Midbar Kodesh Temple News

This past weekend we commemorated the year anniversary of the tragic shooting that took place at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Its gives us pause, as it did on the High Holidays when I spoke about it from the Bima, to reflect on our response to anti-semitism. Dr. Yehudah Kurtzer is the President of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He is a regular lecturer at the Hartman Rabbinic Study Seminar in Israel that I have attended the last two summers. This w

The Festival, that’s what the rabbis call Sukkot. Of all the Holidays, it is the one most associated with joy. After the intense ten-day period of repentance culminating in Yom Kippur, we need a holiday where we can just experience some happiness. Sukkot is one of my favorite holidays because of all of the hands-on festivities that take place over the course of the week. From eating in the sukkah to taking up the lulav and etrog to dancing with the Torahs at the end of the fe

Maggie Anton will be visiting the Midbar Kodesh Temple book club on November 17 to discuss her book “Fifty Shades of Talmud: What the First Rabbis Had to Say About You-Know-What”, the author’s first foray into non-fiction, and there’s still plenty of time to read the book, a lighthearted, in-depth tour of sexuality within the Talmud. Come eavesdrop at the first rabbis' locker-room door as they discuss every aspect of sexual relations how, when, where, with whom - often in sta

Jerusalem (Jeri) Weiss, daughter to Midbar Kodesh Temple members Devra and Dr. Avi Weiss, will be called to the Torah in October. Jeri will be joined in celebration by her brother Shai, her Grandparents Patty Weiss and Rabbi Loel Weiss, and family and friends from as far away as Israel and from at least 15 states, including Nevada! Jeri is granddaughter to the late Jeremy and Marcia Goldberg, of blessed memory. Jeri is a 7th grader at a local private school and a member of t

This coming Shabbat is the first Shabbat of the year. The Shabbat that falls between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is referred to as Shabbat Shuva, The Shabbat of Return. We read a special haftarah, or prophetic reading which is a combination of the words of Hosea and Micah that speak to the theme of repentance. On Rosh Hashana and on Yom Kippur, one of the piyyutim, liturgical poems, that we chant is the Unetaneh Tokef, with the haunting words, “who will live, who will die,