Blog

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...

Earlier this month, we had the pleasure of hosting Rabbi Doug Alpert of Kol Ami, KC for our Shabbat services. Amid his discussion of the possible pathways upon which a modern shul might thrive, R'Alpert also addressed what has been (for me) since Shavuot, a major source of befuddlement: "what parsha are we meant to be reading this week??" If, for instance, you were to have visited hebcal on June 14 in preparation for Shabbat, then you...Read more...

First, I want to thank everyone who attended the annual meeting for not throwing tomatoes at me, and for your forbearance as we worked through the complicated financial status of the LJCC. Passing the budget that we did – a clear investment in the future of the LJCC, admittedly using banked resources at first – is a remarkable testament to how far this congregation has come in the past few years. As a brief reminder here are...Read more...