As I write this article during a week in early June, I am starting to think that karma is coming after me.  For exactly a week, I’ve faced a series of unfortunate events.  Seven days ago I went home sick with a powerful 24-hour bug.  I get colds and viruses like everyone else, but it’s rare for me to go home sick.  Three days ago I entered a bicycle race, and just four laps into the 25-lap event, I crashed hard, leaving my body bloody and bruised and my bike in even worse shape.  And this morning I headed out on an easy bike ride on my spare bike to loosen up my sore muscles when the chain popped off and grinded through the spokes, destroying the rear wheel.  I am really starting to think that karma is coming after me.

Sigh…

I always welcome June with a sigh of relief.  Summer feels to me like the Shabbat of the calendar year.  Life slows down a little bit.  There is still a lot that needs to be done.  Lifecycles continue.  Summer tends to be wedding and unveiling season.  Being a “Type-A” personality, I’ll start preparing for the High Holidays any day now, if I haven’t already by the time you read this.  Nonetheless, synagogue life eases a measure or two.

In 1922 the Reform Movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis stated that “Women cannot justly be denied the privilege of ordination.”  A lengthy 50 years later, in 1972 the Reform Movement began ordaining women as rabbis.  Soon after, the Reconstructionist Movement began ordaining women in 1974.

FROM THE DESK OF THE RABBI

When we think of Jewish education, our minds often wander, immediately, to our children and grandchildren.  Hebrew school, day school, Jewish camping and synagogue youth groups become our primary methods of educating Jewish children Jewishly.  The Torah instructs us to “teach your children” the lessons of the Torah, and on Passover our obligation, as adults, is to teach our children the story of the Exodus and all that it signifies.  So, while we often delegate the responsibilities of formal Jewish education to professionals, we are able to exert tremendous influence by building Jewish homes.  We set for our children and grandchildren an impressionable model merely by the books we read, the music we listen to, the foods we eat, the art we display and the values we teach.