Rabbi Guzik - A Bisl Torah

We are created to witness and embrace heartache. A close friend of mine relayed an experience she encountered at the mikveh. The mikveh is a pool of water used for ritual purposes. Women and men immerse in the mikveh before...

In my various conversations with congregants, this question resurfaces time and time again. After the body quiets, does the soul live on? Basically, what happens after you die? Judaism offers a variety of answers. Dr. Eitan Fishbane, associate professor of...

Rabbi Sherman and other delegates from Sinai Temple ran in the Jerusalem marathon. What you may not know is that they ran for a beautiful cause. As their feet pounded the holy stones of the old city, our members held...

For the last two Purim carnivals, I dressed up like Queen Elsa. The decision was quite deliberate. A rabbi dressed up like Elsa? Every little girl and boy ran up to me, gave me huge hugs, took photos—and parents proceeded...

She asked the same questions over and over again. One of our congregants took her eight-year-old daughter to a nearby senior home to visit the Alzheimer’s and dementia unit. One of our clergy members was leading a Shabbat service and...

Last week, Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky of B’nai David wrote the following message to his congregation: “This Shabbat morning, with God’s help, Rabbanit Alissa Thomas-Newborn will be offering the drasha at B’nai David – Judea, the Orthodox shul of which I...

This morning I joined a family in their conclusion of shiva, the Jewish week of mourning a loved one. As is the custom, we rose from our chairs and took a stroll around the block. The Rabbinical Assembly offers a...

How do you measure—measure a year? It is a question that comes up a few times for the Jewish people. Certainly discussed at Rosh Hashana, the birthday of the world, and around this season, the secular new year. So…in the...

For years I was inundated with the term, “The December Dilemma.” For Jewish kids, there was or perhaps is an ingrained notion that celebrating Channukah is inferior and less exciting than celebrating Christmas. And so Channukah became commercialized, more gift...

Ok…there’s another birthday in the Guzik-Sherman household. Our first born is turning five. An entire hand. I was thinking about the number five in our tradition. The five books of Moses. The chamsa—five fingers that symbolize God’s protective hand; a...