Please join me for six weeks of meaningful study on the themes of the High Holidays
In the Bible, God destroys The Wicked wipes out worlds and cities scatters the overly ambitious. In the Bible, the earth opens up and swallows rebels, and righteousness is vindicated, in the Bible. But those days are long gone. Now God leaves us to destroy ourselves and it’s […]
Put Up Your Hand (Vayera 5785) Read More »
The funeral this morning is cancer, not COVID. The crowd is bigger than I’d like – probably around 35-40 people and they’re not spread out as much as they should be. The legal limit is 50. I wish it was 10. It’s uncomfortable to wish for additional hardships for the mourners but I feel especially
Sometimes I wonder if Old Abe ever Got Tired of being sent this way and that – Go you! Go for yourself. Go for My sake Go somewhere else now – Down to Egypt and Up the Mountain. Go. Some people never leave home; never see an ocean or a mountain or an
We Wander (Lech L’cha 5785) Read More »
Our Sages Taught: The higher the tower, the fewer the bricks. The fewer the bricks, the higher the value. So high, in fact, they were prized over human life itself. We (sometimes) build to our own detriment We (sometimes) progress at our own expense We
The Tower Reversed Read More »
Make ma an ark O God Only please don’t make it from acacia I don’t want it to catch when the world starts to burn Make me an ark O God Only please don’t make it from glass I don’t want it to break when stones get thrown Make me an ark
Make me an ark I’m ready to get away for awhile It’s too easy to forget that Noah’s journey wasn’t a pleasure cruise The world was drowning while he floated above And here I am dying to get away from all this Dying Make me a shelter to
It only took two humans at the Beginning for blame to come into existence He pointed at her She pointed at the snake (who slithered away without a word) And their children were no better Trying to best each other Playing out their sibling insecurities theologically To the point of fratricide, and over
We’ll Try Anyway: B’reishit 5785 Read More »
When we lose someone, there is a list of things to do. There are “death-logistics”. There are phone calls to make, document to find, and sign, and file,there is a body to collect, and then bury. There are prayers to say – the shema and vidui and psalms. There is a funeral or a memorial
Memory & Meaning (Yiskor 5785) Read More »
This poem, by Rabbi Evan Schultz is possibly all too relatable. It speaks to how fragile we have become in recent times. Everyone around us is so similarly shaken, that we imagine even God is weeping with us. And for good reason. This year, for Jews all over the world, everything has changed. Rabbi
Trauma in My Inbox (and what we can learn from it) – YKAM 5785 Read More »
.Picture this: The rabbi sits down to begin writing her sermon. The topic is: “Israel: Is there hope even now?” She types out the question. She stares at the screen. She doesn’t know how to answer. She doesn’t even know where to begin. Ok, I know you get it. The rabbi is me. The question
Hope, Even Now (Kol Nidrei 5785) Read More »