YK morning sermon A black rabbi of a black Jewish congregation in Chicago tells of being interviewed for a story by a journalist who titled his article, “Twice Cursed.” “You were cursed,” he said, “because you were born black, and that wasn’t bad enough. You became a Jew!” Ironically, the journalist was Jewish. The rabbi Read More …
Kol Nidre Sermon 2018/5779 What’s the point of Yom Kippur? The customs are to afflict ourselves by not eating for the next 24 hours and to spend much of that time here at Temple praying…it seems like a lot of trouble. So what’s the point? Will spending a day fasting and praying actually improve the Read More …
RH 2 Sermon – Hashem The author Christopher Hitchens, who passed away in 2011, wrote a bestseller called G-d is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. He claimed that we’d be better off without any religion, writing, “Religion has run out of justification. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an Read More …
RH1 Morning Sermon – Torah The US is one of the most religious countries in the world. It is also a nation of appalling religious illiteracy. A 2017 Gallup poll showed that 38% of Americans believe that Earth is no more than 10,000 years old, and that evolution played no part in the creation of Read More …
Erev RH Sermon 5779 Simply put, Judaism is the way of life of the Jewish people. That statement might surprise you, but let me explain. In the English-speaking Western world, Judaism is considered a religion, but actually, there are no equivalent words for “Judaism” or “religion” in the entire Torah; there are words for “faith,” Read More …
On this very night, exactly 90 years ago in 1927, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan was leading Kol Nidre services at his synagogue in New York City. What made this Kol Nidre service very unique was Kaplan’s omission of the Kol Nidre prayer. A Kol Nidre Service without the Kol Nidre prayer? Read More …
On this Rosh Hashanah, 5778, what are the greatest challenges facing our generation as Jews and as Americans? Is it the rise of anti-Semitism? Is it the Palestinians or ISIS? Is it intermarriage? While these issues may feel like existential threats, I believe the greatest threat that faces us is Jewish illiteracy and indifference. Most Read More …
Free Speech Versus Good Speech On this Rosh Hashanah, as we celebrate the creation of the world, let us remember that G-d brought the world into being by speaking. Speech has been described as the “holiest of the holy.” The Book of Proverbs teaches that “life and death lie in the power of the tongue.” Read More …
We are a people of words. We say that G-d creates the world with words, and we don’t just take those words at face value. We interpret them; and in doing so, we add more words. It is for these reasons that all of this year’s High Holiday sermons will revolve around the concept of Read More …
We’ve now reached the Avodah section of our service. In Pirke Avot, Ethics of our Fathers, we read that “the world stands on 3 things: Torah, Avodah, and Gemilut Chasadim” – or to put it in English: wisdom, work, and acts of loving-kindness. Avodah is translated as “work,” but there’s more to it than that. Read More …