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✷to be read on 16 November / 15 Cheshvan ✷

In Vayera (“He Appeared”), three guests arrive at Abraham and Sarah's tent. They prophesize the birth of a child to Sarah.God tells Abraham that Sodom and Gomorrah will be destroyed; Abraham urges to no avail that they be spared. Abraham &...Read more...

✷ to be read on October 26⎮24 Tishrei ✷

Bereishit (“In the Beginning”) is the first parsha in the annual Torah reading cycle. It all begins, of course, with the word. God creates the world and its creatures, including its first people, who eat from the Tree of Knowledge and are banished...Read more...

✴︎ to be read on August 17⎮13 Av ✴︎

Parashat Vaetchanan ("I Pleaded") opens with Moses pleading with God to be permitted to enter the Holy Land. God refuses and instead instructs Moses to climb to a height so that he may glimpse Israel but from a distance. Moses then reminds the Israelites of the feats that have been accomplished on their behalf and enjoins them to the task of...Read more...

✴︎ to be read on August 10⎮6 Av ✴︎

With the Book of Deuteronomy, we open the final book of the Torah. Devarim ("words" or "things") sees Moses in a role different than that which he has occupied thus far. Here, Moses becomes a storyteller, recounting various episodes from the Israelites' 40 years in the wilderness. He speaks of the appointment of judges, the sin of the spies, and wars...Read more...

What is Shavuot?
Shavuot occurs 7 weeks after Pesach, punctuating the period of the sefirat haOmer (the counting of the omer). It is a holiday with its roots in Judaism's agricultural past, a celebration which was once meant to mark the harvest of the first fruits of the...Read more...

Originally published in the May 2023 Newsletter.

You'll have to forgive the use of a term from my years in and as a continental philosopher, but in reading this fascinating article by Rabbi Shimon Felix, I couldn't help but think of the omer - and Jewish tradition more broadly - in terms of the palimpsest. The palimpsest is a manuscript on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing...Read more...

Passover remains my favorite holiday, one that I look forward to with absolute delight and child-like anticipation. Perhaps because it is a holiday designed expressly for children and, when it comes to Judaism, I am still a child. Or perhaps (and not unrelatedly), it is because – in a religion defined by its devotion to dialectical education – Passover stands out  among the holidays for its educative impulse. I was once a...Read more...

✷ to be read on March 23⎮13 Adar II ✷

In this first Torah portion of the book of Leviticus, God instructs Moses on the five different kinds of sacrifices to be offered in the Mishkan:

Terumah (understood as "gift," "offering," or "sacrifice") is this week's parsha and, in it, Moses receives God's commandments on stone tablets as well as instructions for the building of the Mishkan, i.e., the portable...Read more...

Resolve to get to know ShulCloud
We invite you to take some time this January to get to know ShulCloud, the LJCC’s digital home. ShulCloud is a cloud-based software designed specifically for synagogues. ShulCloud helps the LJCC and its members do all sorts of things - like keep track of ritual timing and yahrzeits; learn about and register for events; make payments and connect with other members.

You likely already...Read more...

Dear Families, Students, and Community Members,

I can proudly say that within the last two years, the LJCC Religious School has become more robust, strategic, and purposeful. While we still organize our approach and activities according to the four pillars of Torah, values, ritual, and tradition, we have grown from a single primary school track to include preschoolers and teens. We have engaged specialty...Read more...

Your year-end tax-deductible gift enables the LJCC to continue our engaging programming; to keep our members safe and connected; and to fulfill our mission of providing a pluralistic, egalitarian, and inclusive space for the Jewish people of Lawrence to worship, socialize, and learn. 

You can support the LJCC while maximizing the tax-implications of your gift by using your IRA or by initiating gifts of stock or other securities....Read more...

"Where do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none. We wake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight. But the Genius which, according to the old belief, stands at the door by which we enter, and gives us the lethe to drink that we may tell no tales, mixed the cup...Read more...