Sermons
One of the strangest, most difficult and at times most exciting responsibilities of being a rabbi is preparing and delivering a sermon. It is a strange form of communication, almost completely “one way,” with little opportunity for the congregation to respond or for the rabbi to know how it was received. The blank sheet of paper before beginning to write is so daunting: what should I talk about? What should I say about it? How should I say it? But looking back now over forty years of sermons, I realize that being required to stand up in front of the congregation and open my mouth and speak has forced me to think deeply about my own life, Judaism, and our world. Below are many recent sermons and some of the sermons from the past which capture important moments in my life, or the life of our community or the world.
Meeting God at Night
December 13, 2024
What does it mean to say that God arranges marriages? And what does it mean to say that this work that has been occupying God since the creation of the world is difficult for God, more difficult than splitting the Red Sea?
Sacred Empty Space
Yom Kippur, Oct 12, 2024
For the past 47 years, that purpose has been my north star....my primary identity, my work, and my purpose on this earth has been to teach Judaism. Now what? That question is both terrifying and exhilarating. I feel an empty space opening at the center of my life. An empty space that is alive with possibility, and with uncertainty.
You Who Cling to Adonai
Friday, August 9, 2024
This year on Sunday October 6 .....we will gather together to gaze into the eyes of our lost family members, share their food, read their stories, and to remember who they were. And at the end of our meal of remembrance and consolation we will declare, with all Jewish people everywhere:
“V’atem hadevekim b’Adonai eloheichem chayim kulchem hayom.” And you, who cling to Adonai your God are all alive today.
Holiness and Zionism
May 10, 2024
During the past one hundred years of Jewish history, our people have been attempting to carry out this holiness revolution in our ancient homeland, the land of Israel. God knows and we know that it has been far from perfect, but this is the meaning of Zionism as I understand it. The Jewish people…which includes all of us….is attempting to create a just and compassionate society in the land of our ancestors.
The Cry in the Night
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.
Children and Stories
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.
Emotions
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.
Encountering the Akedah
Rosh Hashanah 2023
The Binding of Isaac is not a story to be understood; it is to be encountered. Like another person. We can never fully understand another person, but we can meet them. We can see them, hear them, feel them and be moved and changed by them. Or God for that matter. Like a person, like God, this story of the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, is to be encountered.
Land of the Living, Land of the Dead
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.
Gratitude
August 19, 2022
Like “I love you” and “I’m sorry,” if the words “thank you” are forced or faked, then what’s the point? Much more difficult, and much more important than teaching our kids manners, is the question: how do we teach our children to feel honestly grateful? For that matter, how do we bring ourselves to feel honestly grateful?
The Purpose of a Sermon
July 1, 2022
The purpose of a sermon is to remove our sandals, so that with the sensitive soles of our souls, we may feel all the pain and all the joy of being alive in this beautiful broken world.
Lies and Truth
June 10, 2022
We are living in a time when it often seems as though truth lies gasping on the ground. In our haste, we may decide that kol ha-adam kozev, everybody lies. But if we care for this fragile but marvelous creation, democracy, we will interrupt our haste, our rushing around. We will pay attention to the seriousness of this moment in history, and we may be blessed to see the miraculous return of truth imagined in the midrash. Emet mei-eretz titzmach. Truth will sprout forth from the earth.
Choose Life
April 29, 2022
God declares, “if this human being chooses correctly, then this entire creation will endure. But if this human being chooses badly, the heavens and the earth will disintegrate, and return to tohu vavohu, the primordial chaos. In our generation, we have come face to face, at last, with the planetary implications of our life choices.
Reading and Love
February 11, 2022
We heard these stories from our mother’s mouth, three of us children sitting together with her on the sofa, her arms around us, the scent of her perfume in our nostrils. Our mother loved us by reading to us.
On Suffering
December 10, 2021
the truth is that we are not meant to be happy all the time. There is vast suffering in the world, more than I ever imagined when I was young. And I think that one of our greatest challenges as human beings is to somehow make room in our hearts for both all of the exquisite beauty and joy, and also the suffering that is all around us. Is that even possible?
On Charoset
March 12, 2021
To find the apple in the Exodus story, we need to go deep into Jewish folklore….beyond the written Torah….to stories of Egypt that were told by word of mouth, across the centuries, around campfires, by storytellers. There, in that bottomless well of Jewish memory and imagination, there was an apple tree in Egypt, and it is remembered in a verse from the Biblical book of love poetry, Song of Songs. “Under the apple tree, I aroused you.” Tachat hatapuach orarticha. “Under the apple tree, I aroused you.”
Heart Attack
Friday night, January 8, 2021
After the January 6 Capitol riot
Our nation suffered a heart attack this week; can we change our national, political lifestyle? Can we become healthy again? Can we ever hope to create a government with well-functioning institutions, which is more or less trusted by most of its citizens?
Sadness and Hope
October 24, 2020
This is the story that we Jews are telling this week, just as we have told it every year at this time, for three thousand years. I tell it to our kids, and to myself, because it reminds me that I am part of something old and vast. I will tell it even to little children, because this story is a good way to learn that we human beings have seen trouble before; we have experienced countless times in which the world felt strange and unstable all around us.
Truth, Justice and Peace
Friday night, June 5, 2020
After the murder of George Floyd
Tonight I want to propose that if we hope for a livable world for ourselves and for our children, we must consider Rabban Shimon’s three pillars: truth, justice and peace. In that order.