Rabbis Message: Ki Tisa and Purim and Uncertainty

This week in the Torah, Moses has ascended the mountain. The people have witnessed revelation unlike anything in human history. And then: silence. For forty days. No update. No reassurance. No visible leader descending the mountain with clarity. The Torah notes: “The people saw that Moses was delayed…” (Exodus 32:1). The Hebrew word in this verse, boshesh, means to tarry or to wait, but it also carries shades of shame and disorientation. The people do not simply grow impatient. They grew unregulated. Their faith, their nervous systems begin to unravel. And so they do something deeply human. They attempted to build certainty during an uncertain time. They gathered gold. They convinced Aaron to do something that they knew was wrong. They declare: “This is your god.” and created the Golden Calf. However, in this instance, I would argue that the Golden Calf is not idolatry. It is anxiety management in the face of trauma and profound uncertainty.

Modern psychology has a term for what the Israelites experience: intolerance of uncertainty. Research consistently shows that it is not necessarily negative outcomes that distress us most — it is the “not knowing”. When our world seems scary, when the future is unclear, the brain’s alarm system activates. We scan for threat. We seek closure. We grasp for something, anything that could be solid. Studies on anxiety disorders have found that people often prefer even a bad answer to no answer at all, because ambiguity keeps the stress response activated.

Silence stretches. The body floods. We reach for relief.

In that light, the Golden Calf becomes tragically recognizable in our modern world. How often, when timelines shift or leaders are absent or outcomes are unclear, do we rush to build our own calves? We doomscroll; we make premature decisions; we fill silence with speculation; we cling to conspiracy or anything that resembles clarity.

The Torah’s ancient wilderness this week, the deep uncertainty that the Israelites felt, suddenly seems contemporary.

Ki Tisa sits in the middle of the wilderness journey. Egypt is behind them. The Promised Land is not yet in view. The beginning of revelation has happened, but the relationship is still forming. It is a profoundly liminal moment. And if we widen the lens from the Torah portion to the holiday we are celebrating this week (and join us for Shabbat ShaPurim and Purim in the Powder!), we see that the Book of Esther is also a story of liminality. God’s name never appears in Esther. The divine presence is hidden. The people live under decree and uncertainty. And yet Mordechai says to Esther, “Mi yodea — Who knows?” (Esther 4:14). Not: “This is the plan.”  Not: “Everything will work out.” But simply: “Who knows?”

In both Ki Tisa and the Book of Esther, the people are asked to live without visible reassurance. The question is not whether uncertainty will come. The question is what we will build in response.

When we feel powerless, we crave control. When we feel afraid, we crave something tangible or something that helps us detatch from the challenging liminality of this moment, moving our minds back to something familiar. In moments of communal anxiety — political instability, collective grief, health fears, or war — our bodies crave what feels immediate and solid. The emotional equivalent of that Golden Calf glitters. Psychologically, building a metaphorical calf often gives short-term relief but long-term damage. False certainty may calm the nervous system briefly, but it fractures trust, weakens resilience, and distances us from deeper sources of strength. In place of this choice, our Torah portion of the week Ki Tisa asks us to pause and ask: What calves am I tempted to build right now?

Psychologists who study resilience and anxiety consistently point to a key capacity: the ability to tolerate uncertainty. This does not mean liking it. It means remaining steady enough to avoid impulsive reaction. Fortunately, in moments like this, Judaism has been training us in this for millennia.

Shabbat teaches us to stop producing and solving, even when the world is incomplete. The Omer – the spiritual season between Passover and Shavuot – teaches us to count patiently toward revelation, day by day.  The wilderness that we read about in the Torah during this season teaches us to live on manna, even if we are only able to collect enough for just today. Building this spiritual endurance in the face of uncertainty is a skill we can acquire. 

So, what else do we do in order to cultivate this spiritual endurance in the face of uncertainty? 

Purim adds something essential to this conversation: joy. Not as denial. Not as a distraction. But intentional joy as resistance to fear. Research in positive psychology suggests that positive emotions broaden our thinking and increase cognitive flexibility. Joy does not eliminate uncertainty, but it increases our capacity to hold it. Purim asks us to engage in all of the ways that we can bring joy into our lives: Feast. Give gifts. Care for the poor. Wear costumes. Laugh.

It is as if this season in Jewish practice is reminding us that when destruction and uncertainty hang in the air, strengthen your nervous system with connection and delight. Joy is not frivolous. It is psychologically protective; it is the mitzvah of the moment to support our own spirits.

I hope to see you at our Purim celebrations soon. 

Rabbi's Message Feb. 24, 2026 - Psalm 22 for Purim

Shalom,

The Hebrew month of Adar is here, we’re supposed to be joyous!  As we learn from Talmud, “Mishenichnas Adar marbim b'simcha - When [the month of] Adar enters, we increase in joy.” (Ta’anit 29a).  It is with the arrival of Spring, its rebirth, and the coming festival of Purim that inspires such joy.  

The Book of Esther describes a reality of a world upside down, about reversals of fortune.  From Haman’s (booo!) fall from power, King Ahasheurus’ pivot to actually lead, and of course Esther’s transformation to own her Jewish identity, twists and turns of fate and destiny fill the Scroll of Esther.  

We are experiencing twists and turns as well.  The tragedies in Truckee in recent weeks, the weather whiplash, the headlines in the news all echo these feelings of uncertainty.  The world feels upside down.  In our Jewish tradition, there is a Psalm connected to the celebration of Purim, Psalm 22>>>.  According to Rabbinic lore, Esther recited this Psalm as she approached the King seeking salvation for her people, our people.  The Psalm depicts a feeling of despair, of loss and tragedy.  Yet, it rises from these depths with a growing confidence in a feeling of redemption, a recognition that better is possible.  

This was Esther’s way of gaining comfort, even confidence.  Where do we turn today?  Each of us must find our own Psalm 22 in our moment.  That individual search is for each of us.  Yet, collectively, as a community, we turn to each other.  We know that relationships, family, community, friends, perhaps even the natural world have the potential to strengthen.  The network of connection, wherever and everywhere we can notice it, is the supportive and connective tissue of being human.  

The story of Purim reminds us that we are connected and not only particularly as the Jewish people.  The celebration of Purim encourages us to share, to offer gifts to those in need (matanot l’evyonim).  It is a time that we can discover again the beauty and joy of life, along with the severity it also brings, when we cherish the human connection.

As Rabbi Lauren shared in community this past Shabbat:

“We cannot undo what has happened. 

We cannot guarantee safety. 

But we can choose what we build in response.

We can build spaces where fear is named rather than denied.
Where children are protected not only by rules, but by community.
Where joy is not postponed until the world feels safe enough.
Where remembrance and resilience stand side by side.”

May this week inspire us to build beauty in our world and the coming festival of Purim bring us together to celebrate the joy!

Shavua Tov,

Rabbi Evon 

Protecting Our Sacred Community: A Shared Responsibility

Those of us who call Lake Tahoe home know how special this place is. We live, work, and play here because of the natural beauty that surrounds us — the mountains, the lake, the quiet moments that remind us to breathe a little deeper. Tahoe often feels like a refuge from the noise and challenges of larger cities. It’s easy to believe that by living here, we’ve stepped away from many of the world’s troubles.

And yet, the reality is that uncertainty exists everywhere. Even in a place as peaceful as Tahoe, we never truly know when danger might strike.

Our tradition teaches, “V’nishmartem me’od l’nafshoteichem” — “You shall guard your souls carefully” (Deuteronomy 4:15). Protecting life is not optional; it is a sacred obligation.

As President of North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation, my highest priority is — and always will be — the safety of our community. This year, our congregation contracted directly with Placer County Sherrif Office for on-site security following the recommendations of security professionals. Most recently, our Board approved an additional $4,100 to ensure deputies from the Placer County Sheriff’s Department are present on site whenever we gather for worship and community events through the end of June. This was not a difficult decision. When we come together for Shabbat, holidays, and special gatherings, everyone deserves to feel safe, welcomed, and at peace.

At the same time, we are a small congregation with limited resources. These necessary expenses place real strain on our operating budget. Looking ahead to our new fiscal year beginning July 1, we anticipate approximately $6,000 more in security costs to maintain a consistent law enforcement presence.

Pirkei Avot reminds us, “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh” — all of Israel is responsible for one another (Talmud Shevuot 39a). Safety is not the responsibility of one person or one board; it is a communal mitzvah.

Your generosity has always been the foundation of our congregation’s strength. Every gift — large or small — directly supports the safety of our community and helps ensure that our doors remain open, welcoming, and protected. By contributing to our Security Fund, you are helping provide peace of mind for families, seniors, children, and visitors who come to North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation seeking connection, comfort, and spiritual renewal. Your support today also helps us prepare for the year ahead, allowing us to meet anticipated security needs without compromising our programs or services.

If you are able, I invite you to help support our Security Fund by visiting www.tahoetemple.org and noting “Security Fund” with your donation.

Together, we can ensure that North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation remains what it has always been: a sacred, welcoming, and safe home for Jewish life in our beautiful mountain community.

