Can I be Jewish AND Have a Christmas Tree?
Read more...The Events of Today - Storming of the Capitol
Dear Cool Shul,
I am literally sitting in my car in the parking lot of my veterinarian’s office, awaiting the return of my sick dog as I write this. It has been four hours, and it’s now dark, and I am exhausted from the day’s events in D.C., and now a long haul with our pet. It didn’t occur to me to send anything to all of you about what took place today, probably because I’m too worried about too many things to think. But a...Read more...
Message From Rabbi Diane
A Blog for You Today...
Calm in the Presence of Coronavirus
I am not calm.
Like all of you, I’m a mess... facing the possibility of school closures, trying to figure out what to do at Cool Shul, and trying to help my kids whose sports and speech and debate seasons are over, with a senior wondering if she is going to get to have a graduation. I know some of you are planning Bar/Bat-Mitzvahs,...Read more...
MLK/New Year's Sermon - All about Hope
When we were in New York over the Winter Break, we stayed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. If we hadn’t read the news while we were there, all we would have seen and experienced were trendy new restaurants, young couples, families pushing strollers and walking dogs, and the occasional Chasidic Jew asking me if I needed Shabbat candles for that night (I guess I look Jewish). But since we DID read the news, we knew, day after day that...Read more...
Don't Let Them Win - Kol Nidre Sermon
My husband, besides being a stunning musician, makes the perfect cup of coffee. I don’t know if it’s the variety of coffee, our particular machine, or if he lovingly talks to the beans before grinding them, but there is little in this world that makes me smile more than when he appears in the bedroom with a cup of it, on a lazy weekend morning.
The day I started to write this sermon, I walked into my yard...Read more...
Rosh Hashanah Sermon - "Humbly Correcting Ourselves"
I have noticed that in our current social/political climate, people seem a little on edge.
When I was crossing the street on a green light recently, but had not pushed the button to turn on the walk symbol, a man in his truck chose to lean out the window and scream at me that I didn’t have the right of way. He’s correct I should have pushed the button, but his reaction was mildly...Read more...
POSTED ON MAY 21, 2019
by "Rantor" (Rabbi/Cantor) DianeAs I walked toward the Federal building on Wilshire today to join the Pro-Choice rally, I started to have what I have rarely ever experienced… a panic attack. And I didn’t know why.
As I approached the protest alone, no sign in my hand, just hoping to be counted as someone who showed up, my heart started to pound. I wandered the length...Read more...
Reflections After Holocaust Remembrance Day
Me: “So, tell me what you have already learned about the Holocaust?”
My class: yawn.
With yesterday being Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), I had the challenge of figuring out how to talk about the Holocaust with my 5th-7th grade students at Cool Shul. One wouldn’t think it would be a challenge, but it is. Now that in many schools a study of the Holocaust is part of the curriculum, some of my students seem...Read more...
Diane's Passover Vlog
Find meaning in Passover even if you eat pizza during it! 
What is Cool Shul?
What is Cool Shul?
We are outside the box, and
We are inside the box.
We are traditional, and
We are innovative.
Read more...
DON’T WISH ME A “HAPPY NEW YEAR”
Since Cool Shul hosts a Shabbat service only once per month, last Friday was our “New Year’s” Shabbat. For those of you who missed it, I hope you enjoy my talk for that Shabbat.
Love, Rabbi...Read more...
100 Things to be Thankful For – A Thanksgiving Post
Judaism is a tradition of gratitude.
It is said, in Jewish practice, that we should say 100 blessings each day. Jewish structure helps us reach that goal by providing blessings for when we wake, when we eat, when we pray, when we see beauty, light candles, wash our hands, drink wine... just about everything. Any child who gets a little Jewish education learns at least a few of these blessings, but rarely is it...Read more...
SAY THE SHEMA WHEN (NOT IF) YOU VOTE
Thoughts on the Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting, Welcoming the Stranger, and Voting for Peace
Last weekend in Pittsburgh, people entered the Tree of Life synagogue to hear Parshat Vayera: the portion in which Abraham teaches us to welcome the stranger. The Torah portion in which Abraham is prepared to sacrifice his son, and an angel of God stops him.
