Years ago, while serving in South Dakota, I helped a family grieve the death of their daughter in a car accident, sitting with them through the night as they said farewell. Around a year later, at her celebration of life and unveiling in New York City, her Rabbi led us in a meaningful Havdalah ceremony where he accompanied himself on a strange and beautiful instrument. It looked like a Lute, a medieval guitar, but it sounded like Israel.
That instrument is called an Oud. Those of you who come to our Friday night Shabbat tefilla when Aaron Lightstone is playing have heard the pluck, twang, and distinct sound of it.
The combination of that music, and the memory of this young girl whom I had never known in life but who touched my very soul in death, awoke something in me- and I decided to learn to play.
As luck would have it, the very next summer I was blessed to come here- to Toronto- to serve at Holy Blossom Temple as the Rabbinic Intern. In between shadowing Rabbi Splansky and Cantor Maissner, teaching classes, and exploring this great city, I made my way out to Mississauga where I had found an Oudist who would take students. His name was Mr. Radwan, a Syrian refugee and former member of the Syrian National Symphony, who had come to Canada seeking a better life for himself and his family. He taught me the basics of the Oud, including my special request, the Havdalah melody by Debbie Friedman that had so inspired me.
Why do I mention this story now? Because, like everyone else in Toronto, I’m dying for tickets to a show that I can’t go to.
Next week is the 25th annual Jerusalem Oud Festival. The Jerusalem Oud festival is one of the largest events left which still brings together Mizrachi Jews, Sephardim, Arab-Israelis, Palestinians and musicians from around the world in a celebration of shared musical culture. To quote Effie Benaya, who manages the Oud Festival “I believe in music. I believe in its power to heal the heart – of the individual and of society as a whole. I believe that music carries comfort and hope, especially in bloody and unbearably difficult days like ours.”
This year the festival will celebrate the life of Tunisian Jewish Diva, Habiba Msika, feature performances of the Psalms from the Israeli hip-hop band Hadag Nachash, and beloved Israeli rock group Nikmat haTraktor will ditch their electric guitars for classic Middle Eastern instruments and lead piyyutim, sacred poetry, late into the night.
The Oud I purchased from Mr. Radwan has followed me from Toronto, back to Cincinnati, to Atlanta, and now is home in Toronto again. Sadly, I admit it’s been several years now since I took it out of its special case. It needs tuning and new strings, but Aaron Lightstone keeps telling me that he will give me lessons. I know that Mr. Radwan still lives down the tracks on the Go Train, tracking him down would be easy if only I could find the time.
Perhaps now is the time to find time.
Here is a taste of the Oud Festival, if it touches your soul- the way it touches mine- don’t hesitate to let me know.
By Rabbi Taylor Baruchel, Director of Outreach and Next Gen Engagement
In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Lech Lecha, we read about Abraham’s journey as he is called by God to leave his homeland and set out for an unknown land. It’s one of the most pivotal moments in our tradition, and one of the phrases that stands out is that Abraham “made souls” in Haran (Genesis 12:5). The Torah doesn’t tell us exactly what this means, but our rabbis interpret it as Abraham’s effort to bring others into the fold, to build relationships, and to create a community of shared faith. He didn’t just gather followers; he nurtured and created souls who would join him in his mission and carry his values forward.
This notion of “making souls” is especially meaningful as we reflect on what’s happening here at Holy Blossom Temple. We, too, are on a journey—one that is filled with new souls, new connections, and a deepening sense of community. Over the past three years, 20% of our membership has joined us, and this growth isn’t just about numbers. It’s about the souls we’re welcoming into our community, each person contributing to the spiritual fabric of Holy Blossom. We are, in a very real way, following in Abraham’s footsteps as we make souls together—creating a space where people can find meaning, connection, and a sense of belonging.
Just as Abraham’s journey to Haran wasn’t a solitary one, neither is ours. It’s not just about the growth of our congregation—it’s about the relationships we’re building, the sense of community we’re nurturing, and the souls we’re bringing together. Every new face, every new family, every individual who joins us is helping to build something greater than ourselves. Together, we are creating a sacred space where each person is welcomed, supported, and invited to grow in their Jewish journey.
Our Shabbat of Welcome, on November 22-23, is an opportunity for all of us—new members and long-standing members alike—to come together and reflect on the souls we’re building here. It’s a time to honour the new faces who have joined us, to appreciate the deep roots of our community, and to celebrate the shared mission that brings us all together.
