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A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

Dvar Torah

Cantor-Rabbi Ron Eichaker

Aspire to be a Prophet of Peace

BY CANTOR-RABBI RON EICHAKERPublished June 10, 2020

There is almost as much to unpack in this section of the Torah (Behaalotcha) as there is to unpack from these past weeks and months.  In fact, there is so much to unpack, that I will need a little help; no, a lot of help.  It’s always a good thing...

Rabbi Carnie Shalom Rose

Rabbi Carnie Shalom Rose: Address to Mirowitz graduates

By Rabbi Carnie Shalom RosePublished June 5, 2020

Below please find some words of Torah that I was able to share with the recent graduates of the Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School. Though the message is clearly addressed to the graduates, I have been asked by several parents, grandparents, educators...

Rabbi-Cantor Ronald D. Eichaker

Venturing into the world again can be, well, hairy

BY CANTOR-RABBI RON EICHAKERPublished June 3, 2020

“Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair …” So goes the title song from the 1967 musical “Hair” that became a major hit for the Cowsills two years later. Some of us may look at ourselves today and recall that or another song or verse...

Rabbi Lori Levine

Lesson of inclusion is amplified by pandemic

By Rabbi Lori LevinePublished May 28, 2020

As summer begins and a period of calmer, warmer days sets in, our tradition calls us back to the wilderness. This week, Jewish communities all over the world will prepare to retell the story of the giving and receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai recounted...

Rabbi Carnie Shalom Rose

Unique Shavuot is celebrated every day of our lives

By Rabbi Carnie Shalom RosePublished May 28, 2020

In our tradition, the Holy-Day of Shavuot, the middle of our Shalosh Regalim, our three pilgrimage festivals of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot, is unique in several ways. First, it is the only one not assigned a specific date by the Torah on the Jewish calendar...

Rabbi Tracy Nathan

Fear, uncertainty and faith in the wilderness

By Rabbi Tracy NathanPublished May 21, 2020

With Parashat B’midbar, we begin reading Sefer B’midbar, the Book of Numbers, which recounts the stories of the people of Israel’s time living in the midbar, the desert wilderness. It is to the midbar that the Israelites go upon leaving Egypt, and...

Rabbi Scott Shafrin

The quiet work of spiritual uplift

By Rabbi Scott ShafrinPublished May 7, 2020

D’var Torah:  Parashat EMORAdonai said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: None shall become ritually impure for any [dead] person among their kin, except for the relatives that are closest to them: their mother, their...

Rabbi Josef Davidson is affiliated with Congregation B’nai Amoona and is a member of the St. Louis Rabbinical and Cantorial Association, which coordinates the d’var Torah for the Light.  

Hold on to hope for a post-pandemic world

By Rabbi Josef DavidsonPublished April 23, 2020

Imagine that a disease breaks out in the community, actually a family of diseases, perhaps, because it presents differently in many cases. No one knows exactly how it is transmitted, and no one knows who patient zero is. Worst of all, no one knows exactly...

Rabbi Carnie Shalom Rose

Finding the words to comfort the afflicted

By Rabbi Carnie Shalom RosePublished April 14, 2020

“And Aharon’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, each took his offering pan, put fire in it, placed incense upon it, and brought before God a foreign fire, which God had not commanded. And a fire went forth from before God and consumed them both, and they died...

Rabbi Andrea Goldstein

The sacrifice of well-being

By Rabbi Andrea GoldsteinPublished April 2, 2020

The Book of Leviticus, especially the first few portions, are filled with intricate details of the many types sacrifices God commanded the Israelites to make. In Hebrew, the word for sacrifice is korban, which comes from a Hebrew root, meaning “to draw...

Rabbi James Stone Goodman

I hear Leviticus, and baseball, speaking

By Rabbi James Stone GoodmanPublished March 26, 2020

I hear Leviticus speaking. Leviticus and Dante got together in the form of a virus, a nonlocal reminder in the language of Leviticus – purity and impurity — that all of us are in this together. I hear Deuteronomy speaking. We will be judged by the...

Rabbi Tracy Nathan

Halves make a holy whole for the Divine Presence

By Rabbi Tracy NathanPublished March 12, 2020

We have been reading this richly symbolic section of the Torah on the Mishkan, the mobile sacred dwelling place for the Divine Presence. As we complete the reading of the instructions in Parashat Ki Tissa, it is worth thinking about how we create the...

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