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.
Who By Fire?
Yom Kippur 5783/2022
Yom Kippur summons us to these truths. We are mashul kacheres hanishbar, we are like broken pottery,…k’avak poreach…like dust, floating.” And Yom Kippur is the holiest day of our lives because on it we declare “af al pi chen. Nevertheless. N’kadesh et shimcha ba-olam. We will sanctify Your name in this world. We reject cynicism and despair. Tonight and tomorrow, we commit ourselves once again to hope, to trust, to goodness and to love.”
A Jewish Center
Rosh Hashanah 5783/2022
In the midst of all this living and creating and enjoying, we will also pray together. And sing together. And study our sacred texts. This was Mordecai Kaplan’s vision: a Jewish Center for Culture and Community, with prayer and song and study at its heart.
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?
In the Cave of Lascaux
August 5, 2022
We have not forgotten the entrance to the cave.
We remember how to go in and to bring that cave to life.
Deep in the caves of Lascaux, I discovered that our Jewish tradition is not a lost cause.
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.
Backpacking and Braver Angels
May 13, 2022
The temptation is so strong to withdraw, to listen only to music on the radio, and to have nothing to do with the brawling, the name calling, the derision and contempt and demonization that have become the norms in our political discourse. I’m so tired of it. And yet, here we are, trying to create something together.
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.
Go Down Moses
April 8, 2022
it came to pass that in the middle of the 20th century, American Jews discovered a body of songs which combined both: our ancient Jewish story and one of the richest and most profound forms of American music, the African American spirituals.
Esther and Zelenskyy
Friday night, March 11, 2022
In this moment also, in our own terrifying moment in history, a Jew named Volodymir Zelenskyy is recapitulating Esther’s act of kiddush hashem.
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.
Summer of Soul
January 14, 2022
the Harlem Cultural Festival in the summer of 1969 was not an arrival at destination for Black America. There was and there still is such a long journey ahead. But it was a moment of redemption. In that time and place, our black brothers and sisters saw and walked through a parting of the waters. They sang and they danced, and they believed in God’s redemptive power. Yes, they sang. “Oh Happy Day.”
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?
Apology and Forgiveness
Yom Kippur 2021
In one of our religion’s most brilliant flashes of insight, Yom Kippur teaches us the awesome liberating, therapeutic power of a conversation.
Emma Lazarus
August 27, 2021
She wrote “The New Colossus” at age 34 and the poem “The New Year” when she was 33. She passed from this world when she was 38. What profound teachings about the meaning of America were lost to us when Emma Lazarus died? What passionate visions of the Jewish future might she have shown us had she lived?
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.