Rabbi Guzik - A Bisl Torah

A dear congregant gifted me a beautiful memoir about her father growing up Poland during the Shoah. Prior to the onset of the war, her father described the ways in which religious men would frequent the “shtiebel.” He explained that...

Our family went around the table to discuss our favorite Jewish holiday. My husband is rare in naming Yom Kippur. I love Sukkot. Our older children gave solid explanations for Channukah and Passover. And finally, with a serious expression, our...

Erez and I developed a new pattern upon entering and sitting in our sukkah. We look around, sideways, and eventually upwards. One of us says, “I love this sukkah.” The other responds, “Yeah, me too…I hope the roof doesn’t fall...

Several years ago, we inherited a beautiful sukkah from our good friends Cantor Arianne Brown and Rabbi Randall Brown. Next, we shared the sukkah with our dear colleague and neighbors Jessie Fruithandler and Rabbi Jason Fruithandler. Over the course of...

In speaking about relationships, my professor remarked, “With every first hello, there is an impending goodbye.” Meaning, with each birth, new connection, endeavor or beginning, an ending is inevitable. With a start, there is surely a conclusion. It is a...

I relay a wonderful story from Philip Goodman’s “The Rosh Hashanah Anthology”: At the conclusion of the service, the cantor approached Rabbi Vevel, the maggid of Wilna, to extend New Year greetings and to be complimented for the manner in...

Our family is in possession of an abundance of shofarot. Many, many shofars. During quarantine, our children took up chess, learned to swim, and now, blow shofar. But unlike the other somewhat delightful skills, the practice of blowing shofar is...

Some superheroes wear capes and fly through the sky. Other superheroes manage classes of anxious, excited, confused students through a world pandemic. Whether instructing in person or via zoom, this Bisl Torah is in honor of the extraordinary people co-raising...

Some people lose socks in the laundry. Others constantly lose their spare key. In my family: we cannot seem to create a full puzzle. No matter what, there is always one puzzle piece missing. I would understand if we were...

In a rare escape from our home, my husband and I were driving through West Los Angeles, admiring the sunset and looming palm trees. Something compelled me to ask him, “What’s one of your dreams?” And I qualified the question,...