We would like to share the statement on Israel issued on December 14, 2023 by T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. T’ruah is an inter-denominational Jewish organization that strives to bring the Torah’s ideals of human dignity, equality, and justice to life by empowering rabbis and cantors to be moral voices and to lead their communities in Continue Reading »
Friends, On Sunday, January 28, 2024, our special Ask-the-Rabbi session addressed Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza (you can watch the recording below). We received many questions in advance of the session, some of which were answered and some of which were not. In the spirit of transparency, and of our Roadmap which guides Continue Reading »
By Rielle Miller Gabriel, Temple Micah President We are blessed as Jews to have multiple opportunities throughout the year to celebrate a new start. My family’s favorite of the four Jewish New Years is this season’s Tu B’shevat. Each year we hold a Tu B’shevat seder, moving through the four seasons via representative food, and Continue Reading »
By David Gregory Throughout my career, as a journalist who also happens to be Jewish, I have faced occasional personal conflicts when covering issues related to Israel. Although I am not actively covering the painful events today, I recognize the unique emotion of this story for Jews who are. And as journalists, today we are Continue Reading »
By Rabbi Daniel G. Zemel I am regularly asked, most often by young rabbis at other congregations, to articulate what I think an American synagogue should be. Do I have a theory that drives my actions? What has been my guiding principle as I helped to shape Temple Micah into the congregation that it is? Continue Reading »
Over the last more than twenty years, our Temple Micah Israel Fund has donated to a wide range of causes and organizations. These include support for the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, institutions devoted to shared society among Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Israel, and organizations that seek to mitigate the harmful effects of the Continue Reading »
By Rabbi Stephanie Crawley It is a lonely time to be a liberal Zionist in America. I know many of you feel abandoned: friends outside the Jewish community deciding they deserve an opinion on the fate of your people, wading into a conflict from the comfort of their living rooms. A broader Jewish community that Continue Reading »
By Rabbi Daniel G. Zemel I am as sad as I have ever been in my life. While driving to Micah this morning, I started crying. As I pulled to the side of the road, I found myself flashing through Jewish history, our tragedies and our triumphs. I considered the Khmelnitsky massacre of Jews in Continue Reading »
By Rielle Miller Gabriel As I write this article in mid-August, our congregation’s 60th anniversary has just occurred. The occasion was noted during the week’s Shabbat services, but otherwise the milestone passed without much fanfare. That we didn’t make much of a fuss about it is actually quite “Micah” of us—but that doesn’t mean this Continue Reading »
By Rabbi Healy Slakman During the High Holy Days, in synagogues and sanctuaries, we yearn for a better future, confront mortality, and confess communal and personal sin. On Yom Kippur, we fast to make room for prayer. And although we pray, we end up hungrier by the end of the day. But over the course Continue Reading »
By Rabbi Josh Beraha A profound duality exists at the heart of the High Holy Day season. On the one hand we’re to consider the entirety of creation. At Rosh Hashanah, the birthday of the universe, we gaze outward toward our community, our nation, the entire global tapestry. We’re to consider society’s most marginalized individuals Continue Reading »
By Rabbi Daniel G. Zemel As a rabbi, one of the most common phrases I hear is, “I’m not really religious.” I rarely respond. Instead, I keep listening— intently—as people struggle to explain why they are sharing this with a rabbi or why they are in a synagogue to begin with. The High Holy Days Continue Reading »
July 2023 Dear Friends, Yesterday’s Knesset vote that strips the Israeli Judiciary of some of its authority to override extreme Knesset measures and to keep criminals out of office was a hard blow for those of us who love Israel. I was distraught until a dear friend reminded me that she had learned from a Continue Reading »
By Steven R. Weisman Kelly Whitehead, Temple Micah’s rabbinical student intern for the summer of 2023, is no stranger to our community. She taught kindergarten through second grade at Machon Micah while an undergraduate studying history at American University, and some Temple Micah families became acquainted with her at Reform Judaism’s Camp Harlam in the Continue Reading »
By Rabbi Stephanie Crawley Elijah’s role in tradition is to be the herald of the messiah. At Havdalah, when we link the Garden of Eden of creation to the Eden of Eternity, the liturgy asks for him to come soon. In Jewish lore, Elijah is thought to be a protector of children and a peacemaker. Continue Reading »
By Fran Dauth The Micah committee named to search for Debra Winter’s replacement as Director of Spiritual Arts was not looking to add another rabbi to the staff. But in the end, the committee did add a rabbi—and far more. Healy Slakman “was everything we were looking for—and more. Her voice is gorgeous, her guitar Continue Reading »
By Geoffrey Barron, Barbara Diskin, and Jan W. Greenberg In Spring 2023, a group of us met at Micah to talk about a tough subject: climate change. To examine climate change is to encounter forces that seem overwhelming: our whole society built on fossil fuels, the power and influence of the big oil companies, the Continue Reading »
by Rielle Miller Gabriel As you walk into Temple Micah this spring you will see a new addition to our lobby—a large poster showcasing our Roadmap Project’s drivers of our future, five levers that help us become a stronger home. As a quick refresher, the Roadmap is a living, forward looking framework intended to Continue Reading »
By Rabbi Josh Beraha In Spring 2020, we set our seder tables with all the typical accoutrements of the Passover holiday, but that year many of us added something new: a laptop computer opened to Zoom. If the addition of an orange on the seder table stood for women’s liberation, the addition of a computer Continue Reading »
By Rabbi Daniel G. Zemel I am writing this letter on March 2. In six days, I will be leaving for Israel to lead our second Micah trip there in this Jewish year (5783). In all my years of traveling to Israel, I never have experienced the level of anxiety I feel today. I have Continue Reading »