With gratitude and resolve,

Heidi Doyle

President, North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation

Rabbi’s Message: February 17, 2026

A Gentle Note Before You Read

Before we begin, I want to offer a moment of pastoral care and transparency.

In this week’s message, we engage with Parashat Mishpatim (and Mishnah Ohalot from our Talmud) which includes discussion of miscarriage, pregnancy loss, violence against women, and abortion. These are not abstract topics in Torah and our tradition, and they are not abstract in our lives.

If you are in a tender place right now, please know that it is entirely okay to pause, to skip this message, or to return to it at another time. Listening to ourselves is also a sacred act; and there are resources available to help. Some of these resources are:

• If you are navigating infertility, miscarriage, or stillbirth, compassionate support can be found here: I Was Supposed to Have a Baby — https://iwassupposedtohaveababy.org/

• If you are experiencing domestic or dating violence, confidential Jewish-centered support in Northern California is available through Shalom Bayit: https://shalom-bayit.org/ and Nevada through Jewish Nevada: https://www.jfsalv.org/copy-of-counseling-program 

• If you are processing medical trauma, fear, or lingering distress connected to healthcare experiences, Jewish-grounded resources and guidance are available through the Jewish Trauma Network: https://jewishtrauma.com/

• If you are seeking support related to abortion and reproductive health care, including practical, emotional, and spiritual support rooted in Jewish values, resources are available through the Jewish Abortion Access Coalition and its S.A.F.E. Plan (Support, Advocacy, Funding, Education):  https://www.jewsforabortionaccess.org/ and https://www.jewsforabortionaccess.org/resources-for-repro-care

May this community always be a place where care comes before certainty, and where no one has to carry difficult experiences alone.

Now, let’s get into what the Torah has to say:

This past Shabbat, we read Parashat Mishpatim. It is a Torah portion dense with law, case studies, and moral nuance. It is not romantic. And yet this year, Mishpatim arrived on Valentine’s Day, a day culturally devoted to love, commitment, and care. That coincidence invites a deeper reflection: what happens when relationships turn messy or even dangerous? What does the Torah have to say about the real, embodied complexity of human life? The non-Hallmark parts?

Mishpatim is Torah at its most practical. It does not imagine human beings as perfect abstractions, but as people who live in bodies, in families, in moments of vulnerability and challenge and risk. Among its laws is a brief but powerful case: a pregnant person injured during a struggle, resulting in miscarriage. The Torah’s response is not rhetorical or theological. It is a practical, usable law. And it’s a law that distinguishes clearly between harm to the pregnant person and harm to the pregnancy itself (Exodus 21:22–23).

For generations, Jewish tradition has understood this distinction as meaningful. It is one of the textual foundations for Judaism’s insistence on moral complexity, rather than absolutism, when it comes to pregnancy. Mishpatim teaches that the Torah recognizes gradations of life, responsibility, and harm — and that legal and ethical reasoning must respond to real human situations, not slogans.

This is deeply connected to the core Jewish idea of b’tzelem Elohim, that every human being is created in the image of God. To be made in God’s image is not merely to exist, but to be entrusted with wisdom, agency, and moral responsibility. Jewish tradition has long affirmed that women are full bearers of that divine image, capable of ethical discernment and deserving of trust.

Trust is not a small thing in Judaism. It is the foundation of covenant. To say that women deserve bodily autonomy is not to dismiss the sanctity of life; it is to affirm that those who carry life are already standing on holy ground. Decisions about pregnancy, health, and continuation of life belong first and foremost to the person whose body and soul are most directly involved, guided by medical professionals, Jewish values, and conscience – not by those removed from the intimate realities of sometimes messy but always necessary care.

This understanding is made explicit in later Jewish law. The Mishnah teaches:

“If a woman is in hard labor, the fetus may be dismembered in her womb and removed limb by limb, because her life takes precedence over its life. But once its head has emerged, it may not be touched, for one life may not be set aside for another.”
(Mishnah Ohalot 7:6)

This text is not casual. It is careful, restrained, and morally serious. It affirms that life is sacred — and that there is a fundamental difference between the potential for a life and an existing life itself. The life, health, and dignity of the pregnant person come first. Jewish law does not erase tragedy or heart-breaking difficulty; it responds to it with humility and compassion.

This is why Jewish communities mark Reproductive Shabbat each year: not as a political gesture, but as a religious one. “Repro Shabbat” is a moment to study our own texts, reclaim our moral voice, and remember that Judaism has never reduced pregnancy to a single legal or theological claim. Instead, our tradition asks us to weigh life, suffering, risk, and responsibility with care.

Much of this work in the United States has been stewarded by the National Council of Jewish Women, one of the oldest and most enduring Jewish organizations in American history. Founded in 1893, NCJW reflects a classic strand of American Jewish culture: women translating Jewish values into civic responsibility, education, and advocacy. Across generations, NCJW has championed immigrant aid, child welfare, voting rights, reproductive health, and moral agency — not as a departure from our rooting in the theology of b’tzelem Elohim, but as an expression of it. Indeed, as we approach Purim — a holiday that celebrates how a single woman saved her entire people — we are reminded how deeply Judaism values the full humanity and moral agency of women. Honoring Repro Shabbat is one way American Jewish communities affirm that tradition today.

This week, you are invited to learn more: to study these texts, to ask hard questions, to listen deeply. You are also invited to act in ways that reflect your values—through education, conversation, or support for organizations that uphold dignity and care.

May we continue to approach these sacred questions with humility, courage, and compassion.
May we honor the divine image in every person.
And may our Torah guide us to lift up justice that is rooted in compassion for each and every one of us.

Rabbi's Message - Tu B'Shevat & Yitro - Feb. 3, 2026

Shalom,

“A threefold chord is not readily broken,” wrote Kohelet in the Scroll of Ecclesiastes (4:12).  The bond of community, the network of relationships, and the way we are woven together in life are ever more apparent today.  From the ways in which current events ripple through our lives to the awareness of our interconnectivity learned in the recent pandemic and more, we know being human means not being alone.  

In parashat Yitro this week, Moses’ father-in-law, Yitro (Jethro) pays a visit to our ancestors on their wilderness sojourn.  He provides unsolicited advice to his son-in-law (a precarious thing we know!) that Moses should not do this all alone.  Yitro was referring to the adjudicating and decision making he was bearing for all of the community.  Working together, sharing the burden and responsibility is a lesson Yitro teaches us all.  It is echoed by Kohelet’s words, about the strength and resilience when we work together.

Yesterday marked the New Year for the trees - Tu B’Shevat.  As we celebrate today at NTHC and Thursday at TBY, I am reminded about the lesson of the Great Sequoia Trees.  It is an interesting fact which enables these trees to grow so tall and that fact is that they grow in groves. The tall trees grow rather close together.  In this way, they protect each other from the violent winds and storms.  One does not find singular Sequoia trees because without the protection of their brother and sister trees, the harsh winds would blow a singular tree over.

May we strive to be a chord of many threads, may we share our responsibilities with building community, and may we grow close enough together to be strong and tall like Sequoia Trees.

Shavua Tov & Chag HaIlanot Sameach,

Rabbi Evon 

Song of the Sea: Which God is This? Jan. 27, 2026

Shalom,

That greeting alone, “Shalom—Peace”, is so integral to our Jewish tradition.  We have a middah (soul trait) about pursuing peace (rodef shalom), we have a one about peace in the home (shalom bayit), and striving for a sense of wholeness bears the same root as Shalom (Shleimut).  Multiple times of day, we recite the Oseh Shalom (and other versions like Shalom Rav and Sim Shalom as examples) in our liturgy.  So, Shalom—Peace is integral to our tradition, our Jewish world view, and, hopefully, our way of being in this world.

We see the strife throughout the world, in our beloved Land of Israel and the Middle East, and even in our own nation and we are naturally troubled by the lack of Shalom in our moment.  And, as we approach this Shabbat, the Sabbath of Song—Shabbat Shira, as our Jewish world has developed the custom of a music filled Shabbat a question arises for me.  In the text of the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15) verse three reads, “Adonai, the warrior, Adonai is his name,” and another translation reads, “The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name.” (Koren Bible)  In our flight from Egypt, seeking a new reality, and just after experiencing a miraculous escape through the parted sea, we sing out God exclaiming God as a warrior, a God of war, as a Divine judge.

Our textual tradition, while Shalom is pervasive throughout, holds many…many examples of God as violent, warrior-like, and judging.  Look at Psalm 82, the Psalm recited every Tuesday morning in our tradition depicts God as declaring judgment.  It is hard to move through life seeking peace, when our tradition leans also on a seemingly vindictive and judgemental, even violent, God.  

It is moments like this that I turn back to a view I hold about our text and our tradition, even our Jewish memory (read:  history).  The material, the content, of our beloved Jewish tradition is our people’s expression of our lived experience perhaps more so than a detailed account of history, in other words it is our memory.  The Song of the Sea holds, in lyrical presentation, our teacher Moses’ expression of jubilation following a narrow escape.  It is our people’s exclamation what they experienced:  Pharaoh's chariots engulfed in the waters.  The Psalmist in Tuesday’s Psalm is yearning for judgment to reflect a higher justice, one that serves all.

