Spotlight
What’s Happening
The Great of the Small
While science may help lift the veils of our ignorance and solve many mysteries, it does not bleed the mystical from our lived experience.
Links for streaming this week’s Shabbat Services
Zoom links to stream Shabbat Services
The Worst of Times and the Best of Times
It is hard to think in exponential increases, in orders of magnitude, in terms of emergency declarations and social distancing. This is the stuff of dystopian near-future sci-fi and we seem to have landed in the middle of it.
Statement of the President on COVID-19
The Board has made the very difficult decision to temporarily close the synagogue to physical presence. Agudas Achim wants to be proactive in protecting our community and doing our part to minimize the spread of this disease.
Statement from the Rabbi on COVID-19
As you have read in President Sue Weinberg’s congregational letter, we are switching our congregational life from in-person services and activities to online activities in accordance with an evidence-based policy of social distancing.
Raising Up Kindness
Parashat Mishpatim is a perfect storm. Opening the book of Exodus during volatile political times is an exercise in confirmation bias in the best of cases, but Mishpatim speaks to our current reality – in an election year, no less – in uncanny ways.
Israel Trip
Agudas Achim Congregation is sponsoring a trip to Israel led by Rabbi Hugenholtz with the participation of Prof. Robert Cargill from the Department of Classics at the University of Iowa.
A Torah of Love (Valentine’s Day Sermonette)
To be honest, I don’t care much for a commercially-driven Hallmark holiday that I don’t celebrate but I am passionate about love. Here’s why.
Between The (Head)lines
Like many of you, I’ve been following the headlines about the Coronavirus outbreak. While I leave assessments of this new virus to the epidemiologists and public health experts, I think we can glean meaningful insights about our moral responses by reading between the headlines.
On Holy Ground
I love that feeling of sinking my boots into virgin snow, leaving freshly made footprints. There is a quietude to fresh snow that is magnificent and spiritually resonant; like the Shekhinah has draped Herself in a fine tallit.
