Originally published in 2021 Today, I remember. I remember vividly the all-consuming sadness I felt last Purim, as the sun was setting and my celebratory seudah was ending, the last event I attended with a large Jewish community. I remember feeling overcome with the intuitive sense that it would be a long, long time before I would daven with a...[ read more ]

Originally published in 2021 [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=a_RP9orG1YI&ab_channel=myjewishlearning[/embed]

Originally published in 2022 [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJwSeWnn78E&ab_channel=myjewishlearning[/embed]

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boQyshYlV7Y&ab_channel=ExploringJudaism[/embed]

Why are the holidays hard? It’s Elul. Everyone around you is talking about their Rosh Hashanah plans, maybe going home to family, maybe gathering with friends. Perhaps you are someone for whom the holidays carry a lot of heaviness—and not because of their themes or liturgy but because you aren’t having the traditional family experience. You may wonder if there’s even a place...[ read more ]

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anX0Kt2cWh8&ab_channel=myjewishlearning[/embed] [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2bH47tKG_k&ab_channel=myjewishlearning[/embed]

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOWHgYc_n9Y&ab_channel=RespectAbility[/embed]

Today is Rosh Chodesh Tammuz, the head of the new month of Tammuz. As Tammuz enters, many in the Jewish community begin turning our hearts and souls to the Three Weeks—ben HaMetzarim—the time of profound national mourning for the Jewish people, culminating on the 9th of Av with a full day of mourning over the destruction of the Temples in...[ read more ]

Introduction: Shavuot is the second of the three major pilgrimage festivals. Originally a harvest festival, it was the time when our ancestors would aliyah l’regel—literally “go up on foot”—to make an offering of their first fruits in the Temple in Jerusalem. After the Temple’s destruction, when bringing first fruits was no longer possible, rabbinic Judaism was compelled to transform Shavuot...[ read more ]