Category: Community

From the Heartland – Sermon for Rosh Hashanah 5787 (2026)

9/11/2026

On Erev Rosh Hashanah, we began limbering up to our holiday theme, renewing balance, with an expansive spiritual vision. Today we aim that vision at the heartland, front line of grief and joy.

As antisemitism and even antisemitic violence rear their ugly heads, easy talk won't help. For us to maintain a vibrant balance worthy of us and our best selves, we need to answer antisemitism with a pro-semitism we experience in our bones, in our hearts and minds.

We inherit amazing superpower tools – if we choose to use them.

The Power of 'And' – Sermon for Erev Rosh Hashanah 5787 (2026)

9/11/2026

Rabbi David introduces this year's High Holy Day theme of renewing balance – in Hebrew, Tiferet.

Erev Rosh Hashanah, traditional birthday of the world and new spiritual start for Jewish spiritual life, wends through creation – the awe and majesty of the biggest things humanity ever has seen and the smallest – to limber up our vision.

We need a limbered vision to see more, be more and become more... to surf the world's waves of hurt and hate... to surf our own waves of hurt and misstep... to reach beyond ourselves... to heal... to renew our lives in a world that's lost its balance.

When We Assume... (P. Nitzavim-Vayeilekh)

8/30/2026

In just a matter of days, Jews here and around the world will gather in groups large and small – connected across distance but close in heart – to bring in a new year and a next turning of soul.

Always, but especially when times are tough, we stand together. It's an especially fitting time to consider to how we see each other – and try to remember how often we get it wrong.

Insides to Match Our Outsides (P. Ki Teitzei)

8/16/2026

Kol Nidre night is on its way. Just one month from now, we will stand together – whether in a shared sanctuary or collectively across time and space – in a timeless ritual of releasing ourselves and each other from vows we were unable to keep despite our best efforts.

Maybe that's why Torah this week uplifts the spirituality of integrity and keeping our word.

About the Blocked Heart (P. Eikev)

7/26/2026

Living with a fully open heart all the time can be uncomfortable – even risky. Anyone reading this probably knows this truth from life experience.

Most humans learn to protect their hearts. We learn so well that the feeling of a closed heart can be instinctive, automatic, effortless. We can become so inured that we might not know just how closed our hearts have become.

Maybe that's why, precisely now in the Jewish year, Torah calls us to open our hearts wide.

Rabbi's Corner: July 2026 – We Hold These Truths

7/1/2026

In a hot Philadelphia boarding house, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence that still reverberates 250 years later: "We hold these truths to be self-evident...."

If truths were self-evident in 1776, then we can expect to find them long before – including in Jewish wisdom many centuries earlier.

When We Lose It (P. Hukkat-Balak)

6/21/2026

Just about all humans have the propensity to lose it. Something gets our goat. Something rubs us wrong. Something deep inside ferments and bubbles over. A slow burn suddenly flames out.

When we judge harshly, or lose our temper, or lash out, it can seem like we are responding first and foremost to whatever "something" has our immediate attention – whatever offense, real or imagined, might provoke us in the moment.

In those moments, however, the emotional and spiritual reality can be hidden from us – unless we seek it with all our integrity and courage.

Jews in Space, and Where We Came From (P. Korach)

6/14/2026

As a comic, Mel Brooks has been cutting edge for decades. As a Jewish comic, Mel Brooks has been as traditional as they come. Amidst all his antics, Mel Brooks and his comedy transmit a core truth: a secret of Jewish continuity and strength always has been remembering where we come from.

Modern Jewish astronauts, unfathomable decades ago, have remembered what this week's Torah characters tragically forgot.

One Hundred Days of . . . (P. Shlah Lekha)

6/7/2026

We've begun the 100-day countdown to Rosh Hashanah. (Yes, it feels too early.)

So it's especially fitting that this week's Torah portion provides tradition's words for the Great Forgiveness attached to the end of Kol Nidre.

But forgiveness for what? What awesome and terrible thing needed divine forgiveness back then? What most needs it now?

"Let All God's People Be Prophets" (P. Beha'alotekha)

5/31/2026

Maybe we imagine that the ideal of Jewish spirituality turns most on a spiritual leader.

Throughout history, rank-and-file Jews often deferred to spiritual leaders – from Moses to modern professional rabbis. Often they imagined that heightened spiritual connectivity was the special calling and province of the few.

This week's Torah portion underscores that this pattern was wrong from the start.

<<Previous

From the Heartland – Sermon for Rosh Hashanah 5787 (2026)

The Power of 'And' – Sermon for Erev Rosh Hashanah 5787 (2026)

When We Assume... (P. Nitzavim-Vayeilekh)

Insides to Match Our Outsides (P. Ki Teitzei)

About the Blocked Heart (P. Eikev)

Rabbi's Corner: July 2026 – We Hold These Truths

When We Lose It (P. Hukkat-Balak)

Jews in Space, and Where We Came From (P. Korach)

One Hundred Days of . . . (P. Shlah Lekha)

"Let All God's People Be Prophets" (P. Beha'alotekha)

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