Articles by Rabbi Stephen Karol

About Rabbi Stephen Karol
Stephen A. Karol is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Isaiah in Stony Brook, New York. He was ordained at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in 1977, and has served at Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo, New York, Congregation Sha’aray Shalom in Hingham, Massachusetts, and Temple Isaiah. He teaches at Temple Isaiah and also at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Stony Brook University. Rabbi Karol lives in Port Jefferson, New York, with his wife, Donna.
Kobe Bryant, in a Dec. 13, 2014 game against the Washington Wizards. (Alexandra Walt Photo/Flickr.com public domain photo)
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Sudden Death

January 27, 2020 Rabbi Stephen Karol 0

“No matter how old we are, no matter how much experience we have had with death, it is sudden death that some people feel hits us the hardest,” writes Rabbi Stephen Karol about the untimely death of basketball great Kobe Bryant and eight others in a helicopter crash Jan. 26. [Read more…]

The Western Wall, Jerusalem/Steve Lubetkin Photo. Used by permission.
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Is Heaven for Real?

December 17, 2019 Rabbi Stephen Karol 1

Having hope about life after death doesn’t have to come from a just-right-for-Easter book in the Christian section of Barnes and Noble, writes Rabbi Stephen Karol. That hope can also come from the prayers of Yizkor, from the Shabbat prayers that we read when you are at your Temple to observe a yahrzeit, and from the prayers of the funeral and burial services of Judaism. [Read more…]