Posts by Rabbi George Gittleman

Being the Rabbi of Congregation Shomrei Torah has been a dream come true. From the start of my rabbinical training, I was looking for a spiritual home. A place where I could share my love of Torah in the broadest sense of the word.  A place where we -- my family and I, along with the congregational family -- could grow, and grow up, together. A place where we could celebrate and mourn,...Read more...

Today, I’m both sad and excited to share the news that in June 2024, I will be retiring as rabbi of Congregation Shomrei Torah.

Over 27 years have passed since Laura, Levi, Sophie, and I arrived in Santa Rosa in July of 1996. We love...Read more...

I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts about the ideas and thinkers that accompanied me on this walk.  If you’d like more information, click on the hyperlinks.

I recently returned from a couple days of fishing in Oregon. On the way home, I stopped...Read more...

We celebrate Purim this Wednesday. Most folks think of Purim as a pediatric event with costumes, hamantaschen, fun music and revelry; a good time for all ages, especially the kids! Celebrating Purim is a lot of fun, but even a cursory look at the the biblical book of Esther, the basis for Purim, reveals that it is not really a kid’s tale. What you find instead is a story full of dread and...Read more...

Sometimes the Torah seems archaic and irrelevant. And then there are moments when the ancient text leaps across the 3,500-year divide as if the words were written for this very moment. That’s how I felt when I read this passage from last week’s portion:

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married: “He married a...Read more...

Being hopeful is perhaps our greatest spiritual challenge. That is why I love Norman Fischer’s latest book, The World Could Be Otherwise.

“The imagination is powerful…(and) essential for our humanness.” He writes.  “The Bible and other religious texts, folktales, myths, … poems, plays, novels, …music, ritual, dreams – all imaginative productions rise up from the unconscious to expand...Read more...

By definition, Reform Jewish Practice is hard to summarize.  Nevertheless, I thought it would be helpful to have an outline of the essentials.

The Month of Elul

We often think of the Holy Days as beginning with Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur.  In fact, the Yamim Noraim (The Days of Awe) officially begin a month before the start of Elul. I think of Elul as the month of...Read more...

With Passover just a few days away, I am thinking about Bob Marley. I fell in love with Bob Marley’s music before I fell in love with Judaism. I was a freshman in college at the University of Vermont, a long way from my home in Louisville, Kentucky and even farther from...Read more...

As we approach Tu B’shvat, I am reminded of the story of Honi Hamagil, Honi the Circle-Maker and the carob tree.

Honi lived in Israel around the year 100 BCE. He was a shaman and a miracle-worker.  He’s called “the Circle-Maker” because in times of drought...Read more...

It was a day like any other with the usual raft of email, follow-up phone calls, community building and program planning, a bar mitzvah lesson and a meeting with synagogue staff and then an emergency.

“I’ll come now. It will take me about a half hour to get there. I’ll see you soon.”

The way is familiar. We’ve shared a lot of life together. At the door, I get confused for a second but see the mezuzah and ring the...Read more...

When you think about all the challenges we face, it is easy to be cynical or just give up. Remaining hopeful in a world where so much seems out of our control and where we know so much is an essential spiritual challenge.

Thank God for Pesach because Pesach is a lesson in hope. It’s all in this story…

The Israelites seem doomed from the very beginning: a nation of slaves pitted against the super power...Read more...

Rabbi George’s talk, “What we take from our homes when we flee for our lives”, was delivered as part of the interfaith healing service at The Center for Spiritual Living a week after the fire:

The wind woke Laura up. She smelled smoke, walked out our front door into the court and saw the fire coming from Calistoga Road.

“George, you’ve got to get up….”

We live in Rincon Valley and the first two times we...Read more...

The conflagration of hate and bigotry in Virginia is appalling but not surprising; Trump’s cozy relationship with members of the alt-right (think Steve Bannon) and his inflammatory language has emboldened the haters and bullies in our country. Half-hearted in his condemnation of the perpetrators, the President ultimately defended the “very fine people” who marched alongside and in lockstep with the Nazis and the KKK.

As members...Read more...

Jews have been a part of the American experience from the beginning.  We’ve shared in her trials and tribulations.  We arrived with the first settlers in New Amsterdam, and later we participated in the great migration west.  We’ve plowed her fields, fought in her wars, and in general, participated in almost every aspect of her short but great history.

We’ve been here from the beginning but for most, the...Read more...

Now that the shock of the election has passed, we are in a state of limbo watching, wondering, worrying what President-elect Trump and his administration will be like. In the congregation emotions are running high; more than anything, people are afraid and their fears mirror where they feel vulnerable. A mom calls frightened for her daughter at college where sexual assault is already a serious problem; will Trump, a man that was caught on...Read more...