It’s been a great summer so far! Well, its been a little while since I posted something on my blog. The last couple of weeks have come and gone like a whirlwind. Usually summertime is a very slow time when it comes to Temple Beth Sholom.

For the most part during the last 10 years, the summer was the time that I used to carefully meditate on the upcoming High Holy Days and to begin thinking about my sermons. This summer has been a very different one — wonderful but different! 

In the beginning of July, Rabbi Adam Watstein joined us as our new Assistant Rabbi. We spent much time together talking about the weeks and months ahead, making plans for the beginning of our work together and understanding what next year will look like in terms of challenges, growth and renewed vitality for Temple Beth Sholom.

I have also spent some time writing and going over the manuscript of a book that has been many years in the making. Together with my friend and colleague Jeremy Wiederhorn, something that started as just a simple idea with a very unusual title has evolved into an amazing project. “Torah from Sin City… Encounters with The Divine in the most unlikely place!?” will be ready in some months from now. It contains our stories, reflections and thoughts about being Rabbis in such an incredible city!

The more I think about it, the more it seems like a dream — but this will be my 11th Rosh Hashanah in Las Vegas. When we first came, Yoshua was not even 2-years-old and today we begin planning for his Bar Mitzvah in October 2009. This has been an incredible journey so far, and I am absolutely positive that the best years are still ahead of us.

Both Yoshua and Daniela spent an entire session at camp Ramah in California with many other children from our congregation. I have absolutely no words to thank Rabbi Daniel Greyber, director of Camp Ramah in California, for the most wonderful and Jewishly charged and enriching month my children have ever experienced. I now believe even more than ever that Camp Ramah is the key to the development of a very strong and vibrant Jewish Identity.

During the last two weeks of July, I had the privilege of being part of The Legacy Heritage Rabbinic Enrichment Initiative at The Jewish Theological Seminary. I will write a separate post about this amazing program. This morning, we boarded a plane from New York to Mexico City, where we will be spending Shabbat with our family — and on Monday we will begin our vacation. We miss Las Vegas, but more than that, we miss TBS. We’ll be back soon and hope that your summer has been as wonderful and rewarding as ours.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 3rd, 2008 at 12:15 am and is filed under religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.