To live as a Jew in a city like Portland is a blessing in many ways – there is celebration of diversity here, and tolerance of many different ways of life. When people can bicycle naked through the night, or stroll downtown with a spiky foot-high Mohawk haircut, I feel pretty unremarkable walking around in my kipah on our city streets.

But on a day like Christmas, living in a small Jewish community can make one feel small and very insignificant. We wish our Christian friends and neighbors well, but this is not our holiday. Our holiday is Shabbat, and on this night and tomorrow morning it will feel especially welcome to have a chance to create a Jewish space among all of us who gather.

Join us on this Shabbat – observe Shabbat at home or with us at shul – and celebrate the diversity that allows us to be different by expressing it – and in so doing, help to build your kehillah kedoshah, your holy community, with your own hands.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Ariel Stone