So, back to my question.  With Shalom so integral to us, how do we hold depictions of Divinity as violent, warrior-like, and of war?  I do not have an answer except to attempt to hold both.  I respond to this apparent contradiction by knowing that our lived experience, our Jewish memory motivates us to seek and pursue peace knowing there is conflict, injustice, and violence still in our world and so our task remains:  Seek and pursue peace.

As we welcome this coming Shabbat, the Sabbath of Song, and notice a violent moment to others born out of our pursuit of freedom replete with a miracle of miracles, may we know gratitude for our freedom and discern ways to alleviate suffering for others, resolve conflict, right injustice, and subdue violence in our world.

Shavua Tov—To a Good, Whole, and More Peaceful Week,

Rabbi Evon  

Remembering the Holocaust: Lessons for our time

A Note from the President for International Holocaust Day

By Heidi Doyle, President, North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation

The Holocaust began in 1933, with state-sponsored persecution that steadily intensified. What followed was a horrifying chain of events—pogroms, deportations, death camps, and the systematic murder of six million Jews and millions of others, targeted simply for who they were. Today, we remember not only the magnitude of this atrocity, but the individual souls behind the numbers. For many in our community, this history is deeply personal. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles—lives disrupted or erased. It is our sacred duty never to forget, because memory is the first line of defense against repetition.

Our Torah speaks directly to moments like these. In Leviticus 19:16, we are commanded, “Do not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is shed.” This is not a passive teaching. It calls us to action when violence, injustice, and suffering unfold around us. The Torah further reminds us, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)—a mandate to protect the vulnerable and to extend compassion beyond our own immediate circles. These teachings demand that we respond, especially when lives are being lost and the less fortunate are in peril.

As we reflect on events unfolding in our nation and around the world today, North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation stands as the spiritual home of the Tahoe-Truckee Jewish community—a place where Jewish values are lived, taught, and nurtured. Here, we gather not only to pray, but to support one another, to ask hard questions, and to recommit ourselves to justice, dignity, and human decency.

May remembrance move us to responsibility. I look forward to hearing your thoughts at one of the many opportunities we have to gather and be community. May our community continue to be a source of light, moral clarity, and hope—now and for generations to come.

Rabbi's Message - Tuesday's Call for Justice - Psalm 82

Shalom,

Balance as we wade through the tumult of life, our tradition guides, can often be found in the Psalms.  In recent months, I have taken to exploring this part of our sacred text with a renewed interest.  Of the many rhythms of our Jewish tradition is the recitation of a daily Psalm, the same 7 Psalms for each of the 7 days of the week taught to be recited in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem.  As Professor Miriyam Glazer writes in Psalms of the Jewish Liturgy, “We may no longer have the Temple, or the ancient melodies of the Levites or their instrumental scores.  But we do have the words to the Psalms themselves, the very same words the Levites sang.  If we take the time to enter into them, to mull them over, chant them for ourselves, make them our own, reciting this ancient sequence of seven psalms, one per day, can become a powerful - even a life-changing - experience.”  (page 15)

On this 3rd day of the week, for our Jewish weeks begin with Sunday, it is our tradition to recite Psalm 82.  You can read it by clicking here>>>.  In exploring its depth, we can discover a yearning for balance, one not yet realized.  The Psalm depicts a juxtaposition between Divine judgement and our own.  It is a call to strive for more, for better.  As we see the injustice in the world, we must, our tradition is guiding us, feel and be called to work towards a justice on par with that of the Creator.  

Rabbi Sandra Lawson, the Executive Director of Carolina Jews for Justice, wrote about this Psalm, “—a powerful reminder of our sacred responsibility to pursue justice and care for those in need. This psalm challenges us to align our actions with divine values, creating a world rooted in compassion and fairness. As you engage with this psalm, may it inspire you to take meaningful steps toward justice in your daily life. Let’s begin.”

As we move through this week, may we be aware of this sacred charge and may we discover ways big and small that we have the power to create a world full of justice and compassion.

Shavua Tov,

Rabbi Evon

Knowing the Heart of the Stranger — and of One Another

President’s Message

In her moving memoir, Heart of a Stranger, Angela Buchdahl reflects on what it means to belong—to a faith, to a people, and to a community. Drawing on the Torah’s repeated commandment to “know the heart of the stranger,” she reminds us that Jewish life is not only about who we are, but how we make room for others. That message resonates deeply here at North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation.

NTHC has always been a place shaped by welcome. We are a congregation of many paths: lifelong Jews, Jews by choice, interfaith families, seasonal residents, visitors who arrive for a weekend and stay for years. What binds us together is not sameness, but shared values—community, compassion, learning, and connection. Like Rabbi Buchdahl’s story, our story is one of finding holiness not in perfection, but in presence.

One of the book’s most powerful lessons is that belonging is not passive. It is something we create—again and again—through our actions. When we greet someone new at Shabbat services, when we make space for questions and doubt, when we honor different journeys into Jewish life, we are living the mitzvah of welcoming the stranger. And often, as the book reminds us, the “stranger” is not only the person sitting beside us, but the part of ourselves still searching for home.

At NTHC, we know what it means to be a little different—practicing Judaism in a mountain community, far from large urban centers. Yet that uniqueness is our strength. It invites creativity, intimacy, and a deep sense of responsibility for one another. We don’t just attend synagogue together; we show up for one another in times of joy, challenge, and transition.

Heart of a Stranger calls us to lead with empathy, to listen before judging, and to build communities rooted in kindness rather than assumption. These are not abstract ideals—they are values we strive to live every time we gather, whether for Shabbat, learning, service, or celebration. There are many opportunities for you to get involved: volunteer to coordinate a potluck Oneg, own a project that needs attending, join our amazing Board of Directors or simply join us at many of the moments when we gather as community.

May we continue to be a congregation that knows the heart of the stranger because we take the time to truly know one another. And may our doors, our hearts, and our community always remain open.

Heidi Doyle, President

North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation

Vaera - Empowerment - Jan. 13, 2026

Re-Imagined from 2018

Shalom,

I recall vividly my high school physics teacher, Mr. Ruehl.  From the first day of class through my year in AP Physics, we knew amazing wonders awaited each day as we walked into class.  When the lessons on centrifugal force began, Mr. Ruehl stood up front talking about bicycles.  He held in his hand a bike wheel with a handle attached to the axle.  As he continued he spun the wheel.  He talked about great rides, the sights ahead and to the left and right as he sat down on his stool, wheel spinning in his hand.  The presentation had all of us riveted as he sat down, our eyes were glued to the spinning wheel and suddenly he grabbed the rubber of the tire with his hand, stopping its revolutions, and he began to spin around on the stool!  The energy from the wheel transferring to his body upon the stool spun him around as his tale of riding bicycles stopped, he had performed a wonder before our eyes.

This was how a typical day began in our classroom.  Mr. Ruehl always gave us a sign, a wonder or some visual experience which we then set out to understand further.  This week in Torah, we begin the saga of the plagues upon Egypt.  The word itself, in English, imparts negativity, yet the Hebrew informs us of a deeper purpose; Otot and Moftim, signs and wonders are described by Torah.  These wonders were marvelous displays of God’s power before Pharaoh and Egypt.  Many have worked through their scientific and natural explanations of the how, yet as I often understand Torah it is less, or not at all, about the how, but rather the why.  What purpose did these signs and wonders serve in our story?

Moses is the reluctant leader at first, as he claims this week in Torah, “But Moses appealed to the Lord, saying, "The Israelites would not listen to me; how then should Pharaoh heed me, a man of impeded speech!” (Exodus 6:12)  At first, the plagues, these marvels unfolding, work to convince Moses of his ability to become Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our Teacher.  As Exodus continues, the why becomes about motivating Pharaoh to let us go.  And even more, these wonders are displayed before our ancestors, the Israelites, to grasp the power of not only God, but also the power of change beginning to take shape.  It is through these acts, these signs, that we as a people begin to take our future into our own hands.  First Moses rises to the occasion and then our journey from a rag-tag bunch of slaves to a people fleeing and finally to a free people determining our own future.

This past Shabbat, a beautiful group of our Tahoe Jewish Community, of NTHC and TBY, spent time in Tahoe Meadows off Mt. Rose highway snowshoeing and Cross-country skiing.  We discussed the miracles in our lives and the distractions that prevent our witnessing.  We used the story of the burning bush and Moses' ascension to his stature in our tradition as an example of noticing - seeing the signs and the wonders.  We also shared about missed opportunities to see the miraculous, the signs and wonders that fill our lives.  It takes practice, it requires work to embrace living to its fullest and missing the moment will happen.  Yet, if we practice, if we intentionally put effort into recognizing and celebrating our own burning bushes, and the signs and wonders that fill our world, perhaps the hard, the challenge, and the struggle of living will be lessened in its burden.      

