Category: Prayer

What's In a Name? (P. Vaera)

1/11/2026

We call our beloveds by many names. Whether a given name, an adopted name, a "pet" name or something else, each name encodes a special relationship and a story about it.

Why should it be different for the Beloved that we call God?

It's not. "God" isn't a Name but a role, a function. As for the Name of God – the One goes by many names.

And each Name tells a profound story. That story is worth telling.

Rational Spirituality Beyond Belief (P. Toledot)

11/16/2025

Believers might readily embrace the spiritual prospect of asking God a question and receiving a response (whether with a knowing or feeling beyond self, or an inner sense within).

But how about disbelievers? In a rational world of left-brain logic, can suffering and brokenness drive a rational response that is spiritual? Indeed they can, and the source is poignant.

On Paradise Street – Sermon for Yizkor 5786 (2025)

10/3/2025

Our #StrongerTogether journey enters the valley of the shadow: touching mortality can impel us to live now, love now, take leaps of faith now.

There is power in memory, and there also is a power transcending memory, transcending time and place, that suddenly can rivet us in the infinite of now.

Now is one of those moments.

Spiritual Placebo (P. Hukkat)

6/29/2025

Near the Dead Sea, atop Mount Nebo opposite the city of Jericho, stands a monument to the awesome healing power of the human mind and the human spirit.

No, it's not a crucifix. Look more carefully: it's a snake on a stick.

Its derivation is this week's Torah portion and before that, the deep promise and neurobiology of healing.

It makes absolutely no sense at all – except that it makes all the sense in the world.

What the Light is For (P. Beha'alotekha)

6/8/2025

As many of you have heard, my mom has been in the hospital for a month, and therefore so have I. As many of us know from personal experience, hospitals are full of lights – colored door lights, blinking lights, flashing lights, beeping lights, and also lights of deep and abiding care.

It's a heck of a time and place to revisit one of Judaism's abiding symbols, the Menorah, its purpose to give light, and its link to healing.

Blessed or Cursed? The Meaning We Make (P. Ki Tavo)

9/15/2024

We humans are meaning makers: our spirituality concerns not only what happens but also what we make of what happens. Every day of our lives, usually just below the surface of our awareness, we decide what matters most and what our choices say about us and our lives.

This sacred season rivets our focus on this often unconscious inner process – and how it utterly depends on what we say and do together.

Rabbi's Corner – July 2024: Spirituality on the Slow

7/1/2024

When I began with Shir Ami one year ago, the "early" High Holy Days were fast approaching. Our first months together sometimes felt like launching off an aircraft carrier.

This year, we get a real summer. Rosh Hashanah won't be until October. This summer, we get to take it slow. What's spirituality on the slow?

Healing Impulses and Arrow Prayers (P. Beha'alotekha)

6/15/2024

Once upon a time, long before Jews were called a "People of the Book" seeking guidance and instruction in a vast sea of sacred text, spiritual life had no printed instructions.

Long before pathways of spiritual practice became carved in bedrock, people lived spiritually – letting themselves feel spiritual impulses moment by moment and naturally responding from their hearts and souls.

Long before there existed siddurim (prayer books) chock full of approved words of liturgy for personal and collective prayer, people prayed spontaneously, unconcerned if their words were "correct" by someone else's standards.

And fittingly, Torah's first recorded prayer was for healing.

"And I Will Bless Them" (P. Nasso)

6/10/2024

We use the word "blessing" routinely, but the experience we call a blessing is far from routine. Blessings don't come from nowhere, and don't happen by themselves. This week's Torah portion includes the Threefold Blessing, a Judeo-Christian cornerstone of liturgy so familiar that we might intone its words unthinkingly. But just under the surface of these words is radical stuff – as radical and revolutionary as a blessing itself.

A Story About Stories About Stories (Passover 1)

4/6/2024

Dayenu: "it's enough for us." So we sing at every Passover seder.

But what's enough, anyway?

As Passover gathers us to celebrate freedom both ancestral and modern, what "enough" could there possibly be in liberation? And why would such a beloved Jewish tradition offer this curious declaration? Turns out, enough is both far more and far less than we might imagine.

<<Previous

What's In a Name? (P. Vaera)

Rational Spirituality Beyond Belief (P. Toledot)

On Paradise Street – Sermon for Yizkor 5786 (2025)

Spiritual Placebo (P. Hukkat)

What the Light is For (P. Beha'alotekha)

Blessed or Cursed? The Meaning We Make (P. Ki Tavo)

Rabbi's Corner – July 2024: Spirituality on the Slow

Healing Impulses and Arrow Prayers (P. Beha'alotekha)

"And I Will Bless Them" (P. Nasso)

A Story About Stories About Stories (Passover 1)

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