Rabbi Heller's Blog

Hanukkah, the festival of lights, begins tonight. Each night of the holiday, we are offering outdoor and virtual opportunities to make B’nai Torah part of the celebration. You will see the details below, but as we enter this unusual Hanukkah, I want to offer a thought about the miracle of the Hanukkah oil and our own personal refueling.

One of the first times Rabbi K was a passenger in my minivan, he was traumatized that...Read more...

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of maintaining connections under strain. Once a relationship has broken, how is it mended? This week’s portion, Chayee Sarah, is the first of three examples in Genesis of reconciliation of estranged brothers. In some cases, the animosity has a clear backstory in which both sides have agency. In the case of Jacob and Esau, it is the negotiation over...Read more...

Sometimes you have to go outside to re-enter. Sukkot, and the next few weeks of our synagogue’s activities, are both signs of that. The High Holidays are meant to be an emotionally intense time. The focus is very much on introspection, and our physical selves are subordinated to the spiritual task at hand. How can we think about eating when our very souls are at stake? It...Read more...

Today we begin Rosh Hodesh Elul. It’s a time of introspection and confession. I have a confession to make: I’m kind of over COVID-19. I’d really like to be done worrying about epidemiology and IT infrastructure. I want to get back to singing together in the sanctuary and eating bagels in the social hall, as...Read more...

This Shabbat is known as Shabbat Hazon - the Sabbath of visions of doom. Over 2600 years ago, and then again 1950 years ago, the threat of exile and destruction hung over the Jewish people. That threat came to pass on the 9th of Av (Tisha B’av)  which is observed next Wednesday night and Thursday. Indeed, the cycles of despair often returned to their low point at this season of the year, with inquisitions, crusades and...Read more...

This weeks’ Torah portion is full of rebellion and revolt, and offers some lessons for us on the power of great and bad leadership. Korach and his followers challenged Moses’s political leadership and the religious leadership of his brother Aaron. There were three stages of God’s response, and each phase had an immediate effect and left a permanent sign. The first two stages established that the rebels were...Read more...

What day is it? Blursday? About fleven o' clock? A lot of people tell me that they have had trouble keeping track of time in the past few months. The hours, the days, the months run together. Shavuot is unique among Jewish holidays that it, too, is slightly lost in time.

The Torah tells us that the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai on the first day of the month of Sivan and went through three days of...Read more...

We are a more than halfway from Passover to Shavuot! Four weeks ago, we were dining on Matzah, and three weeks from now, we’ll be up late studying (probably via Zoom) and eating cheesecake (hopefully not via zoom) to celebrate receiving the Torah. Our Torah portion, Emor, describes these seven weeks as a time of watchful counting, building excitement and bringing offerings of gratitude as the harvest got underway. However, in...Read more...

Last week, we finished reading the book of Exodus, which began with the familiar stories of liberation and revelation, highlighted the laws of a functional society, and concluded with a focus on construction of a physical structure, the tabernacle. This week, we begin reading the book of Leviticus, Vayikra, the most opaque of the books of the Torah. Normally, when Leviticus rolls around, rabbis scramble to find something else to...Read more...

This coming Sunday-Tuesday, over 18,000 pro-Israel activists, including over 30 from Congregation B’nai Torah, will be gathering in Washington, D.C. for the AIPAC Policy Conference. This year, there has been a lot of commotion about which politicians will be attending. Israel’s election is taking place on Monday, March 2, and absentee balloting is strictly limited, so many Israelis who would ordinarily attend will be...Read more...

In the midst of the hustle and bustle of preparing to offer the Paschal sacrifice and then leave Egypt, the Israelites are called upon to engage in an odd ritual of “teaming up.” Bringing a lamb an as offering would not have been unusual for the ancient Israelites. That is what Moses had been asking Pharaoh for permission to do all along. Sprinkling the blood on the doorpost as a sign would have been daring, but not inexplicable. By doing...Read more...

Hanukkah is supposed to be a time of rising light, but this year, it was marked by rising violence against Jews in the New York area, with over 10 incidents culminating in a knife attack at a Hanukkah candle lighting in Monsey, NY. Our Atlanta Jewish community is coming together Monday night, January 6 to show support an an event of solidarity. To participate, please visit https://jewishatlanta.org/communityevent/.

The...Read more...

This weekend, we mark the confluence of Parashat Toldot and Thanksgiving. There is actually a thread of connection between the Torah portion and the festival on the secular calendar. For many of us, Thanksgiving is about gathering with family or friends for a festive meal. In the portion this week, we see two times where shared food is entangled with complex family dynamics. First, Esau trades his birthright for a...Read more...

This weekend, as we begin reading the Torah anew, our Jewish community is marking a year since the attack on the Tree of Life congregation in Pittsburgh. We will be marking #ShowUpForShabbat at our 6:30 PM service on Friday night with words of memorial, and we have invited members of the larger community to join us. There are many other observances throughout our community, including a gathering at 2:00 PM at Shearith...Read more...

This Shabbat, the holiest shabbat of the year, we read Parashat Vayelekh, which includes one of the final commandment in the Torah, called Hakhel. God commands the Israelites to have a special gathering every seven years to bring together men, women, children, Jews and non-Jews alike to hear the Torah being read. One thing that is remarkable about the commandment is that it includes not only adults and older children, but even the youngest...Read more...

This week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, describes in depth the organizational structure that the Jewish people are to set for themselves in the promised land. King, prophets, priests, generals, elders, judges and officers each have their role in insuring an orderly civil society. 

The portion begins by commanding that Judges and Officers are to be set “in all your gates.” The plain sense of the text could have been...Read more...

Our American community is still reeling from two mass murders that took place last weekend, in El Paso, Texas and Dayton,  Ohio.  The details and motivations may be different, but in both cases, troubled young men armed with automatic weapons shot into crowds of innocent people.   These are, of course, just the latest in literally hundreds of mass murders in recent years.  Cities and communities will continue to mourn...Read more...

Over three thousand years ago, in words recorded in our portion this week, a bald, Levite rebel named Korach, surrounded by 250 of his minions, declared: “It is too much for you, for all of the congregation are holy.”

Two hundred and forty-three years ago, on July 4th, a group of rebels wearing wigs signed a declaration. "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their...Read more...

Every Tuesday night, our congregation hosts an AA meeting, for those recovering from addiction, and every Wednesday night, we host an Al-Anon meeting, for those who have been impacted by loved ones facing addiction. I’m sometimes asked why we make space available for these programs at some of our busiest times, even on holidays when we normally do not allow outside groups to use our space. The answer, on a basic level, is that these...Read more...

Our congregational mission to Eastern Europe experienced so many different aspects of our history and heritage, and we could not avoid visiting many sites remembering the Holocaust and its victims. These sites have very diverse flavors and intentions.  Some identify culprits and collaborators while others deflect blame.  Some try to create perspective on the enormity of the horror, others focus on  the impact once...Read more...

A joyous Purim to all my friends who celebrate! As the holiday draws to a close, I'm reminded that our sages teach (TB Pesachim 6a) that we must begin teaching the laws of Passover 30 days before the holiday (to get your start, see our Passover guide at https://www.bnaitorah.org/passover). It makes sense to start early. Passover requires a lot of preparation. Kroger is even more pious than our sages and has been preparing for Passover for...Read more...