Beginning Friday night, September 11, with the beginning of Rosh Hashanah the Jewish communities enter a holiday season extending 23 days through October 4. Its themes of reflection, repentance and celebration speak directly to the work of Multifaith Housing Initiative.

Rosh Hashanah, observed from sunset on September 11 until nightfall on September 13, welcomes the year 5787. It begins the Ten Days of Repentance, concluding with Yom Kippur, from sunset on September 20 until nightfall on September 21. We reflect on our accomplishments and missteps and consider how to do better in the year ahead.

On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, we pray to be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life. But prayer alone cannot repair the wrongs we have done to others. We must seek forgiveness from those we have hurt, intentionally or unintentionally, and make sincere efforts to put things right.

There is a striking challenge at the heart of this day of fasting and prayer. In the morning’s reading, Isaiah challenges fasting accompanied by injustice, calling on us to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and free the oppressed. Our prayers must be matched by our deeds.

Succot follows, from sunset on September 25 through October 2. One of the three pilgrimage festivals, it brought Jews to the Temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the autumn harvest.

Traditionally, we build a temporary hut, a succah, recalling the Israelites’ shelter in the wilderness and G-d’s protection. By leaving our permanent homes to spend time in this fragile dwelling, we are reminded of our dependence on G-d and how precious secure shelter is

For those with secure homes, this experience is temporary. For others, uncertainty about shelter is a daily reality. MHI helps turn our gratitude into action. A safe, affordable home provides stability, dignity and belonging. Supporting this work helps others find the security we are fortunate to enjoy.

The season concludes with Shemini Atzeret, beginning October 2 at sunset, and Simchat Torah, from the evening of October 3 until nightfall on October 4. 

Simchat Torah, “Rejoicing in the Torah,” celebrates completing the annual Torah-reading cycle and beginning again with Genesis. Learning and renewal never end.

The Torah connects Judaism with Christianity and Islam, although each understands its authority differently. Its five books open the Christian Bible; the Qur’an honours the Torah revealed to Moses as containing “guidance and light.” These connections offer common ground for respect among the Abrahamic faiths.

​Jewish tradition calls the Torah a Tree of Life and describes its paths as peace. Through MHI, we bring our different traditions to the shared work of building a caring community.
Shanah tovah u’metukah!

Wishing you a good and sweet New Year, filled with health, happiness, and peace.

Closing quotation

“… Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the fetters of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
“Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?” — Isaiah 58:6–7, Jewish Publication Society translation (1917)

A temporary dwelling, a lasting lesson: the succah reminds us how precious a secure home is.

Holocaust Survivors Day, held on June 4, is an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the resilience, courage, and strength of Holocaust survivors.

The Holocaust, known as the Shoah, was the Nazi assault aimed at annihilating the Jews of Europe through systematic murder. Six million Jews were murdered — two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population, amounting to one-third of the world’s Jews. Many others, including Roma and Sinti, people with disabilities, gay men and lesbians, and political prisoners, were also victims. Today, more than 81 years after World War II, the world Jewish population remains below its 1939 level.

The remnant of European Jewry faced unimaginable challenges in rebuilding their lives after the destruction of communities where Jews had lived for centuries. Yet they rebuilt, creating families, communities, institutions, and new lives, setting an enduring example of courage, perseverance, and hope.

Approximately 35,000–40,000 Holocaust survivors resettled in Canada after World War II. They became a part of Canadian life and Jewish communities which had earlier become established, starting in the late 19th century. Several hundred Survivors made their home in Ottawa.

The majority of survivors who settled in Ottawa are no longer living, but their legacy is upheld by their second and third generations and their Jewish communities. I had the privilege of knowing some of Ottawa’s survivors and hearing first-hand their stories of survival and rebuilding.

After escaping the Holocaust, they were burdened by trauma and uncertain of their place in Canada until they established themselves, but then went on to rebuild their lives, careers, and families. With the support of the Jewish community, many survivors later became active in preserving the memory of the victims and speaking about what had happened, with every survival story being unique and often heroic. They aimed to bring a warning to society never to allow the evils of discrimination and persecution to flourish, in the way that civilized Europe had been engulfed.

Many spoke in schools, universities, public events, and annual memorials. Some Survivors living around the world also wrote memoirs or gave oral testimony. In Ottawa, the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship (CHES) at Carleton University, developed a video library of Ottawa survivors’ testimonies and is currently on the frontlines of combatting antisemitism. School curricula are now beginning to incorporate the narratives of Holocaust survivors.

