Category: High Holy Days

Our Circle Dance – Sermon for Kol Nidre 5786 (2025)

10/1/2025

For all of modern society's focus on individual rights and choice, even in the internet age, we still are carbon-based creatures who utterly need each other. Community has long been one of Jewish life's superpowers, but today hangs in the balance, buffeted by tides of social change and amnesia about who we really, truly are.

Our Moral Power – Sermon for Rosh Hashanah 5786 (2025)

9/23/2025

The turmoil, hunger and utter devastation in Gaza arouse deep emotions at the heart of Jewish community, identity and morality.

Amidst all the cross currents of confusing information, recriminations and abject suffering, whatever our views and perspectives, we all face common questions. What does it mean for our hearts and souls? How can we stand in our moral power, and be #StrongerTogether amidst it all, and not lose ourselves as a people of integrity?

Our Sovereign Power – Sermon for Erev Rosh Hashanah 5786 (2025)

9/22/2025

What do you make sovereign in your life? What truly rules you? Are you totally satisfied with your answer? If you're human, then probably not – and the Power of Creation imbues us with power to choose, to re-center, to change. After all, we are made "in the divine image," with sacred attributes. If God can create and transform, so can we.

We must start here, with our sovereign powers of choice and change. Otherwise, the travails of the heart and travails of our world can seem beyond our power to repair.

We can do it. We have 3,500 years of tools for wise living and societal repair, and our ancestors' strength courses through us. We are #StrongerTogether.

"Be Strong and Courageous" (P. Vayeilekh)

9/21/2025

In this first Torah portion of the new spiritual year, traditionally read between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur during most years, Moses prepares our spiritual ancestors for transition into new leadership (Joshua) and a new journey (into the Land of Promise).

His way of doing so speaks to us exactly now, as we begin this new year with new journeys of our own.

For Whom We Stand (P. Nitzavim)

9/14/2025

For whom do you stand? I don't mean physically (though we'll get to that shortly). I mean existentially: for whom do you stand?

This week's Torah portion rehearses a pivotal "Stand Together" moment we will experience on Yom Kippur. Now over 700 days post-October 7, its call lands on me very differently.

Truth or Consequences (P. Ki Tavo)

9/7/2025

What we do matters: our choices and behaviors have consequences even if we pretend not.

With Selihot approaching this weekend, Torah bellows this truth like a shofar blast, as if to rivet our attention to the truths of our lives and our power to renew our lives for goodness.

To Kick Bad Habits, Watch Time (P. Ki Teitzei)

8/31/2025

Source: Harvard Health (2022)

We all have impulses and habits that we're not proud of and don't well serve us. Sometimes we can take them on directly. But especially if we load our habits with negative emotions and self-judgments, focusing on our habits and impulses can only reinforce them.

There's another way – and as the holy month of Elul begins, it comes right on time.

Rabbi's Corner – September 2025 & High Holy Days: #StrongerTogether

8/26/2025

It's true every year: The holy month of Elul is our portal into the Season of Meaning. These High Holy Days approach at a pivotal time in collective and global life. This moment asks both all our love and all our strength – including the strength to be vulnerable, deeply truthful, shimmeringly real, courageous and intrepid. We are #StrongerTogether – our theme for 5786.

Rabbi's Corner – August 2025: From 'Oy' to 'Joy'

8/1/2025

August brings peak summer and then, subtly at first, transition. Jewishly we pass through grief's gate of Tisha b'Av onto the seven-week runway to Rosh Hashanah. We will launch this cycle's High Holy Day runway series. At full moon, Tu b'Av and the Shabbat of love and comfort will greet us as a needed balm to the heart.

The next new moon begins the holy month of Elul. The shofar will sound with strength. Our hearts will stir. We are called back. Remember who we really are. It's time.

Holy Gear Shifts (P. Emor)

5/11/2025

As spiritual beings, we can understand life as a constant choice between inertia and change, letting things ride or deliberately altering them. We don't pay attention, or we do. We accept what is, or we try to act.

So it is with most things Jewish, especially Jewish time – a series of holy gear shifts throughout life.

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Our Circle Dance – Sermon for Kol Nidre 5786 (2025)

Our Moral Power – Sermon for Rosh Hashanah 5786 (2025)

Our Sovereign Power – Sermon for Erev Rosh Hashanah 5786 (2025)

"Be Strong and Courageous" (P. Vayeilekh)

For Whom We Stand (P. Nitzavim)

Truth or Consequences (P. Ki Tavo)

To Kick Bad Habits, Watch Time (P. Ki Teitzei)

Rabbi's Corner – September 2025 & High Holy Days: #StrongerTogether

Rabbi's Corner – August 2025: From 'Oy' to 'Joy'

Holy Gear Shifts (P. Emor)

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