated two tickets to the silent auction at our Journal Dinner-Dance, and my friend, Father Roy, won the tickets and invited me to join him. It was his first time as well. I had been to [...]

Dear members and friends, As we experience the season of winter and snow and drift into occasional hibernation, let’s hope it won’t be too challenging this year. It is interesting that at this same time of hibernation, Jews are celebrating Tu Bishvat, the “birthday” of trees. Of all possible seasons, our tradition chooses to celebrate [...]