Mr. Ruehl gave me and my classmates the ability to search for understanding, to gain confidence in our knowledge, and its power.  Torah works to unfold the Exodus story in a way that builds for us an understanding of ourselves and the confidence to become Am Yisrael, the People of Israel.  As we journey once again through our epic story of freedom and self-discovery, we have the opportunity once again to move from reluctant, as Moses, to individuals, and a people, empowered with self-knowledge, confidence and understanding by noticing and embracing the miraculousness of our world, of simply being alive! 

May we see the signs and wonders of the Divine around us daily and may we embrace the power we have to shape our lives.

Shavua Tov,

Rabbi Evon

NTHC Religious School Report (from Dec 2025)

NTHC Religious School Report to the Congregation

Semester One Wrap Up: September-December 2025 (Tishrei-Kislev 5786)

Our Underlying Philosophy about Jewish Education: Learning as a Way of Living

At its core, Jewish education is not merely about the transmission of information, but about the cultivation of a way of life informed by the wisdom of the past 4,000-5,000 years of our people. From our earliest rabbinic sources, learning is understood as the foundation upon which Jewish continuity, ethical responsibility, and spiritual vitality rest. The Mishnah teaches, “Talmud Torah k’neged kulam” — the study of Torah is equal to all other mitzvot combined (Pirkei Avot 1:2). This is not because learning is an abstract ideal, but because it shapes how we act, how we relate to one another, and how we understand our place in the world. Nor is this only about the rigor of studying Torah texts in a literal fashion, but so much more about learning in a Jewish context, writ large.  Jewish education seeks to form people who can live with intention, compassion, curiosity, and courage — individuals who know how to ask good questions, wrestle with complexity, and bring holiness into ordinary moments.  In our community, we strive to create positive Jewish experiences in a positive Jewish environment and to raise young Jews with whom we want to share the Earth.

The Torah itself frames education as a relational and embodied process. “You shall teach these words diligently to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the way, when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Learning is meant to accompany us everywhere — in our homes, in our travels, in our cycles of rest and renewal and growth. Jewish education, therefore, is not confined to a classroom alone. It is meant to illuminate lived experience, shaping how we celebrate time, build community, respond to challenge, and cultivate joy.

From Fear to Reconnection: Our Post-COVID Educational Arc of the Past Few Years

Over the past several years, Jewish education — like so much of communal life — has been shaped by the long shadow of COVID. In those early seasons, fear, disruption, and isolation required us to focus first on safety and survival. Jewish wisdom understands this instinct deeply: pikuach nefesh, the preservation of life, overrides almost every other commandment (Yoma 85b). Protecting one another was itself a sacred act.

As we slowly emerge from that period, however, Jewish tradition urges us not to remain frozen in fear. “Choose life,” the Torah commands — not only biological survival, but a life of meaning, relationship, and blessing (Deuteronomy 30:19). In the wake of prolonged disconnection, our educational vision has become increasingly intentional about restoring what was most diminished: joy, the values that inform our lives, explorations of embodied practice, and a sense of belonging, especially for our younger members. For many of them, we are rebuilding from scratch and, step by step, we are building Jewish learning as something warm, relational, and shared — rooted not only in knowledge, but in trust and presence. The ability to have meaningful relationships with other Jewish children was hampered by COVID. The children young enough to be a part of our religious school now were significantly impacted at a critical developmental time and rebuilding from that is a slow but steady process and the typical, long tested curriculum has needed to be altered.

Joy, Practice, and Place: Jewish Wisdom in the Tahoe Basin

Throughout the past few years, our evolving curriculum reflects a conscious turn toward integrating Jewish joy, Jewish values, and community-building with Jewish practice, so that learning speaks directly to the lives our students are living here in the Tahoe Basin. The sages remind us, “It is not study that is the essence, but action” (Pirkei Avot 1:17). Learning must lead somewhere — it must shape how we show up for one another, how we mark time, how we respond to beauty and challenge, and how we build resilient, caring communities. It is experiential. Judaism has always been a tradition that adapts wisdom to place. Whether in the desert, the city, or the mountains, Jewish life asks: How do we sanctify the world as it is? By grounding Jewish learning in ritual, seasonal rhythms, storytelling, prayer, and ethical reflection, we invite students to explore their own lives — family, friendship, fear, gratitude, courage — through the lens of Jewish wisdom. Joy (simcha) is not treated as an add-on, but as a religious value in its own right; as the Psalmist says, “Serve the Eternal with joy.” (Psalm 100:2)

Post-Covid, Jewish education becomes a bridge — between ancient texts and contemporary lives, between inherited tradition and lived experience, between individual growth and communal responsibility. Our goal is not only that students know Judaism, but that they experience it as something that helps them live more fully, lovingly, and wisely — right here, in this place, at this moment in time.

As time moves us forward, further and further away from the emotional and spiritual challenges from Covid, our curriculum this year gently returns to one that grounds our students in the traditions, customs, practices, and Hebrew skills that we have seen in pre-pandemic years. Below is a summary of our learning journey this past semester:

Overview: 

Our Guiding Question for the Year: How do we celebrate in Judaism?

Over the course of the fall semester, students entered Jewish life through time, story, ritual, and relationship. Each month layered new skills and understandings onto what came before, helping learners experience Judaism not only as something to study, but as something to live, practice, and carry home.

September: Beginning the Year with Intention

The year began, appropriately, with beginnings. Through Rosh HaShanah and the High Holidays, students were invited into the Jewish understanding of time as sacred, cyclical, and filled with possibility. As they crafted pomegranates — cutting, shaping, and assembling each piece — they learned that Jewish symbols are never only decorative. A pomegranate holds many meanings at once: abundance, sweetness, the seeds for mitzvot, and hope for the year ahead.

Hebrew learning was woven directly into this experience. Students practiced letters not in isolation, but as part of forming words that mattered — placing each letter in the correct right-to-left order and discovering that language itself carries a worldview. On the reverse side of their creations, students wrote personal hopes and blessings, linking ritual language with inner reflection. 

The stories of Creation from our sacred text framed the moment: just as the world is shaped day by day, so too, is a year, a community, and a person. The semester opened with a sense of belonging, joy, and the shared work of beginning again.

October: Torah as Story, Structure, and Cycle

October deepened students’ relationship with Torah — first as a physical object, and then as a living narrative. By constructing their own Torah scrolls, students explored what it means for a text to be sacred. They noticed how a Torah is held, rolled, and protected, and discussed why this story has been carried by the Jewish people for generations.

As students encountered a range of Jewish values through quotes and teachings, they were encouraged to respond, question, and articulate what they believe Judaism asks of us. Torah became not only something received, but something engaged. Visiting the sanctuary and examining the community’s Torah scrolls brought learning into sacred space, reinforcing continuity between classroom and communal life.

In the following weeks, Torah expanded from object to content. Students explored how the Torah is organized into five books and how different stories cluster around themes of creation, struggle, law, leadership, and relationship. Retelling these stories through comics, illustrations, and drama allowed students to interpret Torah creatively, discovering that sacred texts invite imagination as well as study.

This textual exploration then widened into time itself. By building a Jewish calendar together, students traced the rhythm of the year — holidays and their symbols, natural seasons, and months unfolding in a cycle of learning. Hebrew letters associated with learning and teaching (as the root for both words is the same, as Lamed-Mem-Daled) anchored the idea that Jewish life is not a straight line, but a continual cycle of growth and meaning making.

November: Shabbat, Peace, and the Heart of Prayer

In November, Jewish learning moved firmly into the home. Shabbat became a lived practice rather than an abstract idea. Through hands-on exploration of ritual objects, students learned how Jewish families mark time, welcome rest, and say goodbye to the holy day. Reenacting candle lighting, Kiddush, and Havdalah helped students imagine themselves as active participants in Jewish ritual.

The concept of Shalom was explored not only as a greeting, but as a skill. Through cooperative challenges and reflection, students experienced how peace is built through patience, listening, emotional awareness, and teamwork. Jewish values were no longer only discussed—they were practiced in real time.

Prayer learning shifted the focus inward. Students explored kavanah – intention – and discovered that prayer can take many forms: gratitude, wonder, request, and reflection. By studying the structure of the prayerbook and noticing how modern liturgy invites personal meaning, students learned that prayer is both inherited and personal. Writing their own gratitude prayers for Thanksgiving allowed Jewish practice to travel home, bridging synagogue, school, and family table.

December: Light, Courage, and Jewish Identity

As the days grew darker, learning turned toward light — both literal and metaphorical. Students explored what it means to be Jewish in a complex and sometimes challenging world. Through morning blessings, particularly She’asani Yisrael, students reflected honestly on pride, gratitude, fear, and belonging. Journaling provided a private space for these reflections, with the understanding that courage begins with naming what is true.

Hanukkah offers a layered story: miracle and history, celebration and struggle. Acting out the Hanukkah narrative and then examining its historical context invited students to consider difficult questions — when to fit in, when to stand apart, and what it means to be visibly Jewish. A Shin-Shin guest (on Shnat Shirut, the year of service from the Jewish Agency) expanded these conversations into global Jewish peoplehood, making Jewish identity feel both local and worldwide.