In my experience, the survivors I knew were tough, practical, and resilient people. Although the dark clouds of their experiences never completely disappeared, they built meaningful lives, families, and communities, and contributed greatly to Canadian society. Their greatest legacy may be the example they set that even in the face of immense evil, human beings still retain the freedom to choose their moral path.

To those who survived, to the few still living among us, and to those who have passed, June 4 is a day to honour their lives, celebrate their contributions, and express our gratitude for the gifts they gave to future generations.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning.

​The Jewish Festival of Shavuot commemorates the revelation at Mount Sinai, when God gave the Israelites the Torah. This year it occurs on May 24–26. The biblical description of that moment is dramatic—thunder, lightning, fire, and the sound of the shofar—marking a defining turning point when a newly freed people became a covenantal community bound by shared law and purpose.

For me, this is not simply a distant historical event. Jewish tradition teaches that all Jews—past, present, and future—stood together at Sinai. In that sense, the giving of the Torah is ongoing, calling each generation, and each of us personally, to listen, interpret, and respond anew.

In synagogue on Shavuot we read the Book of Ruth. At first glance, this may seem paradoxical, since the book is not explicitly about the Torah or even about God. Instead, it tells the simple story of Ruth—a kind and gentle woman who, in a time of loss and uncertainty, pledges her loyalty to the Jewish people and to her family. Yet it is precisely this quiet story of devotion and moral choice that reflects the deeper meaning of Shavuot: that accepting the Torah is not only about revelation at Sinai, but about how we live—with kindness, commitment, and responsibility toward others.

We are reminded of this enduring truth each time we read the Torah. At the conclusion of the reading, the Torah is lifted high for all to see, and we recite the blessing that calls it a “tree of life.” It is not merely an ancient text of laws and history, but a living guide—one that continues to shape how we think, act, and live each day.

Another tradition is to eat dairy foods. At my son’s congregation in Maryland, they even hold a contest for the best cheesecake. Few would disagree that a holiday that involves eating cheesecake is well worth celebrating.

“It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it, and all who uphold it are happy. Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace.” (Proverbs 3:17–18)

Passover is likely the most widely observed of all Jewish holidays. Perhaps this is because of its universal message: even in a world where many are oppressed, freedom remains possible.

The holiday is a time to recount the deliverance of the Israelites from their bondage in ancient Egypt under Pharaoh, and their exodus from oppression to freedom—through the hand of HaShem, the Almighty, who brought us out of Egypt. At the ritual meal—the seder—we retell this story through wine, symbolic foods, and shared narration, guided by the Haggadah, the book that sets out the order of the evening and preserves the telling of the Exodus. More than a script, the Haggadah invites questions, discussion, and personal reflection.

We are instructed that it is praiseworthy to expand upon the story told in the Haggadah. Accordingly, throughout the ages, around the seder table, discussion has often turned to the relevance of the Exodus narrative to contemporary experiences of oppression—both those faced by the Jewish people and by others around the world.

Some families, including my own, reenact parts of the Exodus. At one memorable seder, instead of sitting around a table, we sat on the floor, imagining what it was like to flee from Egypt with nothing but what we could carry on our backs—and the faith that Moses, our deliverer, guided by HaShem, would lead us forward.

For me, one of the most poignant aspects of the seder is the reminder that this is not merely distant history. We are taught that we ourselves were there—that all generations, past, present, and future, experienced both the bitterness of slavery and the joy of redemption.

Having now experienced more than 75 seders, I look back with a mix of melancholy, joy, and hope on seders past—those I eagerly anticipated with my Bubbe and Zaide, my parents, and our uncles, aunts, and cousins in Winnipeg; and later, after we moved to Ottawa, the seders shared with friends as part of our synagogue community. Over time came the transition to hosting seders ourselves (no small task), and now to joining those hosted by our children.

Most joyous of all, this year we look forward to our grandchildren, Hila and Ryan, ages three and four, making their own contribution to the seder by reciting in Hebrew the Four Questions that lead into the retelling of the story of the Exodus.

​Passover invites us not only to remember, but to feel, to connect, and to recognize that the journey from oppression to freedom is both a collective memory and an enduring human hope.

Chag Pesach Sameach.