This Torah portion tells us that life is above all. No murder. No sacrificing. Break all the rules, every rule, in order to save a life, even if the “voices” you hear...Read more...
Newton's Law and the Binding of Isaac
The story we read on Rosh Hashanah morning, the story of the binding of Isaac, just came and went in our annual Torah cycle, so I wanted to share the sermon I gave Rosh Hashanah morning for those that missed it. After all, isn’t every day a potential New Year? It’s up to us to choose today as the first day of the rest of our lives and call it day 1.
Enjoy!
It was supposed to be an ideal trip. 10 days, mostly unplugged and...Read more...
LIBERAL JUDAISM IS (MOSTLY) MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE
COOL SHUL·THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 2018
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There has been a fair amount of heat surrounding a recent cover article of the Jewish Journal, “Why Tikkun Olam Can’t Fix American Judaism,” and with good reason. Its author Gil Troy attacks liberal Judaism in which community is often based around tikkun olam action rather than around (as he describes them) “red lines.” He says, referring to the acceptance of...Read more...
Pass the Quinoa and Save the World
With the recent dire news about the delicate balance of our planet’s ecosystem and the human impact upon it, many of us (including me) are in a bit of a panic. I keep looking at my children, ages 10 and 16, and wondering if I have brought them into a doomed world. If you are like me, you feel like you have to do something… anything… to start helping this planet, even if it seems like a small gesture. We all already know we can buy...Read more...
Light My Fire
Sharing my sermon from last Shabbat…
If his book The Sabbath is a window into Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s thinking, I believe that if he were commenting on Parshat Emor (the portion for last Shabbat), he would say that it deals a lot with time and not so much with space. In his book, he emphasizes Shabbat as a way to reflect on time, and worry less (or theoretically not at all) about our space...Read more...
GRATITUDE IS PRAYER
With my students, we often talk about the possibilities of and many forms there are to what we might call prayer. For most teens, there is no point to any of it, and we have extremely interesting conversations about whether or not there IS a point to prayer.
To give my students an example of when and why prayer can be important, I often tell them about when my father was dying. Yes, I prayed, but what does one pray for...Read more...
Below are Rabbi Di's past blog posts.
You can see them all at www.rabbidiane.com
Read more...THE SPIRITUALITY OF A KNOTTED BALL OF YARN
POSTED ON JULY 25, 2017
by "Rantor" (Rabbi/Cantor) Diane
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DANCE PARTNERS
Rabbi Diane Rose
Originally posted on the UJUC website at: http://ujuc.org/dance-partners/
Those of us who are part of progressive spiritual groups and participate in...Read more...
MISERABLE IN PARADISE
Hello readers!
First an apology for being gone for so long… end of year madness turned into a much needed vacation which turned into blogs written but not posted. So, here is my first of three vacation inspired blogs. :)
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Miserable in Paradise
Ok, I wasn’t really miserable, but “Kind of Down in Paradise”...Read more...
BE YOUR OWN BEST… (FILL IN THE BLANK)
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THE MAGIC IS IN THE MESS
So sorry I disappeared for awhile. You’ll see why when you read this sermon which I shared at our Shabbat celebration Friday night…
I’m not going to give a Torah talk tonight, especially since many of you will be hearing a gorgeous sermon from our Bat-Mitzvah tomorrow. I’m going to leave the Torah to her. But there is something that has been on my mind lately, and I thought I...Read more...
LIFE IS LIKE A BOX OF MATZAH
Life is like bread.
Sometimes our lives feel like a crusty loaf of French baguette right out of the oven from a tiny bakery on the Ile Saint Louis… inviting, warm, delicious, and just slightly exotic. Maybe those baguette days take place at weddings or during vacations or even when we decide to spend the whole day in our pajamas watching movies and eating pizza. Those are good days.
Sometimes...Read more...
I’M LISTENING, BUT I CAN’T HEAR YOU.
A great Torah scholar was sitting in his home study, deeply engrossed in the portion of the week. He was concentrating so completely, he didn’t hear the knock on his study door and didn’t notice that his father, another great Torah scholar, had entered the room. “Don’t you hear that the baby is crying?” asked the elder man. His son, startled because he hadn’t heard him enter said, “I’m sorry,...Read more...