SB Right – Thumb Image List
Shemini
The weeks before Purim and Pesach are weeks of planning and dedicated eating – eating as much of the chametz in our homes as we can, prior to Pesach. The pasta, the bulghur, the cookies, (so much baking as we use up the flour), checking our pantries for what must be eaten or sold before […]
Tzav
So much going on at this time of year – Purim/Pesach/Shavuot – we do love celebrating springtime, don’t we? And now we are also celebrating our return twice a month to being in a room with each other for services. We hope to see you soon – April 1st is our first Kabbalat Shabbat service and […]
Vayikra
It has been quite a week. Meeting new members, hearing of a young boy needing emergency surgery and then put on life support, another boy needing surgery, a dear friends daughter died, another friend’s mother died, I met with two young couples getting married this summer, some people needed an ear as they contemplated life […]
Pekude
I read this recently: The word spiritual contains the word ritual. How had I not seen this before? As we read through the final words of the journey of Exodus/Shemot, I am struck by this juxtaposition of word within word. The last two books – Vaykhel/Pekude provide extraordinary detail about the construction of the Mishkan, the […]
Vayekhel
As we read through this week’s Torah reading, we cannot help but be struck by God’s wanting us to live with beauty – and precision. Everything in order, everything measured, everything in its place. B’Seder – even as we may use this phrase to mean all is okay, we are actually saying all is in order. […]
Ki Tissa
There is civil disobedience and there is just plain disobedience. This week, as we read Ki Tissa, we face into some of the precipitating factors that led the Israelite people to melt down gold and build the Golden Calf – and hedonistically dance around said calf in the absence of Moses. Moses was gone forty […]
Tetzaveh
Last Shabbat we learned about the phrase, ”Humanly holy”; a phrase taught by the Kotzker Rabbi. The Kotzker taught that each of us holds a portion of the Mishkan, the Sanctuary built for God’s Presence on earth, in our hearts – and we create that mini-Mishkan by bringing holiness into our own choice about our […]
Terumah
Details, details, details – such is the stuff of life and certainly of Torah. We seemingly spend acres of ink – and time – to parse out what all these details signify, both in meaning and practice. I spoke on Shabbat about Torah being the social media of its day – where we learned together […]
Mishpatim
Although I am not a lawyer, Mishpatim will always be a favourite and memorable Torah reading for me. This was the parashah of my conversion, my birth-day, if you will, and I hold each specific memory of that time in 1992 as a jewel in my mind. Judaism is not anarchist by nature; our halachah […]
Tazria
March 28, 2022 by Rabbi Lynn Greenhough • From the Rabbi's Desk Tags: tazria •
It is time for my annual sending of photos of our beautiful Victoria to my brother who lives in Calgary: sprays of pink cherry blossoms, blooming magnolias and clematis, all sent as counterbalance to the near dead looking grey soil of Ted’s backyard. And yet. I know that spring will come to Calgary. I know […]