The semester concluded with a joyful Hanukkah celebration centered on food, ritual, and togetherness. As students cooked, lit candles, and sang, they reflected on the metaphor of flame — spark, fuel, and oxygen — and considered what sustains their own Jewish lives. The year ended not only with light, but with intention: an understanding that Judaism is something we actively fuel through practice, courage, and care.

Integrated Hebrew Learning Reflection:

Throughout the semester, Hebrew letters and words were introduced not as isolated decoding exercises, but as living vessels of meaning that support ritual, reflection, and belonging. Students encountered Hebrew through a wide variety of modalities — visual, tactile, auditory, and embodied — practicing all of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet letters while crafting ritual objects, assembling holiday decorations, building calendars, reading blessings, journaling intentions, and participating in communal prayer. Vocabulary was carefully chosen to align with each unit’s thematic focus, so that words such as Rosh, Torah, Shabbat, Shalom, Kavanah, Chag Urim, and Hanukkah became anchors for lived Jewish experience rather than abstract terms. By repeatedly encountering letters and words in meaningful contexts — often returning to the same vocabulary across multiple weeks — students developed familiarity, confidence, and a growing sense that Hebrew is a language they can inhabit. The purpose of this approach was not fluency for its own sake, but relationship: helping students experience the skill of Hebrew as the connective tissue linking text, ritual, identity, and community, and empowering them to participate more fully in Jewish life with understanding and intention.

Overarching Learning Reflection:

By the end of the semester, students had not simply learned about Judaism — they practiced it. They learned to read Hebrew as a language of meaning, to experience ritual as something embodied, to approach prayer with intention, and to understand Jewish identity as both joyful and resilient. Each month built toward a deeper sense of connection: to text, to time, to one another, and to themselves as growing Jewish individuals.

Rabbi’s Message, January 5, 2026

“Last Words and Living Legacies”

Based on Rabbi’s Lauren’s Sermon for Parashat Vayechi & 1 Kings 2:1–12

(Want to experience more fabulous sermons in person? We would love to see you at Shabbat!)

In both this week’s Torah portion and its haftarah, we are invited into a holy and tender space: the final moments of a life ends. Jacob — now called Israel — lies on his deathbed, surrounded by his children. King David, aging and aware that his time is drawing to a close, summons his anointed successor, Solomon. These are the final moments of a life, as recorded by our sacred texts.

The Torah records:

“Jacob called his sons and said: Gather, and I will tell you what will befall you in the days to come.” (Genesis 49:1)

The haftarah of 1 Kings echoes this moment almost exactly:

“When David’s days drew near to death, he charged his son Solomon, saying…”
(1 Kings 2:1)

Two great ancestors. Two sets of final words. And a shared, urgent question beneath them:

What truly lasts when we no longer can act?

What is striking is what neither Jacob nor David focuses on. Jacob does not distribute wealth. David does not summarize accomplishments. Instead, Jacob offers blessings and moral discernment, tribe by tribe — naming strengths, dangers, unfinished work. His words are deeply personal, sometimes uncomfortable, often tender. Legacy, here, is not flattery; it is truth spoken with love. Likewise, David does not say, “Remember me.” He says:

“Be strong and show yourself a man. Keep the charge of the Eternal your God: walking in God’s ways, keeping God’s laws, commandments, ordinances, and testimonies…” (1 Kings 2:2–3)

David understands something essential: 

Legacy is not what we leave behind — it is what we leave alive in others.

One of the most counterintuitive truths about legacy — confirmed both by Jewish tradition and modern psychology — is this:

You do not build a legacy at the end of life. You build it as you live.

Jacob’s blessings are possible only because he has spent decades living, wrestling, failing, reconciling, and returning. David’s charge to Solomon emerges from a life shaped — sometimes painfully — by teshuvah, moral reckoning, and working towards accountability.

Jewish tradition insists on regular reflection, not heroic last acts. Each year, we take a Cheshbon hanefesh,  a moral accounting of the soul. This was never meant to happen only at the end of life, but weekly, monthly, seasonally, yearly (especially at Yom Kippur). And Shabbat itself is a legacy practice: a recurring pause that asks us, again and again, Are we living toward what matters most? Are we honoring the holiness within ourselves and others?

This rhythm matters not just spiritually, but psychologically as well. Contemporary research on meaning and legacy shows that people experience a stronger presence of meaning when they engage in ongoing reflection tied to values, rather than episodic self-assessment (Steger et al., 2006). Meaning, like legacy, is cumulative, and often not as dramatic as we sometimes think. Similarly, developmental psychologist Erik Erikson identified generativity — the commitment to nurturing others and contributing beyond oneself — as a central task of adulthood. Importantly, generativity is sustained through repeated relational acts, not grand gestures (Erikson, Childhood and Society). It’s the small mitzvot that shape our days, the kindness shown, the volunteer hours clocked, the help offered when needed. 

Jacob and David tried and failed and tried again to model exactly this. As they could clearly see the end of their lives, they understood their failures and weaknesses, but they also hoped to pass on modeling of resilience in the face of difficulty, caution and care with the challenges that a complicated life can bring, and the resilience and reconciliation that trying to always return to living by our values requires. 

The blessings and advice given in both this week’s Torah and haftarah portions may not always be comfortable, but in this case, I would like to think that compassionate honesty and loving concern guides this moment for both Jacob and David. I would like to think that for them, legacy requires truth-telling without cruelty and love without denial of reality and responsibility. Psychologist Dan McAdams, whose work on narrative identity shows how we construct meaning through life stories, emphasizes that healthy legacy formation depends on integrated narratives — stories that include both failure and growth, rupture and repair (The Redemptive Self, 2006). Jacob and David model this type of integration. They neither erase harm nor withhold blessing. They each teach their children how to carry both.

David’s words to Solomon are often read as stern, even harsh. But read carefully, they are less about control and more about continuity; as David says:

“So that the Eternal may fulfill the promise God spoke concerning me…” (1 Kings 2:4)

David understands that his legacy will not survive through charisma, military strength, or poetic brilliance. It will survive only if Solomon embodies the values David learned — sometimes the hard way.

Modern psychology echoes this insight. Studies on values transmission show that children and students internalize values not through instruction alone, but through modeled behavior repeated over time (Grusec & Goodnow, 1994). David is not asking Solomon to imitate him.
He is asking him to live toward their covenant with the Divine, the connection of values that ties Jacob through to David to us today.

Most of us will not have deathbed speeches recorded in sacred texts. But Vayechi insists that our legacy is being written now, quietly, repeatedly, relationally. Through the actions we take each day, through the rituals of love and care and holiness that we build each week, and through the practice – not perfection – of our values lived in the real world. 

When we consider legacy, our rabbis teach in Pirkei Avot:

“It is not upon you to complete the work—but neither are you free to desist from it.” (Pirkei Avot 2:16)

Jacob and David do not complete the work. But they did their best to hand it forward. To their children, and through the generations, to us here in this moment. 

As we move through this week, I invite you to a simple legacy practice. Ask yourself:

1. What value am I practicing repeatedly enough that it might outlive me?

2. Who is learning — explicitly or implicitly — from how I live?

3. If my life were distilled into a few sentences, what would they be teaching?

This week, our sacred texts remind us of this gift of legacy: not the anxiety of final words, but the gift of another week to align and realign with the values that speak deeply to us, in our hearts and souls. May we live so that when our words are eventually spoken by others, they are not explanations — but gifts of honest and compassionate legacies.

Wishing you a Shavuah Tov, a good week,

Rabbi Lauren

Rabbi Lauren will be going on Family Leave starting this week, as she and her family usher her mother, Jill Blasingame, to her final rest. She will be taking shloshim with her family.

Perceiving & Living, Vayechi’s Message for 2026

Shalom,

I was recently recollecting an amazing birthday cake a community member of ours made for their child’s party several years ago.  It was a Brown Bear cake, as in the children’s book by Bill Martin and Eric Carle and the cake itself was a true masterpiece.  This memory sparked my mind to think about the book’s ability to support children’s vocabulary, language, and sequencing among many other important skills.  It also helped me see the way the volume aids young people’s development of perspective and learning to recognize that we all have our own perception; this fosters awareness and connection.  

This brings me to a new understanding of this week’s Torah portion, Vayechi.  It concludes the Book of Genesis, and perhaps even launches us into the experience as a growing people as we descend into the experience in Egypt.  Our ancestor Jacob dies at the beginning of the portion.  We are in Egypt and his son Joseph is running the Pharaoh’s country.  As we proceed to carry Jacob’s remains back to the Land of Israel for burial, a powerful moment of perceiving differently occurs.  Joseph’s brothers, the tribes, get anxious of their brother’s potential retribution for their deed of tossing him into the pit earlier in our story.  There is a moment the brothers’ are described as “seeing” something and our sages in the Midrash elucidate a powerful message.

