When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.” – Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize-winning chemist A few weeks ago I saw an article hanging on a community bulletin board titled: “Creating an Island of Sanity Read More
Category: Jewish People
Charting Our Path Through the Wilderness
NOTE: The following is an edited version of notes shared during the Kehilat Sukkat Shalom fall community meeting in November. KSS members gathering twice a year, fall and spring, to connect on organizational business. These notes set the stage for our 20th anniversary and plans for a thriving future. 20 years ago, the founders of Read More
Consoling Ourselves with Jewish Art & Culture
Sharonah Laemmle, The 10 Days (2012) Many of us who live in places where the weather and landscape change with the seasons enjoy not only the physical variations we observe, but the metaphysical ones as well. As the days get shorter and darker in central Ohio, we naturally turn our attention from tending our gardens Read More
Shabbaton with Judaism Unbound’s Lex Rofeberg
Judaism Unbound released its first podcast in February 2016. Since then, Dan Libenson, Lex Rofeberg, and their team have released over 500 episodes featuring Jewish innovators including rabbis, scholars, educators, musicians, artists, farmers, healers, community builders. In hosting conversations with people unapologetically reconstructing Judaism they have not only given voice to those doing that work, Read More
Connecting Through Deep Time
The author in her grandma’s lap, with three generations of matriarchs (Miami Beach, 1976) Growing up in a Conservative congregation, I wasn’t allowed to attend yizkhor on Yom Kippur. The special memorial service occurs four times each year – Yom Kippur, Shemini Atzeret (at the end of Sukkot), Passover, and Shavuot. My parents adhered to Read More
Lessons from Ships Adrift at Sea
The first week of July, a series of ships floated through our Sukkat Shalom. Aboard were lessons from the past and messages for a sustainable future. The first was the MS St. Louis which set sail from Hamburg, Germany to Havana, Cuba on May 13, 1939 with over 900 passengers, most Jewish, fleeing Nazi persecution. Read More
Finding Our People Across Time and Space
Preamble: I started writing this post in November 2024, in the wake of an election that’s left many of us feeling fearful about the future. I intended it to be an alternate narrative for the times. I am finishing it in February 2025 when many of our fears are coming to fruition. While the daily Read More