On Friday, November 22, we’ll gather for a casual wine and cheese reception before Kabbalat Shabbat. It’s a chance to meet new members, reconnect with old friends, and share in the joy of being part of a growing community. Then, on Saturday, November 23, we’ll host a Pajama Havdalah for our young families—a relaxed and fun way to close out Shabbat with song, connection, and, of course, pajamas!
We are deeply grateful to Marilynne and Joseph Cass, whose generosity has made these events possible through their support of our New Member Initiative. Their vision and commitment to building a warm, welcoming community help make it possible for us to continue nurturing the souls that walk through our doors.
As we reflect on the story of Abraham this week, let us remember that each of us has a role to play in “making souls” here at Holy Blossom. It’s not just about the physical growth of our congregation; it’s about the spiritual and emotional connections we make with one another, the souls we bring together in faith and friendship. Together, we are building something enduring, something meaningful, and something holy.
I look forward to seeing you on November 22-23 as we celebrate this moment of growth and community, and continue our journey of making souls together.
Shabbat Shalom!
If you would like to attend our wine and cheese reception before Kabbalat Shabbat, please RSVP here.
To join us for our Family Pyjama Havdalah, please register here.
The week of November 8, 2024
IHRA Antisemitism Handbook Released / Deborah Lyons to discuss the Handbook NEXT WEEK at Holy Blossom / Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism provides additional IHRA resources.
After years of dedicated work, the Canadian Government and the office of Deborah Lyons, Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, have released the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Handbook. This is a vital and timely resource for identifying and addressing antisemitism, in both traditional and subtle forms. You can read the handbook in its entirety here, or learn about it from CIJA at this link.
Deborah Lyons, whose helped author the handbook, will join us in person on Wednesday, November 13th at 7:00 pm. Special Envoy Lyons will inform us about her ongoing efforts to combat antisemitism, discuss the challenges faced by Jewish Canadians as they grapple with a historic rise in antisemitism, and engage in a moderated conversation with members of the Holy Blossom Temple Advocacy Committee. Please register at the above link and join us for a vital, timely, and deeply topical evening.
An additional resource on the IHRA Handbook comes from the ALCCA. Click on the link to learn about the history of the document, how it can be utilized, and the next steps that are needed to transform it from a government document into a meaningful tool for fighting antisemitism.
When we think about the mark we want to leave on the world, few actions carry as much weight as planning a legacy gift. A legacy gift, or charitable bequest, is a powerful way to extend your values and vision far into the future, supporting causes that matter deeply to you. Holy Blossom Temple has been a cornerstone of Jewish life, learning, and community for generations. By including Holy Blossom Temple in your estate planning, you help ensure that future generations will continue to benefit from its vital programs, services, and spiritual guidance. Your gift becomes part of a greater story – one of continuity, community, and Jewish values. Legacy giving also offers significant tax advantages that can benefit both you and your heirs:
By working with your financial advisor and Holy Blossom Temple’s planned giving team, you can create a legacy plan that maximizes both your philanthropic impact and tax benefits. Your legacy gift to Holy Blossom Temple is more than a donation – it’s a partnership in sustaining Jewish values, community, and tradition. Whether through an outright bequest, life insurance policy, or a gift of securities, your gift ensures that the light of Jewish learning and community continues to shine brightly for generations to come.
By Eli Sol
This July and August, I had the absolute pleasure of working in the Holy Blossom Archives with the committee of volunteer archivists (Susan Cohen, Sheila Smolkin, Susan Mogil, Howard Roger, Michael Cole, Judy Winberg and Ruth Ellen Greenwood). The idea was first pitched to me in an academic context. For the final paper of my “History of the Jewish People” class this past April at the University of Toronto, I elected to write about the influence of lay leadership on Holy Blossom’s musical journey in the early days. The archivists were kind enough to accommodate my research needs and provided all the materials as well as an invitation to work there over the summer.
I travelled to Israel with Birthright in June and July, and once I returned to Toronto, I was ready to get to work in the archives. The main task was digitally cataloguing the mountain of musical materials left to us following Cantor Maissner’s retirement, which laid the groundwork for the new Cantor Benjamin Z. Maissner and Holy Blossom Temple Music Archive and Library. This new section of our archive library includes both digital and physical copies of posters, event programs, photographs, service plans, commissioned works, tapes, CDs, books, folders, pamphlets, and everything in between. The current plan is to store a selection of the physical materials in a designated cabinet of the Max Enkin Library on the main floor.
