Posts by Rabbi George Gittleman

“Summer time and the living is easy…” or not!  While the Jewish calendar slows down in the summer, life in our community continues at a fast pace.  In June we celebrated our last Shabbat with Cantor David.  We are sad to see him go but happy he found his first full-time position (he was only quarter-time with us) close to home; Cantor David’s wife, Carla Fenves is an Associate Rabbi at Temple Emanu-el in San Francisco,...Read more...

Like many Jews, for me, the word “Germany” provokes a visceral response, as if it were synonymous with “murderers”. Just hearing the word could turn my stomach like a bad smell. But that was before I went to Berlin.

No wonder, then, that I was anxious when we got off the plane from Cracow to Berlin, but the tension in my gut quickly dissipated when our young German host greeted us. I’m not sure what I was expecting –...Read more...

There is before Auschwitz and after Auschwitz. Before Auschwitz, the Shoah looms over one’s psyche as an undifferentiated horror, a big, dark cumulous cloud always on the horizon, sometimes near, other times far, but never gone. Once you actually go there, feel the gravel crunch under your feet, see with your own eyes, smell the air, then the amorphous fear – the monster in the closet – is replaced by facts on the ground. You...Read more...

As I write this blog, many in California are celebrating the Governor’s signing of the “Right-to-Die” bill otherwise known as AB 15. This new law allows physicians to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients who want to end their life rather than suffer through the course of the disease. Those celebrating its passage see AB 15 as a long-awaited, compassionate response to terminal illness; “why...Read more...

The inspiration for bringing the quilt to Shomrei Torah came from last year’s congregational Civil Rights Tour of the South. First stop was Atlanta, the birthplace of Martin Luther King and the home of the Names Project/Aids Memorial Quilt. I had last seen the quilt some 30+ years ago in Oakland during the height of the AIDS epidemic. I lived in San Francisco then and men were dying all around me, in the apartment building where I lived, at...Read more...

According to Jewish tradition, the only prayers that are said in the Olam Habah/World to Come are prayers of gratitude. If that is the case, then I must have died and gone to heaven!

I am blessed with family, community, the beauty and benefit of living in Sonoma County, and work I truly love. It’s not just the work that I enjoy; I love you, Shomrei Torah! Ok, it’s not all a walk in the park; we have our moments of challenge...Read more...

 Purim gets a bad rap as a pediatric holiday. It’s great that kids have fun celebrating Purim, but sadly this important holiday’s child-focused reputation obscures the relevant and deadly serious currents that flow just beneath the surface.

A while back I spoke at a Catholic church in town about the spiritual connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel.  I pointed out that, while we were exiled from the...Read more...

Yesterday marked the first day of Elul, the month of preparation for the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, the Holy Days.  These Days of Awe are a kind of pilgrimage of the neshemah/the soul.

“Lech l’cha,” God says to Abraham — Go(!), leave everything you have known up to now to find Me!  And so Abraham’s journey, the journey that becomes the story of the Jewish People, began.  Our sages note a...Read more...

I  lost myself in a sci-fi thriller on the long flight to Israel. It wasn’t a great movie but the binary plot, where the good guys and the bad guys were as easy to identify as Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, was a welcome relief from the often morally grey terrain of the Israeli life I was about to enter. On my mind were the recent decision by the Presbyterian Church USA to divest from companies that it sees as...Read more...

Just inside the front door of our synagogue, you all passed a plaque, with a verse from Exodus: “V’asu li mikdash v’shchanti b’tocham/Make me a sanctuary that I may dwell amongst you.” This was God’s commandment to the Israelites to make the mishkan, the first synagogue.

I’m reminded of this verse now because for most of the past 18 years we’ve...Read more...

18 is one of those special numbers in Jewish tradition, a number that also functions as a symbol for the most essential thing we have – Chai/life! So much “life” has happened since Laura, Levi, Sophie and I arrived here 18 years ago! Words seem inadequate to express the varied, rich and deep experiences we have shared. When I arrived, Shomrei Torah was a small but vibrant congregation...Read more...

This week we begin reading in the book of Exodus which quickly plunges into a drama of epic proportions. I never tire of this story of degradation and redemption and there is one place that I return to over and over again: Moses at the “burning bush”.

Moses, fugitive Egyptian prince...Read more...

Ah, the rain! I went for a walk in the rain this morning to share in its blessing.  It was misty and damp and I meandered along a path covered with a yellow, orange- red carpet of fallen fall foliage with the occasional squish of my boots in the newly-born mud, the soft, pitter patter of water cascading down; a gift from heaven.  Ah, the rain, it’s blessing tangible after so little for so long, as if one could feel the earth and...Read more...

Tonight is Simchat Torah, the celebration of the Torah and the annual cycle of its recitation and study in the Jewish community. During the course of the year the whole Jewish world, more or less at the same time, rolls and reads through the scroll. Tonight marks the end of last year’s cycle and the beginning of a new one. In addition to a short service and lots of singing and dancing, we will unroll the whole Torah in a big circle, an...Read more...

In the Torah reading cycle of the synagogue we are now in the midst of B’midbar, the book of Numbers, and among the extraordinary things written there is one line easily missed, yet worthy of serious consideration: “Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any other man on earth…” (Numbers 12:3)

We know a lot about Moses from his actions – redeemer of Israel, legislator, performer of miracles and wonders, but the...Read more...