Rabbi Kamesar’s Teachings

I don’t need to tell you that the revelation of the draft opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization sent shockwaves through our national environment. The opinion, if the final version holds true to the draft’s core holdings, would overturn a 50-year-old precedent bearing on among

I’m left still feeling the high of Friday night’s celebration of the generosity that led to our synagogue expansion. Members from every chapter of this community’s history came together displaying firsthand what intergenerational Jewish community looks like. Those who have been part of this community

Dear Friends, Today is the due date for for our little one, and while there are no immediate signs that they’re going to arrive on schedule, I’m beginning approximately one month’s worth of parental leave starting tomorrow. (Going with a fixed date regardless of when

Those who are regular participants in Friday night and Saturday morning services with us might have intuited by now that the emphasis of my Divrei Torah, my teachings from torah, tend not to engage directly or explicitly with the headlines of the week. This is not

This past Shabbat during services, we collectively studied Parashat Tetsaveh, the Torah portion known as Tetsaveh, which means “You [Moses] shall instruct.” The portion falls in the last third of the Book of Exodus as Moses remains with God at Mt. Sinai, gathering instructions for the Israelites with

This past week during Shabbat services, we discussed the weekly torah portion, Terumah. Terumah means “gifts” and it refers to the gifts that the Israelite people were called upon to bring so that, collectively, they could facilitate the construction of the mikdash, “sanctuary,” from the word for holiness, or,

Tonight I want to talk about the thing that has been happening all around us this evening: prayer. Prayer is paradoxically extremely central to Jewish life—it is in some ways the central activity that happens at any Jewish event: a Shabbat service, holidays, a lifecycle

This past Shabbat we studied Parashat Yitro, the Torah portion in the Book of Exodus known as Yitro, named after Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, who witnesses the intense burdens Moses is under, navigating the many disputes of the Israelites, and helps him organize a system of judges

As Jews and people in Jewish community, we have become far too accustomed to headlines, and a history, marked by the experience of Jews being targeted for our religious expression, for our heritage, for simply being different. It is deeply painful. It shouldn’t be that

The news out of another part of our community yesterday was wretched: twelve people dead, eight of whom were children, as a result of a fire in a house on the 800 block of North 23rd Street in the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia, a mere