I had the privilege of interacting with an impressive scope of manuscripts. The materials mostly came from Cantor Maissner’s own 41-year career, not only as Holy Blossom’s cantor, but also as the head of the LACHAN community chamber choir, and a powerful, internationally recognized Jewish musical voice. Two of my favourite sources are Beny’s original, used, and annotated vocal score of Leonard Bernstein’s “Kaddish Symphony No. 3” and a Kabbalat Shabbat service of Hassidic tunes arranged for mixed choir by Sol Zim —the inside cover of which bears a lovely note to Beny from Sol Zim himself.
Many of the exciting musical documents in Cantor Maissner’s library predated him, revealing a wealth of inherited Jewish music dating as far back as the 1880s. Some highlights include:
I would be remiss not to mention Jill Kamin and Gillian Rosenberg’s separate but related venture to digitally scan the complete corpus of Cantor Maissner’s musical career which will soon be housed in the National Library of Israel. Their project has been instrumental in filling out the digital side of The Cantor Benjamin Z. Maissner and Holy Blossom Temple Music Archive and Library and is more than deserving of praise.
If you are curious about exploring this new branch of the Holy Blossom archives, or about our exciting investigations into Holy Blossom’s extensive history, I encourage you to get in contact with our archivists. If you are just looking to dip your toes in, several artifacts of Holy Blossom history are displayed year-round throughout the Schwartz Reisman Atrium for exactly that purpose.
By Jack Kugelmass with Arlene Roth
In the Spring of 2024, Holy Blossom Temple was approached by our Temple member Dr. Nate Charach, with a riddle. “What do you call a program that combines psychiatry with climate change?” The answer: “Psychiatree”! www.psychiatree.ca
Dr. Nate Charach, a psychiatrist and the founder of psychiatree.ca, briefed the L’Chaim Program and the Luke Sklar Mental Health Initiative Committee (LSMHI) about a 6-session group program he has created that serves to help build resilience to individual and group trauma. This program was offered to us for members of the Jewish community’s post-October 7 world when many of us are experiencing feelings of fear, helplessness, shock, and anger – both concerning Israel and the antisemitic environment at home. With the guidance of Rabbi McCarroll, the Holy Blossom Temple hosted the group program run by Dr. Nate Charach. Six Temple members signed up for the series.
In our time together, we were introduced to three themes, each of which weighs on our lives as Jews in a post-October 7 era. Dr. Charach noted that he was guided in pursuing this work by the teachings of authors Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone in their bookActive Hope: How to face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience and Creative Power.
First, even as we witness and experience the trauma of the October 7 pogrom, we have an opportunity to promote post-traumatic growth for ourselves and our world. We can work toward that goal by honouring our pain and the pain of all affected by trauma.
Second, rather than a personal journey, our pain is connected to the pain of others. Only through a community with a positive vision can we build the strength to act in the service of others in our world. Overcoming pain is facilitated with action or in Jewish terms, acts of loving kindness. It also involves “active hope” – a concept that suggests that hope has meaning only when we act in pursuit of a desired outcome.
Third, a path to “active hope” is for all of us to recognize that the earth and all that lives within it is at risk unless we come together to protect and heal our world with all our individual strengths. Healing comes with joining others in community efforts to preserve all that is good, and to understand and honour that which is causing destruction, and then acting to care for all that lives.
A fellow participant, Arlene Roth, shared her experience of the group as follows:
“Nate gathered universal truths about being human and the role of our precious Earth in our lives to teach us how to hope and bring about positive change for our world. When the course began, I was feeling helpless and full of grief over the war in the Middle East; however, during the time in our group, I grew increasingly less fearful and more confident that I could make a difference and become more connected to others and our planet. I do believe that although there is no quick fix for our troubled world, by taking small steps we can repair and improve it.”
The members who took the program thought that others in the congregation may want the opportunity to take this program (there is a fee). If there is interest among some in our own community who wish to participate in such a group, please contact Dr. Nate Charach at [email protected] or Rabbi McCarrol at [email protected].
Arlene summarizes her takeaways:
The idea of combining the movement addressing climate change with a psychiatric intervention was a new one for me until I noticed our Temple’s Schwartz/Reisman Atrium’s “Living Wall” which contains the 7 species of plant life associated with Eretz Yisrael. While I thought that this was a lovely design feature of the Atrium, I now wondered if the living wall could be connected to the subject of Dr. Charach’s proposal? What if the wall represented more than plant life? What if it pointed us in the direction of creating and sustaining all life on the planet, a tenet central to Jewish life? To do so requires knowledge and action that serves to create, grow and maintain all life with resilience and hope for us and future generations. The series offered by Dr. Charach seeks to help us to develop such skills and consciousness.
