Focus on Tikkun Olam This Passover by Moira Quinn Klein, Past President (From Charlotte Jewish News Editorial, April 2018)
I SO look forward to Passover and the Seder even with all the work to clean, cook, set the table with my best, bring out the Passover plate and Haggadahs…and my favorite: the bag of plagues! I take off from work and begin the marathon of preparation, table set-up, cooking, the Seder itself and cleanup. […]
Mitzvah Day: A History by Sue Hummel, in consultation with Martin Multer
Each year, on one Sunday in May, Temple Beth El congregants come together to perform mitzvot, or good deeds, throughout the Charlotte community. Aptly named Mitzvah Day, participants of all ages embrace the concept of Tikkun Olam, Repair of the World. To understand the origins of Temple Beth El’s Mitzvah Day, I have to take you […]
March For Our Lives and Our Pesach Preparations by Rabbi Judy Schindler
This past Shabbat was a wakeup call. On one hand, it was a wakeup call to the painful world we have created for our kids through our indifference. Our kids have grown up in a post-Columbine world where mass-shootings have become common headlines and common realities. Whether we are longtime gun owners or whether even […]
Passover Resources from TBE Clergy
Beginning Friday night, Jews all over the world will gather in their homes, surrounded by family and friends. We will sit down at tables large and small, filled to overflowing with food and plastic frogs, and speak, or read, or sing the familiar words: “Mah nishtana halailah hazeh mikol haleilot? – Why is this night […]
Elements of Judaism: Walking Jewishly Through Life by Cantor Mary Rebecca Thomas (From Charlotte Jewish News Editorial, March 2018)
Being a Jewish clergy person is a pretty fantastic job. On almost any given day, I will encounter lots of different people, each experiencing a variety of different things, some of them incredibly happy and others tragically sad, some of them unique and exciting and others still, rather mundane. While it is difficult sometimes to […]
Bashert – Being Right Where You Belong by Cantor Mary Rebecca Thomas
Sometimes one finds themselves in exactly the right place at the right time. Jewish custom might designate circumstances like these as bashert – meant to be. Some of us see such blessings as mere coincidence and others ascribe deeper meaning to moments that simply feel bashert, as an affirmation of the mystery of creation. I […]
Queen for a Day! by Susan Jacobs, Director of Education
When I was a little girl, my parents went to a Purim ball at Temple Israel and came home with the most beautifully decorated crowns I had ever seen. They weren’t the tiara kind. They were the big, royal, shiny gold kind, covered in jewels with a royal blue velvet poof on the inside. A […]
The Power of Our Congregation by Judy Seldin-Cohen
Lessons from TBE’s Action on Affordable Housing That Can Inspire Us Today In April 2010, the Temple Beth El Board passed a resolution on affordable housing and homelessness. So what, you might say – resolutions are just words. Actually, as a direct result of our stance at TBE, more than 100 homeless families are now […]
PERSPECTIVE: reflections on turning 65 by Cantor Andrew Bernard
Many a day as I’m stretching on the pool deck getting ready for my swim, I tell one of my lifeguard friends, “Don’t get old. Just hold where you are. It’s not worth it.” And then I continue trying to work out the soreness in the shoulders before I get into the water. The truth […]
