Blog

It is hard to put into words how many of us feel following a weekend in which we witnessed white supremacists and neo-nazis marching openly in America, leaving violence and tragedy in their wake.

Regardless of where we each stand politically, we can ALL agree: hatred, bigotry and violence cannot be tolerated. When our civic and faith values are threatened in this way, we raise our voices and rise up—not just in opposition but...Read more...

Monday, July 31st is the commemoration of Tisha B’Av. Tisha B’Av, the 9th day of the month of Av, marks the destruction of the Temples which once stood in Jerusalem. It is traditionally a day of sorrow, sadness, and fasting.

Midrash Eicha Rabbah teaches us that the First Temple was destroyed  because of three...Read more...

We are excited to announce the launch our new membership database portal! In the new portal, you will be able to easily and conveniently register for events, manage your email preferences, view our online membership directory, pay outstanding balances and much, much more.

We hope you will take advantage of all of the great features that are available. This portal is now available on our website and you can access it anytime through...Read more...

What’s in a year?

July 1st. A day that for rabbinical students always stands out...July 1st is the day a new rabbi starts his or her job.

July 1st, 2016. It seems like a lifetime ago, and simultaneously it seems like just yesterday.

I arrived in Atlanta on June 28th, 2016 a bit jet lagged, but totally excited after a 15 hour flight from Asia. In retrospect, it would have been wise to arrive in Atlanta 1 month...Read more...

There is a story: A rabbi was once asked to describe the difference between Pardes (Paradise, or TheWorld To Come) and Gehinom (purgatory). The rabbi replied: “Gehinom is a place in which there are thousands of human beings, their arms bound by splints and heavy ropes so that they cannot bend their elbows. They are seated before a large table upon which has been set large quantities of delicious food: a variety of meats; exotic fruits and...Read more...

Temple Sinai is in Israel!  Follow along with the trip on our blog and check out our photos on Facebook here 

Final Day by Rabbi Ron Segal

No surprise, the final day of our Sinai Israel journey came far too soon.  However, the farewells did not...Read more...

As a thought to help frame this Shabbat, a Shabbat that for many of us marks the end of a school year, I wanted to share my closing benediction from our most recent Temple Sinai Annual Meeting. A charming and warm session, I was privileged to deliver these words at the meetings close:

We have come once again to that sacred time on the Jewish calendar where it is appropriate to take stock of the many blessings in our lives and to...Read more...

I keep re-reading an article that I read in the Harvard Business Review last year.  The article  by Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan is entitled "Resilience Is About How You Recharge, Not How You Endure."

The topic is this: "We often take a militaristic,“tough” approach to resilience and grit. We imagine a Marine slogging through the mud, a boxer going one more round, or a football player picking himself up off the turf...Read more...

I make a mean beignet.

I may not be able to swing a baseball bat or shoot a 3-pointer or run to the endzone but when it comes to making beignets I’ve got game.

It is a craft that I’ve been carefully curating for two decades and a skill that has been shared with precious few. It is how I became the most popular person in my hall at my undergraduate institution and it is how I wooed Rebecca. A few years ago I had the...Read more...

By now, we are in the trenches of our Matzah eating week. Personally, I am longing for Wonder Bread.

Wonder Bread reminds me of sleep away camp. Aside from slathering my bread with butter and 7 packets of sugar, I would also squash the bread into a big ball and eat it like an apple. Bread puffs up, its fluffy, there is air in it.

However, with Matzah we cannot do this. It’s plain and brittle. There’s no stuff added, no...Read more...

Today I was part of something amazing, the Atlanta Initiative Against Anti-semitism (AIAAS). A gathering of over 100 organizations, coming together to say NO to hatred. From leaders of AT&T and to Chick-fil-A, to school teachers, police officers, government officials, rabbis, cantors, reverends and beyond, we all sat together. We listened to one another, and spoke our minds. And ultimately we affirmed that injustice anywhere is injustice...Read more...

At a time when too much of the news involving the Jewish world is concerning and alarming, I wanted to use this column to share some positive, heartening, and good news regarding Israel! I begin with a reminder that we have a wonderful Israeli guest – Rabbi Meir Azari – delivering the sermon on Friday evening and leading Torah study on Shabbat morning. Rabbi Azari is the senior rabbi of Beit Daniel, our partner Reform congregation in Tel...Read more...

This week, I have been thinking about what I can I do to make things better for people across our country and our world who are suffering, who are hungry, who are scared. This week in particular, I was feeling an overwhelming sense of wanting to fix it all. However, I was also feeling discouraged, knowing that this is an impossible task. I was then reminded of a story, a story that you might even know.

A...Read more...