Adina Lewittes

October 23, 2026/12 Cheshvan 5787/Shabbat Lech Lecha Hevre/Friends, In his weekly reflection, Rabbi Zohar Atkins points to a heartbreaking line in Parashat Lech Lecha. Hagar has fled Sarai's mistreatment. An angel finds her by a spring in the wilderness and asks: הָגָ֞ר שִׁפְחַ֥ת שָׂרַ֛י אֵֽי־מִזֶּ֥ה בָ֖את וְאָ֣נָה תֵלֵ֑כִי וַתֹּ֕אמֶר מִפְּנֵי֙ שָׂרַ֣י גְּבִרְתִּ֔י אָנֹכִ֖י בֹּרַֽחַת׃"Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?" And she said, "I am running away...

October 16, 2026/5 Cheshvan 5787/Shabbat Noach Hevre/Friends, This week I travelled to Toronto on behalf of Limmud North America, whose Board of Directors I was recently invited to join. Limmud is a worldwide network of Jewish festivals and gatherings where Jews from across our wide landscape of ideas, beliefs, and practices come to learn with and from each other, and in doing so build Jewish communities that are more informed, more connected, and more resilient. As you'll see, Limmud's...

October 9, 2026/28 Tishrei 5787/Shabbat Bereishit  Hevre/Friends, When I was a little girl, one of my mother's favorite songs to sing to me was Yehoram Gaon's Ani Mavtiach Lach. "I promise you, my little girl, that this will be the last war…" The de facto anthem of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, it carried the pledge of a country shaken from the lull of its Six Day War victory back into the knowledge of its very real vulnerability: a promise to its young that things would change, that they...