“When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrong that we did to him!”” (Genesis 50:15)

Midrash Tanhuma describes the “seeing” as leading to a certain perception with the following imagination:

What did they see that frightened them? As they were returning from the burial of their father, they saw their brother go to the pit into which they had hurled him, in order to bless it. He blessed the pit with the benediction “Blessed be the place where God performed a miracle for me,” just as any man is required to pronounce a blessing at the place where a miracle had been performed on his behalf. When they beheld this they cried out: Now that our father is dead, Joseph will hate us and will fully requite us for all the evil which we did unto him. (Midrash Tanhuma Vayechi 17:5)

Joseph, according to this midrash, takes a moment of Hakarat HaTov (our Mussar tradition’s understating of Gratitude which best translates as:  Recognizing the Good).  The brothers, however, perceive something different.  They worry that he is recalling their horrible treatment of him, and their deeds.

Ultimately, the brothers all reconcile.  The Midrash goes on to describe this episode as demonstrating the way Torah is designed and crafted for the purpose of peace, peace in the family and in our world.  The name of our portion, Vayechi, means and he lived, as in “And Jacob lived…” (Gensis 47:28).  

Living is often about perceiving.  It is a journey of recognizing that we all have our own perception.  As children, we develop the awareness that each mind, each human sees things differently (as Joseph and his brothers demonstrate).  Our charge, our challenge, and perhaps even our potential, is to know that perception is always at work.  The responsibility inherent is to learn about one another’s perceptions, to ask, with an open heart, how others perceive, rather than assuming as Joseph’s brothers did.

In our moment in history, the world is full of disparate perceptions.  We all experience the overflow of information in our unique ways.  Let us ask one another how we perceive with the intention of learning, for maybe that helps us live towards the midrash’s view of Torah as a guide for peace.

Shavua Tov & Happy New Year - May we all Realize Peace, Health, and Blessing in 2026,

Rabbi Evon

Rabbi’s Message, December 23, 2025

Happy Winter Break! This is a version of the sermon that I gave on Friday night; I would love to see you at our next Shabbat gathering!

It was a joy to celebrate Hanukkah with our communities this past week; however I want to acknowledge that the welcoming of Hanukkah this year has been fraught with grief, and that the choice to exercise the courage that it takes to wrestle with our peoplehood and still choose joy and peace has not been a simple one. And, in response, as with so many moments that I find confusing or upsetting, I love to re-root myself in the beauty and complexity of our past — not to escape the present, but to steady myself in it — to see if there is wisdom to harvest there for us in our time.

Many years ago, Queen Salome Alexandra – the queen of the Hasmonean dynasty, established by the Maccabees, who we celebrate at Hanukkah – stood at her beloved husband’s bedside. Israel was in the midst of war, and they stood at the edge of the next great battle. As Josephus, the Jewish-Roman Empirical Historian records in his book Antiquities: when she learned that he was dying in the midst of all of this strife, “She came to him weeping and lamenting … and said to him, ‘To whom do you thus leave me and my children…?’” (1) And “So he gave her the following advice… that she should conceal his death from the soldiers until she captured that fortress. After this, she should go triumphantly and victoriously to Jerusalem and put some of her authority into the hands of the Pharisees; for they would commend her for the honor she had done them…” (2)

And so, in 76 BCE, Queen Salome Alexandra’s reign began in war and in secret, amidst massive external conflict, and equally intense internal conflict between the Sadducees — aligned with priestly power — and the Pharisees, who represented the intellectual and spiritual stream that eventually gave birth to the rabbinic tradition.

Josephus records that upon taking the crown, Queen Salome acted swiftly to de-escalate the violence that had scarred the land. Where war had been her husband’s legacy, she restored peace by reintegrating those who had been alienated, especially the sages and the Pharisees — whose voices had been suppressed under previous leadership. The Pharisees, whom Josephus describes as esteemed for their attention to law and devotion to tradition, became central to the administration of justice and public life under her guidance.

She appointed her son Hyrcanus II as High Priest, head of the Sadducees, placing the spiritual and legal authority of the land firmly in the hands of those devoted to study, justice, and Torah tradition, as best she could. The Sanhedrin — once a fractured assembly — was reorganized and empowered. In doing so, Queen Salome fostered a shared focus on what was just and what was whole. Her Hebrew name found in rabbinic literature, Shelamziyyon, means “Peace of Zion,” a name that subtly reveals her mission: not domination, but settlement; not victory, but wholeness. (3)

Over two thousand years later, we look back not merely on her political reforms, but on what they invite us to see: that leadership, especially in times of fissure, is not only about who wins, but about how we return and re-dedicate ourselves to a shared table; how do we repair what has happened and rebuild shalom bayit — peace in the home, peace in the community, peace in our hearts. 

The very word Hanukkah — from the Hebrew ḥanuk­kah — means “dedication.” It recalls how, in 164 BCE, after years of Hellenistic oppression and desecration of the Holy Temple, the Maccabees returned to Jerusalem and rededicated the sacred altar. (4) They did not throw it out or destroy it to rebuild from scratch, as can be so tempting sometimes. Rather, the Maccabees – the founders of the Hasmonean Dynasty – chose repair and rededication.

But what does “rededication” really do in our lives? How does the ritual work of rededication impact us? Modern psychology helps deepen our understanding of ritual: rituals are not just actions done, but embodied emotional frameworks that regulate our hearts and souls, anchor meaning across generations, and connect individuals across time and place. They offer predictability in an unpredictable world, calming anxiety, reaffirming group identity, and transforming memory into embodied practice. (5)

In our menorah lighting over the past holiday, notice how each candle adds light. Each night’s candle is not simply a repetition of the last, but an incremental recommitment: to memory, to hope, and to collective life. We rededicate ourselves year after year — not because we are static people with a single moment of ease and perfection, but because, as dynamic beings wrestling with life’s hard moments, repeated affirmations root and re-root us in what matters most. 

Ritual also does something profound in the human psyche. It helps us regulate our emotional world — especially the parts of our history that are painful or complex — by giving them form, rhythm, and pattern. In lighting candles, in singing songs, in recalling miracles and struggles, we wire those memories into the shapes of meaning. We transform fear into devoted care, fragmentation into belonging, and chaos into shared narrative. (6)

And so we might imagine: Did Queen Salome Alexandra feel this same need for ritual dedication? Surrounded by factions — Sadducee, Pharisee, court intrigue, competing children — she nonetheless focused on repair and renewal, on strengthening the institutions that held the Jewish people together, on revitalizing law, scholarship, and equitable justice. She might not have had the same box of candles to light that looked exactly like ours in her rituals, but her leadership reminds us that Hanukkah – re-dedication – is not only established with oil and candles, but with the daily work of tending our hearts and our spirits, keeping them oriented toward goodness and justice.

As we stood together before Hanukkah’s growing flames, and we entered what Heschel called ‘a palace in time,’ Shabbat, we are grateful for the rituals that connect us to our past and to one another in the present; we are honored to be a part of the continual hanukkah – rededication – that anchors us in our values that outlive a single victory or tragedy; and we appreciate the spark of awe that the holiday lights reflect as we rededicate ourselves to the wisdom and strength of our people, one moment, one choice, one candle at a time.

(1)  Josephus, Antiquities XIII, §398–399

(2) Josephus, Antiquities XIII, §400–401

(3)  https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/salome-alexandra/

(4)  https://www.history.com/articles/hanukkah

(5) https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/jschroeder/Publications/Hobson%20et%20al%20Psychology%20of%20Rituals.pdf

(6) https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/jschroeder/Publications/Hobson%20et%20al%20Psychology%20of%20Rituals.pdf

A Hanukkah Message from the President of North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation

By Heidi Doyle

Someone once joked that Hanukkah is the holiday where we celebrate a miracle by eating foods that require extra napkins. If that’s true, then perhaps it’s also a reminder that joy can be a little messy, a little imperfect—and still deeply meaningful.

As we gather to light the Hanukkah candles this year, we do so at a time when our world feels heavy with uncertainty, conflict, and division. Many of us carry concern for loved ones near and far, and we are keenly aware of the challenges facing our global community. Yet Hanukkah reminds us that even a small light, when nurtured and protected, can shine far beyond what we ever imagined.

Here at North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation, our light is strong and everlasting. It shines through our commitment to family, friendship, Jewish values, and Torah. It glows in our shared meals, our prayers, our learning, and our moments of laughter together. By embracing what truly matters—connection, compassion, and community—we create a sacred space filled with joy and meaning, not only for today, but for the future we are building together.

May this season of light bring warmth to your homes, peace to your hearts, and renewed hope for the year ahead. I wish you and your loved ones a joyful Hanukkah and a healthy, happy New Year. I look forward to seeing you at our upcoming synagogue events as we continue to celebrate, learn, and shine together.

Chag Hanukkah Sameach!

Hannukah: Yearning for the Reality of Psalm 30 (Rabbi’s Message)

Shalom,

As we embrace this second day of Hannukah, we hold the joy of our kindled Hannukiot and the heaviness of more violence against Jews.  I yearn for the time when our celebrations are no longer tainted by sorrow, grief, and pain.  I am also reminded that we are not strangers to managing this act of balance, of holding seemingly opposing emotions and ideas.