"We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and HaShem our God brought us out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm."
— The Haggadah

​Picture caption: Three generations of our family sit around the seder table to once again recount our journey from oppression to freedom.

Yom HaShoah, whose full title is Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laGevurah (Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day), is one of the most solemn days on the Jewish calendar. It commemorates the Shoah, or Holocaust—the systematic, state-sponsored murder of six million Jewish men, women, and children by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. The date was chosen to fall near Passover to honor and recall the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which began on April 19, 1943—the night of the first Passover Seder—a powerful symbol of Jewish resistance and courage. In 2026, Yom HaShoah is observed from sundown Monday, April 13, to nightfall Tuesday, April 14.

More than 80 years after the end of World War II, the Jewish people have still not recovered numerically; there are fewer Jews in the world today than there were on the eve of World War II in 1939.

My grandparents, having immigrated to Canada in the early years of the last century, were spared the immediate impact of the tragedy. Yet the worlds they left behind were destroyed. Their villages—Yampol, Luninets, and Ludvipol (today Sosnove), in what are today western Ukraine and southern Belarus—were utterly devastated, with virtually all of their inhabitants murdered, many by firing squads on the brink of mass graves, including siblings, cousins, extended family members, friends, rabbis, and the teachers of their youth.
When I was young, on my grandparents’ bookshelf there was a Yizkor Book—a book of remembrance in Hebrew and Yiddish—in which survivors and townspeople who had immigrated before the darkness recounted, in loving detail, the towns of their youth that no longer existed.

In Ottawa, Yom HaShoah is commemorated at a solemn community ceremony. Six survivors traditionally light six candles of remembrance. With the passing years, fewer survivors remain, and their children and grandchildren now take up this sacred task. Prayers of mourning are recited, and survivors or scholars bear witness to the cataclysm that engulfed our people.

In 2010, my family and I had the privilege of being in Jerusalem on Yom HaShoah. At 11 in the morning, sirens sounded across the country, and the entire nation came to a halt. Cars stopped on highways, drivers stood beside them, people paused in the streets, and work ceased in factories and shops—all to commemorate the tragedy.

In those moments of stillness, whether in Jerusalem, Ottawa, or in the quiet reflection of our own homes, we remember not only how our people died but also how they lived: with faith, dignity, and an enduring commitment to one another. We remember the worlds that were lost and the names that might have been forgotten, and we affirm that their memory is carried forward in us.

I will give them… a name that endures beyond sons and daughters… an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” — Isaiah 56:5

Purim is often described as a “minor” Jewish holiday, especially when compared to the solemn gravity of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, or Passover. Yet in my experience it has never felt minor. It may lack the restrictions on work or the heavy liturgy of other festivals, but its message—and its spirit—are profoundly important. Purim reminds us that even in a world that can feel unstable or threatening, courage and resilience can still prevail.

The story, told in the Book of Esther, unfolds in ancient Persia, in what is now Iran. Haman, a powerful court official, becomes enraged when Mordechai, a Jewish courtier, refuses to bow to him. Haman plots to destroy the Jewish people and even erects an enormous gallows intended for Mordechai’s execution. Through a series of unlikely turns, Queen Esther—Mordechai’s cousin—reveals her Jewish identity and appeals courageously to the king. Haman’s plot is exposed, and in a dramatic reversal he is hanged on the very gallows he built for Mordechai; his sons meet the same fate. What was meant to be a day of destruction becomes a day of deliverance.

Reversal defines Purim. The arrogant fall. The vulnerable endure. Fear gives way to relief, and mourning turns into celebration. The Megillah delights in irony, exaggeration, and dramatic twists, and we are meant to feel that energy. The holiday invites us into a world turned upside down.

That spirit explains the costumes, the booing at Haman’s name, the exchange of food, and the playful spiels. Purim is Judaism with a smile. It does not trivialize danger; it transforms it. One of its enduring lessons is that the weak sometimes overcome the wicked—not through force alone, but through courage, clarity, and timely action.

The connection to Persia, modern-day Iran, gives the story contemporary resonance. The ancient setting reminds us that threats against the Jewish people—and against the common people of Iran—can emerge from regimes that abuse power. Purim, therefore, speaks not only about survival but also about moral courage in the face of tyranny.

