Congregation Anshai Torah - Plano, Texas

10/23/2026

There is nothing like the sound of our Hazzan to close out a week. Take a minute with this one, and then come be with us tonight at Kabbalat Shabbat.

10/23/2026

This Shabbat we meet Abraham for the very first time. God tells him, "Get up and go to the land that I will show you." Lech-Lecha.

Abraham leaves everything behind. He doesn't accept the world in front of him. He sets out to change it.

There is so much brokenness in our world. How does Lech-Lecha inspire you to help build the world we know is possible?

Shabbat Shalom.

10/22/2026

Hazak in the Sukkah was fantastic. It was so good to sit together in the sukkah and then hear Dr. John W. Moore talk about the search for S***m. Thank you to everyone who came, and we hope you can make the next Hazak event.

10/21/2026

At last week's board meeting, our Board of Directors approved the start of our construction project. It's time to get excited, because the walls are about to start coming down and the new spaces are going to be beautiful. Next month the work begins! It's an exciting time at Anshai Torah!

10/20/2026

Construction is approved, and Anshai is about to look very different! Watch this quick video to see what's changing in our building and everything that's coming up this fall. We hope to see you here.

10/20/2026

Our Hazzan spent time with the choir at The Outlook at Windhaven, teaching them Hine Ma Tov and then singing it with them for the residents. What a beautiful way to share a little of our tradition with our neighbors.

10/19/2026

Some weeks we wake up already tired. The worry follows us from the kitchen to the car to the office, and we start to wonder when things will feel normal again. Maybe we’re waiting on test results, looking for work after a job ended, worried about one of our kids, or missing someone who should still be here.

Noah knew that feeling. Right before the flood, God told him to put a window in the roof of the ark, even though forty days of rain meant there’d be no sun to see. The window wasn’t for the rain. It was so Noah would know the moment it stopped.

Enjoy this sermon as you start your week. It may help you get off to a great start.

Many of us have been through a stretch where we couldn’t find hope ...

10/16/2026

This Shabbat we read about Noah and the flood, and the lesson comes from the animals. Not one of them on the ark carried the evil that filled the world. They had an innocence, and the ability to start over right where they were.

We like to think we run the world. But so much of our lives, the work we need and the food we eat, depends on animals thriving too. We need them more than we think.
That's why this Shabbat we bless our pets.

Shabbat Shalom.

10/16/2026

Shame on you, Mayor Mamdani.

On the day we remember October 7th, the worst atrocity committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the mayor of New York City gave just 49 words to the people who were murdered. He used the rest of his statement to push a political agenda.

Hamas started this war. Israel never wanted it, and it has to fight it to protect people from terrorists who want to kill every Jew and every Israeli.

The people we lost deserve to be remembered with the truth, and with far more than 49 words.

10/14/2026

Ever think about how something small we do today could change somebody’s life years from now, and we’d never even know?

About fifteen years ago, a rabbi started a school for prayer studies. Our Hazzan had just finished cantorial school and wanted in, but first he had to go to a prayer retreat. So he went, and that’s where he met his wife. She wasn’t thinking about him at all when she started that school, and it changed his whole life.

Good luck, bad luck, who knows? We almost never find out where the things we do end up. All we can do is live with integrity, spirituality and good ethics the best we can, and let it ripple out.

Who knows what something small we do this week might turn into.