Each morning during Hannukah, it is our custom to recite the words of Psalm 30.  The depth and beauty of this text abounds with the possibility of tomorrow. Possibly a familiar verse (Psalms 30:6) guides us, “Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”  This is the fulcrum of the Psalm, it is this idea upon which our rededication exists.  The Psalmist gives us expression for our ability to stay committed to the possibility of transformation.  It is transforming beyond troubled realities, to the possibility of tomorrow.

Rabbi Miriyam Glazer writes in her book Psalms of the Jewish Liturgy, “All tragic drama, according to Aristotle, is about a fall from a high place.  If that is true, Ps. 30 depicts a tragedy: You made me strong as a mountain,” our Psalmist declares - but then “You hid Your face from me, and I was terrified.”  Life is filled with twists and turns…” (page 46)

It is more than twists and turns, yet the message remains.  And Psalm 30 is our traditions guide to serve as a tool to be, to live…even thrive in this moment, at this time.  

May we feel the strength of our People, as strong as a mountain, as we rededicate ourselves and light our Hannukiot.  As Rabbi Sharon Brous wrote in the New York Times yesterday about the menorah, “It is a hint, a prayer.  A symbol of eternal defiance.”  She refers to the famous photo of a Hannukiah in Germany from 1931 with a swastika banner in the distance across the street behind the Hannukiah.  (The Humanity Amid the Horror, NYT Dec. 15, 2025)

May our Hannukah not be diminished, rather may it help us grow as strong as mountains, may it be our symbol of defiance against hatred from wherever it lives, and may our candles burn ever more bright.

Chag Urim Sameach - A Joyous Festival of Lights,

Rabbi Evon

Rabbi’s Message, December 9, 2025

In between Thanksgiving and the secular New Year, here in North America, is typically what I think of as the season of large (and often complicated) family gatherings. This is also the season in the Jewish calendar that we read about often complicated family relationships and gatherings in Genesis. This past week in the Torah was a big one. Parashat Vayishlach narrates the meeting between twins Jacob and Esau, after they have grown into adulthood and established families of their own. In the spirit of this convergence, I wanted to share with you the sermon from Friday night’s Shabbat celebration. (And if you want to hear more like this, please see our calendar for our next Shabbat! Rabbi Evon and I would love to see you there!) 

Wishing you a wonderful week and a prayer for relational health, healing, and repair, 

Rabbi Lauren

The author of The Family Dynamic, Susan Dominus – whose remarkable investigation into sibling success has been a part of my personal reading list this week – reflected in an interview how siblings — not parents — often shape our inner lives most profoundly. “Sometimes,” she said in her interview last year with WHYY’s Fresh Air, “the most powerful model in a child’s life is not a parent, but a brother or sister who shows what’s possible.” (1)

This struck me particularly this week, because, not only are we in a season of potentially large-scale family gatherings, but also this is the week that we read Parashat Vayishlach. In it, we continue with one of the most complicated sibling stories in our Bible: Jacob and Esau. For those of us not following the tea of the past couple of weeks in Torah, Jacob – with the encouragement of his mother, Rebecca – cosplayed as his twin Esau in order to steal Esau’s birthright and blessing from their father. And then, after he successfully stole his brother’s birthright and blessings, Jacob ran away. For years. And this week is the long-awaited reunion of Jacob and Esau. It is a story about conflict, fear, rivalry, regret, estrangement, and — against all odds — transformation.

For those of us who are parents or have siblings, we can see that this is a story in which so many of our values — humility, truth, honor, loving-kindness, patience — is activated, stretched, and tested by the dynamics of this siblingship.

Just as Jacob recognizes that he cannot control the story Esau carries, Dominus shows us that siblings often hold competing versions of the same past. Susan Dominus tells us that siblings are among our earliest and most enduring shapers of self. And Parashat Vayishlach tells us how complicated that shaping can be. The Torah portion opens just as Jacob has departed from his uncle Laban’s territory, and is about to cross back into his father Isaac’s territory.

When Jacob hears Esau is coming toward him with 400 men, the Torah tells us: “Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.” In response, the medieval commentators wonder: Why two emotions? Why “afraid” and “distressed”? Rashi explains: He was afraid of being killed and distressed that he might have to kill.

But there is another layer potentially at work here: Jacob is afraid of being truly seen — seen not as the polished, successful, wealthy man he has worked to become, but as the young man who once deceived his brother and ran away. Siblings know our beginnings. They know what we looked like before we knew who we were. They were witnesses to our awkwardness, our mistakes, our utter unfinishedness.

In Dominus’ terms, siblings hold our formative “narratives” — stories about who succeeded first, who received more attention, who felt overlooked. Those narratives follow us well into adulthood, often unchallenged.

In this way, Jacob embodies the spiritual struggle of Anavah, humility. Not self-erasure, not self-loathing — but the terrifying honesty of standing before someone who remembers you before you were polished. True humility is not thinking less of ourselves; it is seeing ourselves truthfully – considering the raw emet, the raw truth, of our whole selves. From this standpoint – one in which we are grounding in the humility of who we were and who we have grown to be, in combination with acknowledging the whole truth of each of these stages – repair becomes more possible. Repair in sibling relationships is rarely about undoing the past; rather, it is about facing it truthfully and with ownership of your agency, or lack thereof throughout your childhood, and spaces for growth.

In response to this moment, when Jacob finally sees Esau approaching, he bows to the ground seven times.

Not once, not twice — seven.

This is choreography, but it is also a kind of confession. It is a confession of what Jacob has learned in his time away. It is an attempt to show his brother that he has learned humility and that he has the ability to make space to finally show kavod, to show honor, to his brother. For us, we can see that this Kavod, honor, is the discipline of seeing the Divine Image in another (even our siblings). And Jacob does something extraordinary. He honors Esau with more dignity than he has ever shown him before.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught that Jacob wants to rewrite the relationship not through apology alone, but that this act of bowing is an action that restores honor to Esau, honor that a part of their childhood took away.

Susan Dominus’ book reveals something parallel: siblings often carry very different stories about the same childhood. One remembers being overshadowed; another remembers being burdened. One recalls privilege; another recalls scarcity. We bring those narratives into adulthood — into our fears, our relationships, our decision-making.

But as we move into adulthood, we also come to the realization that we can have power over these narratives.  We can transcend the choices that we made as children; and we can transcend the influences and environment that cultivated those choices. Indeed, Jacob bows seven times because he recognizes that he does not control the narrative of their shared childhood. He cannot dictate how Esau remembers. He can only honor the truth that each of their stories matter. Indeed, spiritual maturation means making space for more than just our own stories.

How many adult relationships break not because of malice, but because we cannot honor the other person’s version of the past?

This moment of our Torah whispers:
Your truth does not cancel theirs.
Your memory does not eclipse theirs.
But honor can create room for both of you to breathe and even begin to reconcile.

And then, as we return to our parasha, it happens —
the moment no one in the Torah could have predicted. Genesis 33 states:

“Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, fell upon his neck, and kissed him; and they wept.”

This is not strategy.
This is not power.
This is chesed — pure, disfiltered loving-kindness.

Esau, the brother Jacob feared most, becomes the healer of the story.

Susan Dominus teaches that siblings often surprise one another.
Traits we assumed were fixed — rivalry, resentment, ambition — have the capacity to soften over time. We can grow into new versions of ourselves.We can release burdens we once held tightly. In our spiritual tradition of Mussar, this moment involves savlanut, patience — this is the moment that shows us that every soul has the capacity to ripen in its own season, if only given the opportunity and the time.

When he embraces his brother, Esau proves that healing is possible, even when history is jagged. Jacob proves that humility and truth can prepare the ground.  The brothers cry together because they make space for what is new.

And here lies one of the deepest teachings of Vayishlach:

Reconciliation does not require rewinding the past; it requires seeing the emet – the truth – of one another. It requires making space for kavod – for the honor – and acting on the chesed – the loving-kindness – that each of us need. It requires the savlanut – the patience – that it takes for us to trust that we can all grow, with the fullness of time and personal effort.

The lesson for us today, in this community is that we, too, are siblings — through this shared community, through this sacred covenant, in this journey of stumbling toward holiness.

The Torah does not promise that every sibling story will resolve with an embrace. But it does offer us the idea that transformation is possible, and that our relationships — even the most complicated ones — can become pathways to our holiest selves.

May we meet our own siblings — of blood, of history, of choice, of community — with humility and truth, with honor and kindness, and with patience that makes space for healing and growth.

And may we, like Jacob and Esau, find moments where the story breaks open and something unexpected — something tender and redemptive – comes running toward us.

(1)  Dominus, Susan. Interview by Dave Davies. “Parenting, Siblings, and the Psychology of Success.” Fresh Air, WHYY, May 7, 2024. Audio, 35:42. https://www.npr.org/2024/05/07/1249489275/susan-dominus-sibling-success

Vayishlach - Wrestling with Wrestlying: Dec. 2 2025

Shalom,

Wrestling is such a funny thing to me.  I don’t mean the scholastic or olympic style of wrestling, but the professional entertainment kind.  Growing up, I definitely wrestled with my brother, with my friends, and enjoyed the WWF (professional wrestling), the precursor to the WWE.  But, as I grew older, perhaps matured a bit, and learned more about the production side of professional wrestling, I began to view it as silly.  Yet, both styles of wrestling have the same goal:  To pin or toss your opponent.  It is when I re-visit this description and use that to read this week’s Torah portion, I become confused.  