The combination of climate awareness and psychiatric knowledge may sound strange to many of us who feel weakened in the face of a broken world; however, writing on behalf of our group, I can state that the discussions and exercises we experienced, helped us emerge from the group series feeling strengthened and more resilient. Furthermore, it was highly informative and meaningful.
Over the last week or so, as we have celebrated and commemorated Simchat Torah, there are two different images that will forever remain in my memory.
One is from Erev Simchat Torah, as we danced and sang and yes, even rejoiced as we ended our cycle of reading our most sacred of texts, and began that cycle once again.
I cannot remember the song, but what I do remember is that a number of us were dancing on the upper bimah, when two little boys – including one who had just received his baby Torah at Consecration earlier in the evening – came to join us, the group of grownups moving around in a circle. They laughed and smiled with us and we made sure they didn’t hit their heads on the railings, and in that moment, I thought to myself, “this is what it is all about, this is the definition of l’dor va’dor, from generation to generation”. This adorable intergenerational moment epitomized the phrase from Kohelet that we have been hearing so much of these last few weeks: et s’fod, v’et r’kod – “there is a time for weeping and a time for dancing.”
The other image is from Tuesday night, as our community gathered with Yaron and Jacqui Vital, parents of Adi Vital-Kaploun, of blessed memory, a dual Canadian-Israeli citizen who was murdered on October 7 whilst protecting her two young sons. Yaron, Jacqui and Adi (z”l) are also the cousins of our Cantorial Soloist, Lindi Rivers.
As many of you will know by now, over the High Holy Days, we dedicated a beautiful new Torah mantle in Adi’s shem tov (good name), sketched and stitched by our talented congregant, Jodi Bager. You can read that story here.
At the conclusion of the evening, Jacqui and Yaron were presented, by Jodi, the Torah mantle designed in their daughter’s honour. There was barely a dry eye in the Mishkan as they held that scroll tightly, surrounded by their Canadian family, and Lindi led us in etz chayim hi, it is a tree of life. In this emotional moment, it was a reminder for us to live life exactly as we learned Adi would have wanted: with purpose, and with joy.
Et s’fod v’et r’kod – there is a time for weeping and a time for dancing, and we as Jews are skilled at holding simultaneous significant, often conflicting, emotions.
What I wanted to share with you, is that lesson in what I have come to understand about what Jewish joy is: crying with one eye and dancing with another, as our history and tradition have taught us to navigate the hardest and the happiest of times, and not to expect perpetual joy but to instead find fulfilment in what grounds us in life – including Torah, and community. These are the things that we hold fast to, for all of its supporters, in every generation are…happy!
The week of October 30, 2024
Antizionist Conference at U of T / Pushing Back the Boycott at the University of Windsor / Special Envoy Deborah Lyons coming to HBT / UN Rapporteur Reprimand.
On November 8th, the University of Toronto will, regrettably, host a conference titled “The Anti-Zionist Idea: History, Theory and Politics.” This conference amplifies “notorious terror apologists and disguises antisemitic ideas as academic discourse.” Legitimizing these voices can only continue to foster hatred and hostility, endangering our students. Hillel Ontario asks that you add your voice to theirs and share your concerns with the leadership of University of Toronto.
The Alliance of Canadians Combatting Antisemitism (ALCCA) has launched a petition urging the University of Windsor to pause the shortsighted and dangerous agreement that it made with students and occupiers earlier this year. The ALCCA asks that you support their efforts to overturn this academic boycott of Israel that the University of Windsor has begun to implement.
Please join us at Holy Blossom Temple for an important conversation with Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, Deborah Lyons on Wednesday, November 13th at 7:00 pm. Special Envoy Lyons will inform us about her ongoing efforts to combat antisemitism, discuss the challenges faced by Jewish Canadians as they grapple with a historic rise in antisemitism, and engage in a moderated conversation with members of the Holy Blossom Temple Advocacy Committee.
CIJA calls upon Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and the Government of Canada to condemn Francesca Albanese on her visit to Canada. Ms. Albanese is the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 and has a history of public statements and actions that are incendiary, aligned with terrorist entities like Hezbollah, and deeply antisemitic.
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Founded in 1856, Holy Blossom Temple is Toronto’s first synagogue with a rich history of tradition and modernity in our religious and spiritual expression.