When both my parents and mother-in-law died within 20 months, everyone wanted to help. Yet I wasn't ready to receive. Here are 8 ways to help that supported me until I was ready for me.
After Death: 8 Ways to Help
Transform Your Synagogue’s High Holy Day Appeal (Then Finally Focus on the Important Stuff)
Transform the High Holy Day Appeal now and your synagogue just might nurture a greater culture of giving. Then, defying the prognosticators of the decline of the synagogue, yours might find itself with the funding to forge ahead, fashioning a future filled with hope and excitement. Here's how Congregation Or Ami did it.
Dear Synagogue Leaders: Go Back Better (to In-Person)
Addressing synagogue leaders, this letter wonders aloud about how we can go back better to in-person synagogue life, especially for our staff and clergy.
Synagogue Dues are Dead: What’s the Price Point at Which Quitting the Temple is Impossible?
Synagogue Dues are Dead, so what’s the price point at which quitting the temple becomes unnecessary or nearly impossible? How Congregation Or Ami transformed our funding model.
After 11 deaths in 11 days, I Had it Out with God
After 11 deaths in 11 days, I had it out with God. I realized with over 419,000 dead in American fromCovid-19 decimating, it was time for that conversation with the Creator.
Drive Thru Judaism: An Antidote to Quarantined Community
Drive Thru Judaism, a series of poignant experiences that, kept people safely in their cars, while providing poignant Jewish experiences uplifted our quarantined congregation, banishing loneliness and bringing spiritual sustenance to a community in quarantine.
3 Previously Banned Behaviors to Embrace these Home High Holy Days
The new normal of distanced coronavirus kehilla tefillah (communal prayer) offers new ways to enhance your Home High Holy Days. Consider these 3 previously banned behaviors to warm up your worship. They just might enhance your experience. Just please think twice before sharing them with your clergy. They might not be completely kosher.
A Psalm for Cities on Fire
Testing Our Synagogue’s Vision During Quarantine: Disruptive Judaism 2
When confronted with the first of many “shelter at home” quarantine orders, many houses of worship struggled with a perplexing dilemma: Who are we if we couldn’t be together? The story of one synagogue’s journey to answer that question illustrates the power of perspective and the potential of pushing through uncertainty into the unknown.
Letter to Your Future Self: Hold onto those Silver Linings
Write a letter or a make a video to your future self who will exist five or six months from now. Remind yourself about the silver linings you want to continue to embrace. Maybe, just maybe, you will listen to yourself.
Make It Count, COVID-19 Style (it’s the Omer after all)
It’s time Jews begin counting. Start to count to correct your life. By counting, we just might convince ourselves that once we are able to leave our homes, we might want to hold onto some of these wholesome new behaviors to enhance our lives and deepen our love of living.
COVID-Kavod CONNECTION: Healing the Social Isolation of a Viral Death
COVID-19 could kill us, but it shouldn’t also bring shame upon us or our infected loved ones. And it won’t. Unless we play into the growing stigma that is at once immoral and dangerous to our mental health. If we play into that stigma, then COVID-19 will do both: shame us unfairly while increasing the chances it might kill us.
Protected: First Funeral during the Covid-19 Pandemic: What We Did
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Pay It Forward, Covid-19-style
During this pandemic, we can Pay It Forward, taking care of a whole web of workers, businesses, and organizations that have long cared for, served, or sustained us.
