Mukilteo Beacon - Your Hometown News Source

The reasons for joining a religious institution such as Temple Beth Or are as various as the number of its members. Temple Beth Or offers a place for Jews to worship together in the manner to which we are accustomed. For those with school-age...

"Is this not the fast I have chosen?” (Isaiah 58:6). Jews hear these words every year at services on Yom Kippur which starts at sunset on Tuesday, Oct. 8. Jews fast on Yom Kippur because the Torah tells us, “On the tenth day of the same seventh...

Fifty years ago this month, humankind set foot on the moon for the first time. It was one of the few times when calling an event historic was an understatement. Yet the Apollo 11 flight wasn’t the most important event in my life back in July 1969....

The world learned an important lesson from the rise of Nazism in the 1930s – that hate must be resisted with vigor and vigilance because appeasing hate is doomed to fail. One widespread form of hate today, in the United States and worldwide, is...

Temple Beth Or’s creation story starts in a hot tub in Victoria, British Columbia, in the early 1980s when two of our founders attended a medical conference. The two young physicians, just starting their own families, agreed there was a need for a...

The Torah’s continued relevancy in the modern world amazes me. While I’m not claiming the Torah’s compilation of wisdom from 3,000 years ago anticipates global warming, I am saying it does offer ethical rules and values applicable to solving...

As the sun sets on Yom Kippur (Sept. 19 this year), the process of seeking atonement for the past year’s transgressions ends for Jews around the world. The beginning of that process formally started on Rosh Hashanah, 10 days earlier at sunset last...

Like many religions, Judaism attempts to explain the unexplainable. What really resonates with me is how Jewish ethics and teachings can make the seemingly incomprehensible not only knowable but simply so. Most, if not all, religions attempt to...

Searching for a rabbi is not your typical business world job recruitment effort. As mentioned in a previous column, after nine rewarding years at Temple Beth Or (TBO), Rabbi Jessica Marshall left TBO last July to pursue other rabbinic interests in...

Tonight we celebrate the second of eight nights of Hanukkah. Each night of Hanukkah I proudly place my lit menorah in my front window sill so passersby can see that a proud Jew celebrating Hanukkah lives in my house. Because I live in a welcoming...

“I’m sorry” are two words that are sometimes impossible to say out loud. With the start of Rosh Hashanah tonight – Wednesday, Sept. 20 – Jews in Mukilteo and around the world will start a 10-day period of saying “I’m sorry” to...

My mother’s maiden name is Robinson. The name was created by an immigration official when my grandfather came to America in the early 1900s from what was then called Palestine. I say created because there’s no doubt that is not how my...

The Torah, also known as the Old Testament and the Five Books of Moses, is a very personal text shared by millions. On the holiday of Shavuot – starting at sunset on May 30 – Jews will mark the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. The Torah... Full story

Each year we celebrate New Year’s Day to commemorate the advancement of the calendar year. Logically, that means one New Year’s Day celebration per year. Then why does the Hebrew calendar have four New Year’s celebrations? New Year #1 is on 1 N...

I am a senseless optimist. Right up until the moment things go wrong, I am predicting a positive outcome. You’d think, as I near my 60th birthday, life experiences would have completely eroded this attitude away. It hasn’t. Knowing this, I should...

Temple Beth Or celebrates 30 years as a congregation this year, yet this milestone pales in comparison to the number of years the Jewish community has existed in the Puget Sound region. The first Jewish immigrants began arriving in the Pacific Northw... Full story

Some Jews start each day by reciting 15 blessings thanking God for fulfilling their basic needs, which includes everything from waking up to the ability to put on clothes. One of those gives thanks to God for creating us Jewish. While I’m not the...

I wouldn’t blame you if you looked at the calendar of Jewish holidays and concluded Judaism goes on vacation every summer. Between Shavuot, which typically occurs in late May or early June and Rosh HaShanah, which occurs in September, the only...

“Never forget” is the primary lesson taught when learning about the 6 million who died at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust. There are many things about the Holocaust that we need to remember. I choose to remember what can only be...

Purim is one of the more unusual holidays on the Jewish calendar. It is based on the story in the Book of Esther in which Esther, a Jew who has been made Queen of Persia, and her cousin Mordechai foil the plot of Haman, the King of Persia’s evil...