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.
Category: Rabbinic Resources
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.
Guided Meditation: I Know I’m Not Alone
A guided meditation on the notion that we are not alone, created to respond to the pervasive isolation people have been feeling in the Covid-19 pandemic.
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.
Protected: First Funeral during the Covid-19 Pandemic: What We Did
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Dear Jewish Leader, Are You Up to the Task?
An open letter to Jewish leaders about how to lead through Covid-19 present and future.
Prayer for Rising Waters: Getting Through Covid-19
A Jewish prayer finding strength in the responses of our ancestors to the trials in their lives. Specially written for during the Covid-19 outbreak
Protected: Wedding Charges
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.
Video: What to Say to a Mourner
A video that explores what to say to a mourner. Of particular significance for me since my father Ken Kipnes died.
Facing Shiva: I Don’t Like Being that One
Spoken word poetry about a rabbi who now has to be the one who sits shiva and let's other take care of him.
I Never Knew: A Rabbi’s Poem about Mourning
A spoken word poem about a rabbi who realizes that after all the pastoral support for people whose loved ones have died, he never really knew what it felt like. Until his own father died.