In this season of early sunsets, chilling winds, snow and ice and freezing temperatures, our holidays offset the bleakness and despair we might otherwise feel with joy, optimism and celebration. Thanksgiving has now come and gone. For Christians this is the season of Advent and preparing for Christmas. Two weeks from now Jews will be […]
Rabbi Barry Marks
Rabbi Barry Marks served as rabbi of Temple Israel until his retirement in 2020 and was one of the founders of the Greater Springfield Interfaith Association. He has been active in community organizations and currently serves on the board of United Way of Central Illinois.
Posted inCommunity & Lifestyle
Making the ordinary special
Among the songs that I remember from my parents’ collection of phonograph records of Yiddish folk music was a melancholy and poignant melody whose lyrics expressed the lament of a poor and humble tailor that the holiday season and its celebrations were coming to an end and that he would soon be returning to his […]
Posted inCommunity & Lifestyle
A season for self-reckoning
This week, Jewish communities around the world are celebrating the advent of a new year, 5786, according to our calendar reckoning. Rosh Hashanah, the new year observance (occurring this year from sundown on Monday, Sept. 22nd to sunset on Wednesday, Sept. 24) inaugurates a 10-day season which concludes with the solemn fast day of Yom […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people
The reading of Scripture at Sabbath and holiday prayer services has been a feature of Jewish congregational worship for nearly two millennia. The precedent for a public reading of Scripture goes back to Moses’s instruction to the Israelites to read the Torah aloud once every seven years to all the people – men, women and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Liberty, equality and fraternity – The blessings and the challenges
A week and a half ago, we observed the Fourth of July, our American Independence Day with picnics, fireworks and parades and, hopefully, a renewed dedication to the principles and aspirations on which our country is founded. This week France observes its national holiday, Bastille Day, the 14th of July, marking the date in 1789 […]
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Healing of body and of spirit
Mortality, illness and suffering are an inescapable part of the human condition. When we are afflicted by disease, pain, injury or loss of bodily function, we seek healing and restoration to health. We enlist the skill of the physician to lessen our pain, to arrest or reverse the course of our disease, to repair injuries […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Torah provides a framework for freedom
Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, which falls this year on Monday, June 2, originated in biblical times as an agricultural festival, the culmination of the spring grain harvest, which began around the time of Passover with the reaping of barley and concluded with the gathering of wheat. It was also the commencement of the season […]
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Telling the story of the deliverance from Egypt
This coming Saturday evening, Jews around the world will gather in their homes or at synagogues and other communal venues along with family members, guests and fellow congregants to celebrate the seder, the ceremony that inaugurates the weeklong Passover holiday commemorating the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt and their liberation from bondage. The seder is at […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A day for laughter, a day for vigilance and commitment
Aside from the commemoration of the Holocaust and the celebration of Israel’s independence that were instituted in recent times, Purim, the Feast of Lots, which will occur this year on Thursday evening, March 13 and Friday, March 14, is one of two holidays on the Jewish calendar that are not mentioned in the Torah (the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
We are God’s partners and stewards of creation
In our religious traditions, we recognize that the reality of God and the nature of our relationship with the divine are a mystery that transcend the limitations of human speech. To impart a sense of God’s presence and to make that relationship closer and more immediate, however, scripture and liturgy employ images and metaphors that […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Miracle of the Lights
I begin by wishing those of our readers who celebrate Christmas a joyous and blessed holiday. As we approach the beginning of a new year, I hope that for all of us 2025 will be a time of health, of happiness and of fulfillment and that the new year might witness a lessening of the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
You shall rejoice in your festival
The Jewish lunar month of Tishri, which falls in September and October on the civil calendar, is the busiest time of the Jewish year, filled with holidays and observances both solemn and joyous. Within the past two weeks we have celebrated Rosh Hashanah (the New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), the start […]
