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WORDS THAT BREATHE
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Passover in Full Color: Blacks and Jews Broke (Unleavened) Bread
We sat around tables— round like the world we wished for, flat like the matzah we broke, layered like the stories we shared. Two seders....
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
Apr 143 min read
Sanctuary in a Jazz Club
Jazz was my sanctuary that night in Chicago. Michelle and I had slipped into the Jazz Showcase , where saxophonist Bobby Watson , the...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
Apr 64 min read
The Things We Do for Love
This week, I made a special trip to Gelson’s. Not for Shabbat flowers, not for wine, not even for the babka (though it took everything in...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
Mar 93 min read
Climbing the Ladder to Self-Acceptance: Fulfilling a Childhood Dream on My 61st Birthday
When I was in elementary school, my mom took me to visit a fire station. I cannot remember if it was a family outing, a school trip or...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
Feb 92 min read
Finding the Holy in the Everyday: Lessons from Sand Dollars and Nature’s Wonders
“Wow! God was in this place, and I did not know it.” So declared our biblical ancestor Jacob as he awoke from a dream. Once a deceiver...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
Feb 93 min read
What a Double Funeral and Double Bat Mitzvah Taught Me about Connection
This past Shabbat, I stood in two sacred spaces that illuminated the beauty, fragility and resilience of life. One moment, I found myself...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
Jan 124 min read
When the World Seems Hopeless
Opening the ark on Rosh Hashana morning last week were Lynn Klinenberg, her daughter Susan Glick and her daughter-in-law Ellen...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
Apr 30, 20237 min read
My Chiropracter Prepared Me for Rosh Hashana
Every other year in the days surrounding the High Holy Days, I find myself running to my chiropractor Joel Silbar , so that he can adjust...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
Apr 30, 20234 min read
They Spit on the Sefer Torah
Recently I witnessed one of the most heinous acts a Jew could imagine. With hatred and disgust in her eyes, a young Jewish woman looked...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
Apr 30, 20234 min read
When the Rabbi Feels Trauma
When the Rabbi Feels Trauma by Paul Kipnes, CCAR Journal of RJ, Fall 2019 By Paul Kipnes A mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue. A...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
May 1, 20221 min read
After Death: 8 Ways to Help
The misery of mourning and the overwhelming desire to help. I remember it well after each of my parents and my mother-in-law died. Three...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
May 9, 20215 min read
After 11 deaths in 11 days, I Had it Out with God
Part 1: BACKGROUND [After 11 deaths in 11 days, I had it out with God. I realized it was time for that conversation with the Creator, the...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
May 9, 202110 min read
We Have been Here Before: Spiritual Wisdom for Enduring Covid-19
I feel this sense of deja vu as we began to cancel plans and hunker down. Yes, the coronavirus-compelled communal self-quarantine...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
May 10, 20205 min read
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...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
May 5, 20194 min read
Fires, Shootings, Unfenced Roofs, and Uncovered Pits: Lessons from Torah in the Face of Increasing Danger
When I was in college, during the study week before finals, you would find me either in the computer room writing papers, or in the game...
Rabbi Paul Kipnes
May 5, 201911 min read
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