In parashat Vayishlach (Read the portion here>>>), Jacob is returning from decades away after fleeing his twin brother Esau.  As he approaches the moment of confrontation, he stops for the night by himself.  This is the well-known scene in which he wrestles with an entity, the text states a “man” yet the details are not entirely clear:

Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.  When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him.  Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”  Said the other, “What is your name?” He replied, “Jacob.”  Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human,-d and have prevailed.”  Jacob asked, “Pray tell me your name.” But he said, “You must not ask my name!” And he took leave of him there. (Genesis 32:25-30)

This is a different kind of wrestling.  That is what strikes me this year.  We, as a people, have earned the nickname of being God Wrestlers from this passage.  But, if I think about wrestling as pinning or tossing, that’s not what I want to engage with vis-á-vis God.  The commentaries added perspective like Ibn Ezra who connects the Hebrew for wrestle (aleph bet koof) to another of its meanings as dust:  They got dusty, and kicked up dust around and between them.  Rashi turns to the Midrash, as he usually does, and shares that Jacob’s opponent was Esau’s guardian angel.  (Genesis Rabbah 77:3)  There are even more layers our tradition provides to elucidate this scene, a lifetime of learning in fact.  

At this moment, there are two ideas that strike me.  One is that I like a different translation for ויאבק (wrestle), and that is grapple.  Yes, grapple can mean wrestle, but it can also mean to grasp or bind closely.  I like the idea that Jacob is grappling with his relationship with God, and therefore, we are implored to grapple too; we are charged to work towards grasping a relationship with the Divine.  The other is this idea of the opponent being Esau’s guardian angel.  Through this lens, I am learning that Jacob knows he was not entirely upright in dealing with his brother.  In order to return to him, to perhaps reconcile, he must grapple also with how he understands Esau, and to look at it honestly.  

We are God-grapplers, and I like that better than wrestlers because it is not about being victorious, rather being learners.  And, when faced with prickly relationships, with wrong-doing, and reconciliation, we must grapple with how we perceive others, and with ourselves, as Jacob appears to be doing in this scene.

As we move into a new week, and towards the light of Hannukah, may we grapple with ideas big and small…and with our relationship with God, the Divine, Mystery of Creation, whatever it is we believe.  May we consider moments of struggle as an opportunity for learning, for perceiving differently, and holding tight to what truly matters.

Shavua Tov - To a Good Week,

Rabbi Evon

Rabbi’s Message: One step towards peace at a time

November 25, 2025

I gave a version of this message during the sermon at services at NTHC this past Shabbat; but even as the Jewish world enters into this new era of healing now that the war is coming to a conclusion, I noticed that there is very little good news these days. So, in this week that our thoughts turn to gratitude, I thought I would most like to spread this message of some of the efforts towards peace that give me hope and foster gratitude for all of the ometz lev, the strengthening of the heart, that this work takes. I pray that they nurture that spark in you too: 

Several years ago, when we were living in Israel, our family adopted a lone soldier. The lone soldier program pairs young adults who move to Israel and serve in the IDF with families who can offer something priceless: a place to land, to rest, and to be cared for. That weekly return to a home is one of Israel’s most powerful tools for preventing the isolation, alienation, and trauma that too often haunt veterans elsewhere.

Our soldier was from Connecticut. Her name is Kayla. She came to us through my dear friend and counseling mentor, Dr. Betsy Stone. Gaining a twenty-something “child” while my other children were still in diapers should have felt funny—but Kayla simply became part of us. I signed her ketubah at her wedding. I fussed over her and her husband Elad when they visited after their honeymoon. And two weeks ago, I joyfully delivered gifts to her daughter Doriah—who is, in my completely unbiased opinion, the world’s cutest spaghetti-covered toddler.

But the moment that filled me most deeply with pride was hearing Kayla describe her new work.

This year, she joined Sindyanna of the Galilee, a women-run, Arab-Jewish cooperative committed to building shared economic opportunity and, more importantly, shared humanity. Kayla has always loved the intersection of nourishment and entrepreneurship, but this work is different. It is quiet, careful peace-building. It is women sitting together across lines of difference, making something with their hands, and allowing the possibility to grow with them.

When she first told me about it, I felt the two truths she was holding: the anxiety of stepping toward people whose intentions you can’t yet read, and the deep desire to help create peace anyway. That tension sits at the very heart of this last week’s Torah portion, Toldot.

When Isaac and Rebecca arrive in a new region of the land, they encounter Abimelech, king of the Philistines. Isaac is afraid—so afraid that he lies about Rebecca being his sister, the same painful pattern we saw with Abraham and Sarah. Later in the chapter, more tensions arise around land and water rights—accusations, expulsions, and old wounds rising quickly to the surface. (Genesis 26:9; 16–22)

Isaac begins in the same emotional posture many of us know well: tightened breath, suspicion, defensiveness, the feeling of “What will they take from me?” Psychologist Dr. Marilee Adams calls this the Judger mindset—the instinctive, protective reaction that emerges from lived experience and inherited fear. It is not irrational. It is human.

But the miracle of this portion is that Isaac does not stay there. Something in him softens. He pauses. He asks a different kind of question—not “Who will hurt me?” but:

 What outcome do I actually want here?
Is peace possible?
What would it take for us both to stay and thrive?

Dr. Adams calls these Learner questions—questions that don’t deny fear but make room for curiosity and possibility. And that shift, however small, is what makes the treaty between Isaac and Abimelech possible.

The Torah doesn’t portray a perfect reconciliation. Trust is not magically restored. But they move, even if only briefly, out of fear and toward coexistence. And that movement is everything.

Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, one of the great modern Mussar teachers, offers that each of us has a bechirah (or choice) point — the inner frontier where real choice becomes possible. Not the places we operate on autopilot, and not the places too far beyond our current capacity. The bechirah (or choice) point is the narrow, holy space where instinct meets intention.

Isaac stands at his bechirah point when Abimelech approaches him again.
Kayla stands at hers each time she sits with women whose histories are intertwined with her own, yet whose stories she is only beginning to learn.

And each of us stands at ours in our families, our communities, and our world.

The heart of Rabbi Dessler’s teaching is this: holiness is not found in winning the inner battle; it is found in the moment we pause long enough to choose.

When we ask a different question, like:
“What else might be true?”
“What might they be feeling?”
“What is the outcome I want for both of us?”
We push our bechirah point forward. Over time, those small courageous choices become our new nature.

The work Kayla is doing at Sindyanna is quiet, patient peace work, the kind that never makes headlines but changes lives. The kind that feels fragile. The kind that requires holding fear in one hand and hope in the other.

And it is the same work the Torah invites us into during this season.

Peace does not begin with answers. It begins with better questions.
Questions that widen rather than narrow.
Questions that make room for the humanity of the person across from us.
Questions that honor our fears but do not let them be the only truth in the room.

Isaac and Abimelech show us that even ancient rivalries can yield, for a moment, to cooperation.
Rabbi Dessler reminds us that spiritual growth happens one choice at a time.
And Kayla shows us that those choices—quiet, small, steady—can be the seeds of something much larger.

As we head into this week of gratitude and personal gatherings, I invite us to notice our own bechirah points, the places in which we discover that we too have a choice.

Where do we feel tightened breath?
Where do inherited fears or old wounds constrict us?
Where are we tempted to ask, “Why are they like this?” instead of “What might they be needing?”

And can we — just once, and then again — ask a gentler, wiser question?

Because every time we choose curiosity over certainty, openness over assumption, connection over fear, we widen the possibility of peace.

May we walk gently toward that possibility together.

May we know peace at our Thanksgiving tables.

May we know peace in our communities.

May we know peace in our world.

Wishing you a wonderful week and a Happy Thanksgiving,

Rabbi Lauren

A Thanksgiving Reflection from President Heidi Doyle

November 2025

This Thanksgiving, I’m thinking about something I came across while on a social media scroll (author unknown): “Some people look into your cup to see if you have more than they do, while others look to see if you need more.” Jewish tradition teaches us to be the latter—to notice, to and areyvut (responsibility for one another), we are called to lift each other up and ensure no one’s cup runs empty.

I am grateful for my Tahoe Jewish family and those who have been able to step up to financially support our spiritual home and community. This last month we received a substantial donation from one of our founding members, Ed Posin, through his trust managed by other founding members, Betty and Marty Fineman. These funds will be used to secure future repairs to our building, provide community gathering opportunities, and support our daily needs, honoring the legacy of those who built this congregation and preserving it for those who will inherit it.

As we gather around our tables with family and friends, may we cherish the blessings that fill our simply being present for someone who needs it.

At North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation, our strength is the compassion we show one another. This season, let’s keep filling each other’s cups.

Warm Thanksgiving wishes,

Heidi Doyle