Our Writings

Dear TEE community, I was moved to tears by the meaningful and beautiful gifts I received at last week’s Hanukkah party. (For those of you who couldn’t be there, I’ve included pictures.) The ark doors necklace sits close to my heart in a literal as well as symbolic sense. Our ark represents so many of […]

Dear TEE community, One of my happiest childhood memories is walking home from school on a snowy afternoon, anticipating our family Hanukkah celebration. I grew up at a time when Hanukkah was still pretty low key and the presents I got were things like coloring books and the crayons to go with them. Or, disappointingly, […]

There’s a particular exhaustion that comes at the end of Deuteronomy. Moses is dying. The people have wandered for forty years. We’ve heard the laws recited, the covenants restated, the warnings repeated. And then—the cycle ends. In a few moments, we’ll roll the scroll back to the beginning, and we’ll read again about a formless […]

Dear TEE community, This Saturday morning we will be welcoming Varian Gregory into our community as she celebrates her b’mitzvah. The rituals of Sukkot offer a lovely metaphor for welcoming young people into Jewish adulthood. Both center on the sacred act of making room—creating space for growth, vulnerability, and transformation within the embrace of community. […]

Dear TEE community, This year, as we gather for the Days of Awe, it seems important to acknowledge the wisdom of our ancestors who understood that resilience comes, not from avoiding times of difficulty, but from meeting them with thoughtfulness and community engagement. They faced persecution and displacement, yet continued to build, to learn, to […]

Dear TEE community, This Saturday we begin the liturgy of the High Holidays with Selichot, a service of personal preparation. In the words of our Elul prayers: “Before we enter the palaces of prayer — let us find within ourselves a place of calm.” Following Havdalah, our gathering will combine music, poetry, and the call […]

Dear TEE community, Next Sunday night marks the beginning of the Jewish month of Elul. Traditionally, Elul is a time of reflection and preparation for the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is a month of spiritual introspection, inviting us to assess our actions over the past year and seek to repair […]

Dear TEE community, Last week I joined 26 other rabbis in an action that led to my arrest at the office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune. We were there to protest the situation in Gaza, where basic humanitarian aid is being held back while the world watches people starve. We felt compelled to act, […]

Dear TEE community, This week NY Times opinion writer Ezra Klein observed that it’s “a tense time in the Jewish family group chats,” noting how the longstanding consensus holding American Jewry together is breaking down. That consensus—in his words, “What is good for Israel is good for the Jews. Anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism […]