DJC Blog

There was a gorgeous moment of surprise and laughter that opened our December Wrestling Together session. Quite fittingly, we began a conversation about ritual with the ritual of lighting Chanukah candles. I shared some teachings about the mitzvot of candle lighting – which candle we light first, placing the chanukiyah in a window, the requirement […]

What use does a Jewish feminist have for studying patriarchal rabbinic texts written hundreds of years ago? That was one of my central questions while I was studying at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem as part of my rabbinical school education. When I had considered which rabbinical school to attend, I chose the Reconstructionist Rabbinical […]

Fear is not abstract or theoretical. Real, visceral fear has taken hold of Israel and Palestine in the past several weeks as violence has intensified. Jewish Israelis are afraid to leave their homes, to walk in markets, and to take buses for fear of being stabbed, deliberately hit by a car, or pelted with rocks […]

During a hot summer when I was in university, I was walking by a public pool full of kids splashing and jumping and squealing with delight. Glancing up, I noticed a sign on the back fence of the pool area that read, NO FISHING. I continued on my way but suddenly stopped. “No fishing?!” I […]

At the end of a Jewish wedding, we break a glass and all yell “mazel tov!” Of all the Jewish practices that have made it into mainstream media, this one tops the charts. People love that moment. It is dramatic. It is exciting for the newly-wedded to give a boisterous stomp at the end of […]

We had set up the room for 30 people based on 25 RSVPs. By the time we were less than half way through our recent Pride Shabbat service, around sixty people were gathered in the auditorium singing and welcoming Shabbat and each other. Many were new to the DJC. Several confided in me they hadn’t […]

Some of you have never been to Israel. Some of you haven’t been in decades – before the high tech boom and skyscrapers, before the separation barrier and check points, before the birth of a movement of soulful and uplifting Israeli spiritual communities and secular batei midrash (schools of Jewish text study) where reading Talmud […]

Pesach is an easy Jewish festival to love. The Seder takes place around food, family and friends. In the Seder’s telling of the devastation of slavery and the forces that enable liberation and freedom, its themes are potent and easily translatable from the ancient narrative to contemporary issues. Its rituals are tangible and accessible – […]

Pesach 5775 ~ Playing With the Four Children. As we took turns around my parents’ table reading from the Haggadah every year, inevitably the moment would arrive when we would reach the Four Children – one described as wise, one as wicked, one as simple, and one who does not know how to ask. Each […]

I am writing this article from Fort Lauderdale, in the midst of the Wexner Alumni Institute. It is certainly a gift to be out of Toronto’s record freezing temperatures, but I am receiving a gift exponentially more valuable than a few days in the sun (though I am certainly not complaining), a gift that I […]

WORKING FOR JEWS TO BE AT HOME EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD. When Amedy Coulibaly held the customers at a kosher supermarket in Paris hostage on January 9th and then killed four of the customers, the murders were pointedly targeting Jews. Jews were not the only, or perhaps even the originally intended, victims in the tragic […]

I am excited by the kind of learning that reframes reality with ideas and questions I hadn’t been exposed to before. Suddenly the world I am familiar with is wonderfully destabilized, re-imagined, and I am challenged to respond to it in fresh ways. This is why I am so passionate about bringing Jewish learning into […]

CLICK BELOW TO WATCH Rabbi Miriam’s Video Hanukkah Message where she shares her perspective on the topic: “Darkness & Light: Reflections on Hanukkah.” Find out what parts of the Hanukkah story may not be true…

We are entering the darkest time of the year. Over the course of the eight nights of Chanukah, the world grows darker – the moon wanes until it disappears from the black sky and then just the thinnest crescent of moon will appear. As the darkness around us grows, we literally bring more and more […]

(excerpted from Rabbi Miriam’s Erev Rosh Hashanah sermon) So here we are at the DJC, celebrating our 18th year. At 18 years of age we have a tremendous amount to celebrate. There is so much to be proud of and so much to thank each other for. So many of you have served on the […]

The New Year we are preparing to enter in the Jewish calendar is bound to be momentous. This year, 5775, according to Jewish mythic time (JMT), marks two special milestones that we will be weaving into our reflections, practice, and joy these High Holy Days. (1) In the life of the DJC, this is our […]

Have you heard of the term Third Space? Ray Oldenberg coined the term to refer to a space that is neither home nor workplace – a Third Space for community building, civic engagement, and creative interaction. In the context of painful and polarizing conflict, when much of the public discourse is framed in black and […]

This past month has been nothing short of Torahpalloozah! I can’t think of a better word to describe the range of ways that Torah has taken a central role in exciting and engaging Jewish life in this fair city of ours in the past few weeks. Many Jews who haven’t engaged with Torah as adults, […]

When we sit down at our Seder tables this year, what will help us hear the words of the haggadah in new ways, face the realities of slavery and oppression with new eyes, and be stirred toward liberation, for ourselves and for those around the world? What can the Torah teach us about the transformation […]