By Rabbi Erez Sherman on
October 16, 2020
Over the past six months, we have learned to find joy during challenging times. For each Bar and Bat Mitzvah, we have created a ritual called kabbalat ha-Torah, where we deliver a Torah scroll to the family’s home. For the first time, the child puts on the tallit, and has an aliyah to the Torah, the official marking of Jewish adulthood. A recent Bar Mitzvah family decided to do something unique. In Kohn Chapel and the Ziegler Sanctuary, we have already established pulpits with custom-made tables to hold the Torah while it is read. A few weeks ago, a mother…
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By Rabbi Erez Sherman on
October 9, 2020
The sigh of relief when we finish a giant project is often the best feeling of the experience. Yet, when we finish the annual reading of the Torah, the most exciting part is what is yet to be. The last word of the Torah is Yisrael. We evolved from individuals placed on this earth into a sacred people, tilling God’s garden and fixing the world. The first word of the Torah is Bereshit. Each year as a people we begin again. Our Rabbis teach kol hatchalot kashot, all beginnings are difficult. Once we have started, it is much easier to…
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By Rabbi Erez Sherman on
October 2, 2020
Eating in a sukkah with a winter coat and gloves was the norm growing up in the northeast. I grew up to believe that a sukkah provided warmth even on the coldest days. As an adult eating in a sukkah in extreme heat, my children are taught that a sukkah brings shade even on the hottest days. Fortunately, our tradition teaches us that my childhood self and my adult self do not contradict; we are both right. The covering of the sukkah symbolize the annei kavod, clouds of glory that God would protect the Jewish people with in the wilderness….
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By Rabbi Erez Sherman on
September 25, 2020
Have you ever returned to a familiar place from your childhood and it does not look the same? Everything looked bigger and brighter when we were children. Over the years, our life experiences chisel away the ideal and create the real. Just look back to last year. Full sanctuaries, face to face, shaking hands, and hugging. This year; empty pews, screen to screen, and no personal touch. Yet, we did it! For the last five days, the clergy at Sinai Temple have received emails and calls, astounded that our community could connect and feel close, with the miracle of technology….
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By Rabbi Erez Sherman on
September 18, 2020
As I write these words, the night has fallen on the day before Rosh Hashanah. I open the mahzor, like seeing an old friend. It feels so familiar, words recited by my parents, and their parents. Just three generations ago, in Poland. Two generations ago in Philadelphia, one generation ago in New York, and now I stand here in Los Angeles. The locations change, the environment changes, the world this year has changed as we know it. And yet, the page numbers remain the same, the melodies remain the same, and the traditions remain the same. Tonight, we will raise…
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By Rabbi Erez Sherman on
September 11, 2020
I will always remember the night I stayed up past midnight for the first time. It was Selichot, the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah. The service began at midnight, and as my father would say at the conclusion of each Selichot service, “Boker Tov, have a good morning!” Jews around the world recite these penitential prayers in the days leading up to the High Holidays. It is the first time we take our fist and beat our chest for the confessional. It is the first time we hear Avinu Malkeinu and open the ark to find the Torah covers are…
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By Rabbi Erez Sherman on
August 28, 2020
As the world has changed, so has the manner in which we celebrate simcha in our community. We must discover joy during heartbreak. In pre-pandemic times, our B’nai Mitzvah would gather with their families and the Sinai Temple daily minyan in Kohn Chapel prior to Shabbat, wrap themselves in tallit, don tefillin, and for the first time, recite the brachot over the Torah. Today, we have instituted a kabbalat Torah, a ceremony of receiving the Torah. The Thursday before a child’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah, we now deliver a Torah to the child’s home. We recite the brachot, adorn ourselves in the…
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By Rabbi Erez Sherman on
August 21, 2020
Determination. Comeback. Celebration of the Human Spirit. Those words can describe our Jewish community in this transformative moment. We have entered the month of Elul, just four weeks before Rosh Hashanah. Every day until the New Year, we will sound the shofar, waking us up to renew our lives, to build the community that we do not want to lose. If we are going to survive and thrive we must be determined, each of us counting more now than we ever have before. These words also describe Ariana Berlin. A budding Olympic gymnast in her youth, Ariana was severely injured…
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By Rabbi Erez Sherman on
August 14, 2020
During this pandemic, we have learned how to learn. We have shifted our focus from in-person to online learning. We attend webinars and programs from behind our screens. A new way of life demands new ways of operating. Yet, the one constant is our desire to continue learning. Isaiah writes in this week’s Haftorah: vchol banyich limudei Adonai. “All your children will be learned in Torah.” The Talmud asks, “Why should we learn Torah today when God promises to teach us in the future anyway?” Isaiah was not aware of this pandemic, but he was aware of a deep lesson:…
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By Rabbi Erez Sherman on
August 7, 2020
Each year when Parshat Eikev arrives, I think to myself, “If I knew then…” Twenty-six years ago, I celebrated my Bar Mitzvah, acting as teacher and preacher. While I cannot recall the words I said that morning, I can remember the feeling that the world was at my fingertips. In one year, I would be graduating middle school, in four years, college. And yet, today I wish I could go back to that Bar Mitzvah boy, and say, “If I Knew Then…” If I knew then… I would celebrate utmost joy in marriage to Rabbi Guzik, and be the father…
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