It’s hard not to feel despair when the weather drops 30-40 degrees overnight and we are confronted by a continuous stream of depressing news at home and abroad. Pick your special interest: public health, climate, gun control, antisemitism, Israel-Palestine… To say there’s a lot to be sad and anxious about seems beyond cliché at this Read More
Author: Jodi Kushins
Looking Back on the 5783 High Holiday Days of Awe
We did it! Our small but mighty kehilah made it through another round of High Holy Days of Awe. Thank you to everyone who lent a hand in this year’s celebrations. From those who organized and participated in leading services to those who organized meals, those who rolled the Torah into place and those who Read More
Meet Our Guest Spiritual Leader for the 5783/2022 High Holy Days
The KSS Board of Directors is proud to announce our Guest Spiritual Leader for the 5783/2022 High Holy Days. Elya Zissel Piazza (they/them) is a student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) while also completing their dissertation in Jewish studies from UC Berkeley. Elya is passionate about community building through teaching and learning, song, ritual, Read More
The Season of Endings and Beginnings
Born from a seed, the tree bears seed. The land spends itself to create what will thrive next spring. Fruit swells to bursting. Humans, animals, and birds harvest the grains, nuts, and berries of the land. Plants begin to fade, their life concentrated on a single point: the new kernel, pulsing with stored-up life. We Read More
Summer Sparks
There is a lot going on in our small but mighty kehilah this summer. Throughout the month of Tammuz (June 30-July 29, 2022), the KSS Shmita Hive has been engaged in a collective creative practice and meditation to help us gather strength in the final months of this shmita cycle. Norah Zuniga Shaw (artist, teacher, Read More
Practicing Loving Kindness for the Long Road Ahead
An offering for today and the days ahead from Jodi Kushins, KSS Lay Leader Every time a rally or protest pops up and I already have plans or don’t have the energy to get to the State House, wise KSS friends remind me that issues like gun safety, climate change, women’s health access, racism and Read More
Passover Greetings and Love for Nisan
Before I launch in, how about we sit together for three breaths. Yaaah-waaaahhhhh.Yaaha-wwwaaaahh.Yahhh-wvaaaaahhh. There’s a lot going on. In the world. In our state. In our community. In our individual lives. In Seasons of Our Joy, (not yet Rabbi) Arthur Waskow names three themes that are interwoven throughout the month of Nisan and the Passover season: “the Read More
Finding Joy in Welcoming the Strangers Among US
The following offering comes to us from Dan Barash, member of the KSS Social Action Team. Dan’s words come at a perfect time — the end of the leap month Adar 1 and the beginning of Adar 2 — a time designated in our calendar for increasing joy. He reminds us that doing mitzvot, like Read More
Mussar Minute: Having a Settled Mind
This post is brought to us from KSS Lay Leader Cheryl Lubow who has been studying with The Mussar Institute as part of our Lay Leader Development Grant through Jewish Columbus. In the fall and winter, I enjoy buying bags of mixed nuts in the shell, and cracking open a few as an after-supper snack. Read More
“Just Don’t Be Mean” – A Path to Dignity
As we have for several years now, here in the Columbus Jewish community we will be honoring JDAIM, Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month, this February. JDAIM (originally JDAM, the “I” for inclusion was added later) was started in 2008, at a gathering of the Jewish Special Education International Consortium in Minneapolis, MN. The goal Read More