by admin | Aug 25, 2026 | Rabbi's Marmon's Blog
As I write, we are preparing to prepare for the high holy days. In fact, the entire holiday season is layered with increasing degrees of preparation for what is to come. Ten weeks before the new year, the cycle of Torah and Haftarot locks into a count towards the...
by admin | Jun 22, 2026 | Rabbi's Marmon's Blog
Over the summer here at Congregation Shaara Tfille, we are replacing floors and carpeting for much of our building, including the offices. Of course, floors have furniture on them, and furniture is filled with things like books, so all of that needs to be packed up...
by admin | Feb 22, 2026 | Rabbi's Marmon's Blog
“If not for you,” sang Bob Dylan, “my winter would hold no spring.” Our two early springtime holidays – Purim and Passover – form a remarkable study in contrasts. The latter is both the first Jewish holiday (born alongside the Jewish nation), and falls first in the...
by admin | Dec 26, 2025 | Rabbi's Marmon's Blog
I was dreaming when I wrote this; forgive me if it goes astray. By the time you read these words, these events may seem distant memories, chased away by once unthinkable circumstances that seem to follow upon one another’s heels at breakneck pace lately. Better, I...
by admin | Aug 30, 2025 | Rabbi's Marmon's Blog
As the High Holy Days come into view over the horizon, this year my mind is on the sometimes forgotten fall holiday that sneaks in behind: Sukkot (or Succoth, if you hanker for old-timey transliterations that won’t upset your computer’s spell checker). Let’s take a...
by admin | Feb 21, 2025 | Rabbi's Marmon's Blog
The springtime holidays, Purim and Passover, are linked by four named shabbatot (Sh‘kalim, Zachor, Parah, and haChodesh), each marked with a unique maftir Torah reading and related haftarah which overrules the usual haftarah matched to the weekly parashah. Although...
by admin | Dec 30, 2024 | Rabbi's Marmon's Blog
The late winter months on the Jewish calendar are marked by two special occasions. First is ‘Asarah b’Tevet, the tenth of Tevet (January 10th this year), one of four annual fasts connected with the destruction of the First Temple, specifically marking the date when...
by admin | Dec 2, 2024 | Rabbi's Marmon's Blog
Perspective shapes everything. Take Chanukah: Roughly 165 years before the Common Era (BCE), the Greek King Antiochus IV, ruler of the Seleucid Empire, that fraction of Alexander’s empire headquartered in Syria and ruling over the Land of Israel, decided to end...
by admin | Sep 1, 2024 | Rabbi's Marmon's Blog
As we approach the Fall Holidays this year, we also approach the anniversary of the Simchat Torah Massacre perpetrated by Hamas on the Gaza Envelope communities of Southern Israel and at the Nova music festival, and the yahrzeit of roughly 1200 victims killed in the...
by admin | May 13, 2024 | Rabbi's Marmon's Blog
From the second night of Passover, we begin counting up each night toward the holiday of Shavuot, defining the period known as the Counting of the Omer, or simply the Omer. Traditionally, this span of the calendar has a tone of mourning to it, though the exact origins...
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