Many Jewish holidays are rightly solemn and introspective. Purim, by contrast, is openly joyful. It gives us permission to laugh, to celebrate, and to affirm life. Perhaps that is why it is especially suited for children: through costumes and laughter, they learn that even in dark times, reversals—and deliverance—are possible.

“And who knows whether it was for just such a time as this that you attained royalty?”
(Mordechai’s words to Esther as he urges her to risk approaching the king to save her people—Esther 4:14)

​"Brave Queen Esther asks the King to save the Jews from Haman's evil decree."

Happy Spring! I am the Cantor at Kehillat Beth Israel Congregation (“KBI”), Ottawa’s largest Jewish congregation. My main roles include leading the congregation in our prayer services, teaching community members how to lead services and chant our holy texts (a specialized set of skills), directing our adult and youth choirs, teaching prayer to grades K-7 in our supplementary school, teaching students for their B’nei Mitzvah (rites of passage from childhood to Jewish “adulthood” at age 13), and represent the Jewish faith at multicultural and multifaith events around Ottawa. In addition to musical roles, I also provide pastoral care to those in need, visit the sick and home-bound, write and give sermons, organize holiday programming, and engage the congregation in charitable work to make the world a better place (in Hebrew: “Tikkun Olam – repair of the world”). 
 
In the Jewish faith, every prayer service section ends with a Prayer for Peace: “Oseh SHALOM bim-romav, Hu ya-aseh SHALOM aleinu v’al kol yosh’vei teivel – May the One Who grants peace in the Universe, bring peace to us and to all who dwell on earth”, and everyone says, “Amen”. 
 
“Amen” in Hebrew means “I have faith in this; I believe in this.” But beyond just reading the words in our prayerbooks, I believe in taking action, partnering with whatever higher power we each believe in, coming together no matter our faith, our religion, our culture, our peoplehood, to bring peace and goodness into the world. 
 
That’s why I’m proudly here as a new MHI patron. When my former Rabbi colleague left Ottawa and vacated his role as an MHI patron, I was approached about becoming a patron myself, to continue and grow the connection between KBI and MHI. To this, I proclaimed “Amen!” because I have faith in MHI. I believe in MHI. 
 
As you know, MHI exists as a grassroots program to build affordable housing that helps fix Ottawa’s housing crisis and gets at-risk people into safe, secure, affordable homes. In its earlier years, MHI worked diligently with the greater Ottawa community to increase awareness of the crisis, and to set the groundwork of adding and improving government legislature that would pave the way for today’s work: building and housing our communities for the future. MHI operates three affordable housing sites in Ottawa: The Haven, Somerset Gardens, and Blake House; and two more projects are in the works: Dream LeBreton, and The Anchor. 
 
Who does this work? In large part, MHI’s constituent communities do, each represented and led by its Patron. Patrons are here to support MHI’s goals; promote the organization within our faith community; share with MHI’s staff and board of directors important information and advice concerning our faith group; and speak publicly in support of MHI.  
 
Recently, I delivered a sermon during a Sabbath-morning service (our largest weekly gathering). The weekly Torah (Bible) portion spoke to the moral imperative for every member of the Jewish People to give freewill donations for the community’s housing needs. I took the opportunity to relate the lesson back to MHI, and my hopes (no, expectations!) for my community’s support of the organization. I told my community how I wanted them to fulfill that ethical obligation: 
 
“On May 26th, MHI will host its most important annual awareness-raiser and fundraiser, Tulipathon. Together with longtime MHI Board member and longtime KBI member Barbara Levine, and with Sasha Kathron, our Youth Director, I will shortly be launching the 2024, KBI Tulipathon Team. Our Gesher and USY youth groups will soon meet several times to learn about the housing crisis, to hear from a teen whose family-life was improved immeasurably by gaining tenancy in an MHI property, and to prepare a teen-led fundraiser for MHI. I will take the opportunity now to encourage everyone to donate freely and generously when the kids reach out, to help build safe, affordable homes in Ottawa for those in need.” 
 
As clergy at my synagogue, one of my most important responsibilities is to bring people together to work on making the world a better place. What more fitting opportunity I have than to warmly encourage you all to attend MHI’s Annual General Meeting, which will take place on Sunday, April 21st at The Hall of Peace at the Ottawa Muslim Association. 
 
It's an honour to be counted among my esteemed colleagues and friends across our faiths as a Patron of MHI, and I look forward to continuing the good, important, and necessary work that we all do together.