Family movie time is now a pandemic staple in our home. We introduced our children to the movies of our youth, reliving our childhoods vicariously.
This week, we focused on time machine movies. In “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” two high school students bring back historical figures to their school for their history project, engaging these individuals in conversation. This entertaining film led us to a simple question, “If you could go back in time, who would you invite?”
My daughter’s third grade writing assignment this week was to write a paragraph about someone who is not thanked enough.
“Nitza, my aunt, I love her very much. She is a kidney transplant nurse and she saves lives. I think because she does this, we should thank her more often. Here are a few reasons why. 1. She saves people’s lives. 2. She brings joy to her patients and helps them get through their hard times. I think we should appreciate Nitza more often!”
In a world filled with division and strife, Martin Luther King weekend connotes unity and togetherness. In King’s speech, entitled “Our God is Marching On,” he tells the story of asking a woman who had been marching for hours if she was tired and why she didn’t simply drive. Her response was, “My feet are tired but my soul is rested.”
Prayers are simply words. On Wednesday evening, I stayed up to the wee hours of the morning glued to the television. After sitting next to my daughter with her jaw dropped early in the afternoon, a nine-year-old asking what was happening in our country’s capital, I felt the urge to witness how we would continue as a nation.
There are passages of the Talmud that you learn in the sacred books and are purely theoretical, and there are pieces of Torah that become your reality in the blink of an eye.
As a family, we have searched for COVID-friendly activities to engage in during school vacation. Besides virtual entertainment, we happened upon Urban Adventure Quests, an online platform which sends you on scavenger hunts through different neighborhoods. In exploring the streets of Los Angeles just a few miles from our home, we recognized landmarks and sculptures that we never noticed, even while driving by hundreds of times in prior years. The clues given to you are extremely specific, inquiring on how many steps lead up to certain buildings, details of the architecture of City Hall facades, and questions on gorgeous murals.
Over this pandemic, our appearances have changed: hair grown out, suits and ties shed. We have not seen each other for almost an entire year.
Our youngest child is fascinated by the Shabbat candles. He loves to watch them glow in the dark. It is a different type of light that comes from the normal ceiling light he sees everyday of the week. He was even more enamored to see the candle lit last night on the first night of Hanukkah. This candle is often the most difficult to light. When there is already a spark, the fire can spread easily. Yet, to go from complete darkness to that tiny flame takes courage. This symbolism is as true in our own lives. It is easier…
There are individuals that when they cross our paths we know we have been touched by an angel. When I arrived in Los Angeles in 2009, I served the community of Shomrei Torah Synagogue, where my partner in crime was Cantor Ron Snow. Ron, born in Detroit, was the true definition of a shaliach tzibbur, a messenger of prayer, who used his simple deep angelic voice to lead us in Shabbat and holiday tefilot. He brought the melodies he learned as a child to the synagogue in West Hills. As Rav Kook taught: hayashan yitchadesh vhechadash yitkadesh, we should renew…
Jewish law dictates the moments when we may interrupt our recitation of the shema. Besides times of danger or greeting a king, we must respond amen to prayers of kedusha, holiness. Yet, there is one prayer outside the holiness canon that we also must break from the shema, and that is the Modim prayer, a prayer of Thanksgiving. The idea of giving thanks is so ingrained in our tradition that we must recognize this fact even if it takes us away for a second from the declaration of our faith, the shema. A religious person is not defined by fluency…
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