Wisdom to ensure you don’t let political disruptions ruin your Thanksgiving dinner
Category: Congregation Or Ami
Addressing the Lingering Loss of Covid-era Zoom Bar/Bat Mitzvah Students
A service to address the lingering loss for covid-era zoom Bar/Bat Mitzvah ceremonies. Far too many became B'Mitzvah away from the synagogue, instead taking the first steps on the path to becoming an adult on Zoom. It is time for staff teams to address the lingering sense of loss.
Leadership in a Time of Crisis: Resources for Rabbis
Reflections
When the Rabbi Feels Trauma in CCAR’s Journal of Reform Judaism (Fall 2019)
By Rabbi Paul Kipnes
So That’s What Rabbis Do: A Rabbinic Student Reflects on a Synagogue’s Fire Response
By (then Rabbinic Student, now) Rabbi Elana Nemitoff-Bresler
After the Fires: Celebrating Thanksgiving When Homes are Lost or Damaged
By Sally Weber MSW and Rabbi Paul Kipnes
How To’s
Rabbi’s Disaster To Do List: 10 Community-Restoring Actions from the SoCal Fires
By Rabbi Paul Kipnes and Rabbi Julia Weisz
Or Ami Outreach Calls Templates (Emergency and non-Emergency)
Template: Congregant Check-in Call Non-Emergency
Template: Congregant Check-in Call following natural disaster
Template: Evacuation Calls (Response Form)
Template: Non-Emergency Check-In Call (Response Form)
Responding to the Ventura Fires with Shabbat Dinner for 120
With Rabbi Lisa Hochberg-Miller and Rabbi Paul Kipnes
Communicating with the Community
Dear URJ Camp Newman friend: When the Sadness is so Deep: After Fires Burned Down Camp Newman Buildings
By Paul Kipnes
Open Letter to Camp Newman Teens, Staff and Alumni from Rabbi Paul (long)
Sermons
Rabbi, Do You Have a Faith That Gets You Through?
God Damn You, God! Taking God to Task in a Messed Up World
Prayers
A Prayer for these Fire-Filled Days
A Kaddish after Gun Violence: For When Humanity Fails Itself
When the Rabbi Feels Trauma
A mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue.A mass shooting in the local dance bar.A raging fire, forcing the evacuation of the synagogue and 75 percent of our congregation. This is the story of when the rabbi experienced trauma after these events.
Kindergarten Wisdom for an Adult World
May we be written for a good year in the Book of Life! And perhaps that will happen if we go back to basics. If we go back to kindergarten and be our best selves.
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.
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.
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.
Disruptive Judaism: Will Your Synagogue Be Beit Blockbuster or Kehillat Netflix?
Responding to a Disruptive Marketplace for synagogues: The choice is pretty clear: Kehillat Netflix or Beit Blockbuster. Which one will your synagogue become? Kehillat Netflix takes its name from a company that openly and confidently takes chances, risks failure, goes up against conventional wisdom, constantly pivots strategically, and thus has so far ensured both its survival and its success. Beit Blockbuster closed down.
Seth Front on L’dor Vador: HUC-JIR Interns Positively Influence My Daughter
In a speech at Hebrew Union-College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Or Ami congregant Seth Front kvells about the positive impact that Congregation Or Ami interns and rabbis have had on their daughter Amanda.
Fires, Shootings, Unfenced Roofs, and Uncovered Pits: Lessons from Torah in the Face of Increasing Danger
A year after the Borderline shooting and the SoCal fires, we reflect on the first person experiences, and explore Torah's insistence that we take action in the face of danger, including mass shootings and changes in climate.
Seeking a Minyan in Disneyland (or) Kaddish In a Small World
Where do I find a minyan in Disneyland when I need to say Kaddish for my father? Outside It’s a Small World, after all! There, my students ensured I had a community for Kaddish.
Video: What’s Mourning Like?
A video that explores what it feels like to be a mourner, featuring my poem - The Secret Life of a Mourner.