It seems like we just celebrated Pesach and now I’m starting to panic about High Holiday preparations; how time flies! Beverly hosted a home seder for 14 people ranging in age from 4 to 80 (and everyone seemed to survive my charoset). I followed up the next night leading a community seder featuring jumping frogs and lashes from scallion-wielding children. In preparation for Pesach, I gave a talk at HaMakom and at the Santa Fe Jewish Book Council’s Viva Pesach event in the Convention Center on the textbook for the seder, the Haggadah. I brought with me over two dozen different haggadot ranging from facsimile editions of manuscripts and early printed editions to handmade treasures by Dov and Orli created when they were barely able to write. I also brought the haggadah given as a gift to my dad at age 13 by Humboldt Boulevard Temple. The inscription cites him not only as a good student but also for doing the most for the school during 5698 (1937-1938).
I continue to find opportunities to grab books off the shelf and use them for one rabbinic activity or another. Often I select a story to share when I lead services at the Los Alamos Jewish Center on Friday evenings, and then I select a poem or other reading to incorporate into HaMakom services in Santa Fe on Saturday mornings as I co-lead with Hazzan Cindy. My books are also a resource for appropriate blessings and thoughts on such occasions as the last Shabbat service led at HaMakom by Founding Rabbi Malka Drucker before she moved to California, at the service honoring high school graduates at the LAJC, at a memorial tree planting for a deceased friend, and at a farewell service for a longtime Los Alamos resident who recently moved to Albuquerque. I even sang Rebbe Nachman’s Kol HaOlam Kulo (The whole world is a narrow bridge and the main thing is not to fear) at the Los Alamos Unitarian Church during a memorial for the Orlando nightclub victims.
Recently I shared passages from Open Heart, Against Silence, and Ani Maamin, three of the 44 books on my shelves by Elie Wiesel, in memory of his passing. I have more books by Elie Wiesel than by any other single author. Wiesel truly used the time granted him to make the world a better place.
My spare time, as always, was spent reading. I’ve placed an asterisk next to my favorites from this past quarter.
Weeping Susannah – Alona Kimhi
Biblical Women in the Midrash – Naomi Hyman
Alexandrian Summer – Yitzhak Gormezano Goren*
Hasidic Parable – Aryeh Wineman
The Jews of Poland – The Rev. Myer S. Lew
David: The Divided Heart – David Wolpe*
Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism – Ithamar Gruenwald
Growing Up Jewish – Rabbi Jack Moline
Mitzvah Stories – edited by Goldie Milgram and Ellen Frankel
Torah Through Time – Shai Cherry
For Every Season – Jeff Bernhardt
Shalom in the Home – Rabbi Shmuley Boteach*
Saturn’s Jews – Moshe Idel
The Other Side of the Wall – Shaham
The Contract With G_d Trilogy – Will Eisner*
Desire and Delusion – Arthur Schnitzler*
Pledges of Jewish Allegiance – David Ellenson and Daniel Gordis
Jews in Old China – Sidney Shapiro
B’shalom,
Rabbi Jack