Rabbi Lori Shapiro

Editor’s Note: A longer version of this article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal on July 22,2020. Revolution is complex and not for the fainthearted. Most of us are not meant to be Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. or Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, yet the fate of the world rests upon the work of each and every one of us and the perfection of our individual path. Judaism is built upon the concept of an interior experience of personal betterment through actions. It combines a study of past wisdom applied to the refinement of our present actions to help build a better tomorrow. Judaism’s goal, fueled by ancient concepts of the end of days, redemption and a Messianic world to come, is to cultivate […]

The road to creating Open Temple is over two decades long.  As someone who didn’t grow up with any Jewish identity, an unaffiliated Jew on the “periphery,” countless hours, weeks and well, years, were spent trying to penetrate the world of Jewish life.  In the years of my nascent curiosity, when I walked up to the front door of any synagogue around the world, it was usually locked.  When I finally found a door to enter, I walked into the wrong section (my early journey was in the Orthodox world, years before I determined that denominational Judaism was a 19th century Jewish innovation, and that this diverse collective is Judaism).  Once I finally found the women’s section, I opened the prayerbook upside down and backwards.  […]