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). 

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 […]

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?

As I sit down to write this reflection, I am struck by the dichotomies that have become an everyday occurrence in this past year. What does it mean to put on a mask on Purim when we have spent the entire year masked? What does it mean to be showing more of ourselves when most of us have seen into each other’s homes virtually? We’ve been into the homes of our bosses, our colleagues, our therapists, and even our clergy, where we probably would never have been invited physically.

It’s been quite a year…. some of us have lost jobs or our livelihoods, some of us have been sick, far too many of us have we have lost loved ones and had to grapple with how to mourn without community, and we have struggled with how to be there from afar for those who mourn.

Beginning on the second night of Passover, Jews begin the counting of the Omer. We count every evening for 49 days; a full seven weeks, and on the 50th evening we celebrate the holiday of Shavuot.  Shavuot is the holiday in which we commemorate receiving the Torah – the ten commandments on Mount Sinai. We celebrate our acceptance of the contract when we collectively said, “Yes!”