Rev. Chani's Blog

On Sunday afternoon, the Eve of Rosh Hashanah, I found myself driving down to the southern New Jersey cemetery where my maternal grandparents are buried. It is customary to go to the graves of loved ones before the High Holidays, but I rarely actually do this ritual. I have been known to visit loved one’s burial sites on their Yahrtzeit (the anniversary of their death). 

A Pride Reflection I grew up in a family where we prayed all the time. In addition to my father going to synagogue three times a day he recites both bedtime and morning prayers at home. My mother on the other hand, prays all the time she prays in Yiddish, sometimes in Hungarian her mother […]

I was 23 years old with three children when I left my arranged marriage. Perhaps out of necessity, perhaps due to circumstances, I had created a life for myself where busyness and packed schedules were the norm. I was raising the kids, going to school, working multiple jobs.  I had this dream… I would be 40 when […]

“Tell me more about your journey with Tefillin? I want to understand it.” Yael Kanarek asks me in a conversation a few weeks ago as she prepares the Toratah (her Torah) Tefillin for Jericho Vincent.

“What if it were ok to feel your desire? To allow yourself to experience the intensity of sexual craving and pleasure?” The fear that came across my client’s eyes (her face was covered with a mask) was palpable. 

People are looking at their lives and asking themselves, does this work for me?

Does what I have always done feed me? Nourish me? Allow me to be who I want to be in the world?