This Hannukify is in honor of the great Jewish singer, actor, storyteller, and activist Theodore Bikel z''l. Happy Hannukah with two heaping doses of the best of Theo.

It's Hannukah Ska - what would the Maccabees make of that? If you like Island Boy, this track**isnt** for you because that song is terrible, and this is good. So listen to this instead.

So nice we did it twice. Nehora v'Hadas's stunning Maoz Tzur melody - there's nothing like it.

A true Hannukah miracle(ish) story in Prague plus Jack Black singing the Hanukkah song. Happy Hannukify!

Are you ready to HHHHHHanukify with Rabbi Scott? In this Hannukify Short: Sarah Aroeste's Ladino track Hanuka. Watch out for those killer horns!

Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses explores the widespread human habit of comparing ourselves to one another, ranking ourselves and the other person ---to our detriment or to the detriment of the other person. This process takes a terrible toll on the Israelite family; Jacob explicitly favors Joseph--through the gift of the multi-color coat-- leading to Joseph's brothers feeling undervalued and their lethal jealousy.

The past years have been traumatic and transformative. Rabbi Ingber discusses Romemu member Matthew Heineman’s powerful documentary ‘The First Wave’, which recalls and recasts the first 4 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in NYC and its relationship to the mythic moment of the Patriarch Jacob’s wrestling with a mysterious foe in Genesis 32.

As when Jacob left Be'er Sheva, when any one of us leaves a place, a part of us remains behind. We all have the capacity to resurrect; what vessels can we build from that residue?

Rabbi Scott's Dvar from Kabbalat Shabbat on November 5th, 2021. Parshat Toldot.

Our patriarch Isaac loved Esau even as Jacob seemed the more likely candidate to receive the familial blessing. This affection has puzzled commentators for centuries. Many read Isaac's love as the reason he couldn't see Esau's unworthiness. However, one commentator read Isaac's choice as strategic, his decision to confer a blessing on his unsavory son as a path that all of us might take when dealing with the obstacles, difficulties, and painful parts of our life.

Friday, November 5, 2021