Upon popular request at the end of Wednesday’s “Witches & Brews” event as part of my “Bible & Brewery” series, I held a sequel event in Orange County. Returning to Bootlegger’s Brewery in Fullerton, “Witches & Brews 2” featured an exploration of texts from rabbinic literature on witches and witchcraft.Continue Reading
Last week, I visited the new Moishe House of Orange County and spoke about the holiday of Sukkot with young adults. Having spoken at the previous Moishe House of Orange County several times last year and several times the year before, it was my first time at the new locationContinue Reading
Last night, I led a conversation for with young adults about witches in the Jewish Bible in Orange County as part of my newly-relaunched “Bible & Brewery” series for Southern California Jewish Young Adult Enrichment. With “Witches & Brews”, we met at Bootlegger’s Brewery, which has a nice outdoor patioContinue Reading
For the second time this semester, I had the pleasure of speaking with students at California State University – Fullerton about an upcoming holiday. Yesterday, in collaboration with the Hillel of Orange County, I spoke with students about Yom Kippur. Having previously spoken with them two weeks previously about RoshContinue Reading
Last night, I led a discussion on shofar-blasting for Rosh HaShanah, which was cheerfully accompanied by a bourbon-tasting. Continuing on with the bimonthly series I began two years ago with a spirits-tasting and learning opportunity, last night’s event focussed on various aspects of shofar-blasting, just in time ahead of RoshContinue Reading
Last night, I led a discussion for young adults regarding Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, the “High Holidays”, in the Torah. Part of my “Bible & Brewery” series, visiting different breweries in the greater Orange County-Long Beach area, while exploring Biblical sections, this event took place at The Bruery inContinue Reading
Yesterday, I took part in a really neat program that a local Jewish school ran. Tarbut v’Torah in Irvine has its high school seniors deliver a d’var Torah on a given parashah at some point during the school year. To help them with their speeches, Tarbut v’Torah invited various rabbisContinue Reading
With the current Summer Hillel Institute taking place at the moment, I figured this would be a good opportunity to share some of how I was enriched from taking part in this professional development gathering.* The clear highlights for me were attending Rabbi Daniel Smokler’s sessions. He did one withContinue Reading
It’s now been two months since the Taglit-Birthright Israel I co-led returned, which is making me reflect on what’s gone on since then. We’ve gotten an entire third of our trip together twice now and I’ve also met up with several of our participants on multiple occasions. We areContinue Reading
In the summers of 2011 and 2012, I served for a few weeks at B’nai B’rith Youth Organization’s International Leadership Training Conference (BBYO ILTC) as one of two Judaic Educators. While I had worked as a madrich for a few summers during college at BBYO summer programs at B’nai B’rithContinue Reading