Sunday School this past week rocked the house. I am surprised we were not pelted with quail eggs by our neighbors and that the good folks at the Koban did not use a no-knock warrant to see what was up with all the noise emanating from our patio Sukkah where we danced with the lulav...
Please find below the Kübler-Ross rundown of where we are in the Jewish calendar. Denial: Chazzan Yoni Roth’s arrival from Israel to lead High Holiday services is imminent. The Japanese government will lift all visa restrictions in spite of the Olympics and record COVID numbers. Anger: How dare MOFA and the MOJ not change their...
“These Jews and their f@!$%#& tree houses” the now resigned-in-disgrace former Governor of my home state of New York, Andrew Cuomo, was said to describe Sukkot. Regardless of how you feel about the Festival of Huts, we invite you to celebrate in our luxurious, patio sukkah above where the old JCC swimming pool used to...
Aliyah. Plural: Aliyot. Noun. The Cambridgestein-Websterowitz Dictionary defines the term as ‘elevation’ or ‘the act of being elevated’. In the Jewish vernacular, receiving an Aliyah refers to a synagogue honoring an individual/family by ‘calling them up to the Torah’ to recite three short blessings prior to a section of Torah and one short blessing afterwards....
The ‘twice-a-year’ Jew. A contemporary product of declining affiliation rates and rising secularism across an enlightened post-modern western civilization? Hardly. Over 80 years before a woman would be formally ordained as a rabbi in 1972, the “Girl Rabbi of the Golden West” Ray Frank preached the following Kol Nidre message in a Spokane, Washington synagogue...
Please make your reservations for in-person services and meals ASAP by submitting via e-mail (or fax!) the Excel form found on the right side of our High Holy Days website: https://www.jccjapan.org/high-holy-days-2021.html While we greatly appreciate the generosity of those who purchase seats, this year due to the ongoing pandemic it is also imperative you let...
The Rabbi Car. Much ink has been spilled on what type of vehicle a pulpit rabbi ought to drive, including this 2009 gem from Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2009/09/what-should-a-rabbi-drive Even though my family owned multiple rust bucket jalopies, we slept more soundly knowing that at least our spiritual leader’s dreaded beige 1992 Mercury Grand Marquis did not...
More than in most years, the High Holidays have completely snuck up on us. Rosh haShana begins on the evening of Labor Day (US), Monday September 6th. As impossible as this sounds, it also means that for the second time in the last decade Hannukah will coincide with Thanksgiving weekend. I apologize for the America-centric...
Last year while up way too late at my shviger*’s home in Denver, I ended my Rosh haShana Dvar Torah with “May we merit to appreciate what we have taken for granted, that next year we will shed tears of teruah, when we stand in our sanctuary and hear the shofar blasts together.” Well, it...
This past Friday as we were celebrating 体育の日 Health and Sports Day, your JCC was inundated with calls and e-mails from Jews landing in Tokyo without access to kosher food, prayer books and other religious items that the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee had assured would be taken care of upon arrival. Since that was clearly...