January 19, 2024

In our Jewish memory, we have stored up both immeasurable pain and also infinite tenderness, beauty and grace.   One dark night in Egypt, over three thousand years ago, we heard the terrible, unforgettable cry of suffering innocents and in the very same instant, a nation of loving parents and children, question askers and storytellers, began to be born.  May we allow our own hearts to expand, to acknowledge all of the brokenness and all of the beauty of this our only world. 

December 23, 2023

it rarely works to begin a story by speaking a name of God. In my experience, it is best to begin with a human story. To awaken memory and imagination, with colors and sounds, tastes and smells. People we have known, a place we have been, words we have sung, emotions we felt, long ago but which remain in our bodies…ready to be brought back to mind. And then, having arrived at the palace of memory and imagination, to give it a name. Singer of the blue-black night; Loving Teacher of Israel, Life and Death Dancer.

December 8, 2023

Our emotions grow and spread.  V’yosifu.  V’yosifu.  Even more.  Even more.  We know this.  This story is for us, right now.  We are living in a time of rapidly spreading anger and fear and hatred.  In Israel, in Gaza, on our university campuses, on our television screens, on the internet.  V’yosifu, v'yosifu.  Even more.  Even more.

Tuesday November 21, 2023

            An old Jewish teaching observes that “When senseless hatred reigns on earth, and human beings hide their faces from one another, then heaven is forced to hide its face.  But when love comes to rule the earth, and human beings reveal their faces to one another, then the splendor of God will be revealed.”

October 27, 2023

we are living through profoundly dangerous times.  The events that we are witnessing and are actually part of, will change our world irrevocably, in ways we cannot anticipate or imagine. But we do know that we are stronger, wiser and more courageous when we work together with each other.

October 7, 2023

      Twenty four hours later, we have come back to the same spot ….together with leaders and members of our entire Santa Barbara Jewish Community….and our hearts are bursting with a different set of emotions.  Fear.  Grief.  Anger.  Even hatred.  So much has changed, overnight.

Yom Kippur 2023

God is asking us a question:  “is compassion possible?”   It’s not an argument.  Not a demand.  Just a question.  “Are you open to the possibility of compassion?”  And if the answer is “yes, maybe”….then having heard and confronted Jonah’s pessimism, we can go back to Isaiah’s mountaintop and end the day with Isaiah’s vision:  “Share your bread with the hungry.  Bring the brokenhearted into your home.  Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will arise quickly.  Then when you call, God will answer; when you cry out, God will say “Hineni.”  “Here I am.” 

July 14, 2023

if we hope to grow, just like Renee Fleming’s students on the stage in Aspen, we  need first to allow the walls of our ego to be torn down.  Those students were so brave, stepping out on that stage, knowing that this great opera singer was about to criticize them.  She did it with great kindness, but she breached their walls.  She forced them to grow, in front of us all.

June 9, 2023

Today, as our nation celebrates LGBTQ+ Pride Month, there are many people who, like me, grew up not knowing a single openly gay person. We are the generation born in slavery, and many of my generation, like our ancestors standing on the border of the land of the future, are longing for the past. It is a deeply human, completely understandable, natural impulse….this longing for Egypt. 

June 2, 2023

The house we are building together is an invisible, spiritual structure, built of friendships, and memories, shared grief and celebrations, deep learning and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of acts of kindness and connections between one soul and another.  That is the house of living Judaism that we are building together.

April 21, 2023

April is the month in which we grapple as a people with our history, both ancient and recent. In April, we face the consequences of what it has meant and what it means for each of us today to say “we Jews.”

Friday night, March 24, 2023

many traditional Jews to this very day look forward to the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem and the restoration of the sacrifices. I do not. But just as I missed the physicality of being together during the endless zoom gatherings of the Covid lockdown, I miss the physicality of the korbanot. The powerful intimacy that comes from being together, in the presence of fire and smoke and the pleasing fragrance of praying by cooking.

March 10, 2023

The word v’shamru means “they shall guard.” They shall watch and observe. They shall protect. With this word, the Torah evokes the fragility of Shabbat, it’s vulnerability to all the storms and tides and winds that threaten to erode it.

February 3, 2023

We are here in a church, Trinity Lutheran Church, whose members have welcomed us into their home. Not just for tonight, but for virtually every Friday night and Saturday morning for the next year and a half. As you can see, the cross--which declares the essence of their faith-- is concealed by this curtain. Our friends here at Trinity have allowed us to obscure their most sacred symbol during our services, so that we can feel at home here. It is a breathtaking, inspiring, heart-warming gesture of hospitality.

January 22, 2023

… it’s not easy getting ready to leave now, for a year and a half, or however long it’s going to take. We had better have a good reason, for all this hassle. I want to say as clearly as possible: We are not going to all this trouble, just to make this place more beautiful. It is already beautiful. We are disrupting our life so that this sacred place can undergo a metamorphosis. The most important transformation of this home of ours since it was first built almost sixty years ago. We are changing what it means to be a synagogue.

Friday, January 6, 2023

As I sat in the theater watching Coco, like people everywhere, I wished desperately to be part of that vibrant Mexican culture.  But I also thought to myself:  This is very  Jewish.  “Recuerdame, Remember Me” the song at the heart of the film expresses the deep idea embedded in our Jewish tradition of Yizkor.  The redeeming power of memory.  Our beloved dead depend upon us, here in the land of the living, to remember them. 

December 9, 2022

I know that fear is also normal. There are many good reasons to be afraid in this dangerous world. But Tally, and Linda and Ben, like our father Jacob nearly four thousand years ago, each in their own way are teaching us, showing us that it is possible to be unafraid, to step boldly out of our comfort zone, and to increase the peace of God’s world.

November 25, 2022

Before blessing our children on Friday night, we might ask them “come close and kiss me.” And take a deep breath…smelling the odor of their breath and skin, remembering all the times we have kissed them in our lives. And then we might speak their names, since speaking a person’s name can awaken our love for them. And then offer words of blessing. Love first, then bless.