Category: Spirituality

Rabbi's Corner – December 2024: The Most Important Light

12/1/2024

December sets Jewish sights toward Hanukkah – a holiday that many of us treat as a minor commemoration suited mainly to children. Even in my early years of rabbinical school, I believed that Hanukkah was no big deal.

How wrong I was – and I want to share my personal story (and Hanukkah's historic story) precisely now, when public visibility and pride in Jewish life both feel especially vital and loaded.

The Flags Up Front (P. Toledot)

11/24/2024

We're all global citizens of a shared and fragile planet. And at the same time, Jewish life's public vitality – and with it, global diversity and genuine belonging – tends to ebb and flow in cycles of societal turbulence. Yet again, Jews and other minorities face a recurring existential question: who are we relative to where we are? In the U.S. flag's stars and stripes, there is still enough starlight for all of us.

On Love and War – Sermon for Yom Kippur 5785 (2024)

10/12/2024

Opinions and arguments. War. Antisemitism. Elusive hopes for peace. Pride and prejudice. Morality in the crosshairs. What we're about. What we want to be about. What we crave to be about. And back to opinions and arguments, and war, and antisemitism....

Amidst the swirling chaos of the year that's been, and so much hurt still ongoing, what keystones to Jewish spiritual life can secure our foundations? What can help keep our hearts open amidst all?

The Tunnel of Love – Sermon for Kol Nidre 5785 (2024)

10/11/2024

There are times in life that rivet us on what's core and strip away the rest. In those moments, we can enter a tunnel of love and be transformed. If we're purposeful, or lucky, we can experience these times long before our last time. We can experience Eckhart Tolle's secret to life: we can die before we die – so that we can live.

Our Shared Heart – Sermon for Rosh Hashanah 5785 (2024)

10/3/2024

Judaism's time-tested superpower is community – not because it's easy, not because we're similar, but because community is the mainstay channel for the kind of existential love that heals society. This love is possible because spiritually, we share one heart. It's equally true if times are tough and even more important then – but also harder.

What the World Needs Now – Sermon for Erev Rosh Hashanah 5785 (2024)

10/2/2024

Rabbi David introduces our High Holy Day theme for 5785 amidst the anxiety of this hour. We remember that the core mitzvah of Jewish life is to love – not to be loved – come what may. And we remember that, even when deep pain causes us to lose this elemental love, we can find it anew.

Our Own Way? (P. Re'eh)

8/25/2024

Modern spirituality uplifts personal choice. Most of us understand liberal Judaism to invite each of us individually to question, wrestle, discern and decide for ourselves, liberated from mandate and commandedness. That's what liberalism means: the liberty to choose for ourselves, based on the rights and equal dignity of each individual.

Yet Judaism also is a team sport. We can't all go our own way and survive, much less thrive.

The Neck's Cure is the Heart (P. Eikev)

8/18/2024

Week by precious week, we're shown how we strayed from our best selves. Slowly at first, this season hints, asks, presses, cajoles, demands and then forces us to see some things that maybe we labor mightily not to see. We turn away, perhaps with the whole of our lives or just a part. Or we turn away from truths about ourselves.

In Torah's words, we become "stiff necked." This season's call to turn back means that we must our neck, and this turn begins... on our hearts.

What's Love Got to Do With It? (P. Vaethanan)

8/11/2024

Jewish life centers on love – not like, honor or respect, but love. Love is the core of our creed (V'ahavta), Torah's literal center ("Love your neighbor as yourself"), and the most repeated admonition in sacred Jewish text ("love the stranger, for you were a stranger").

But how can love be commanded? How can any true love be required, especially if the world feels unlovely to us? What kind of love is that?

Turns out, this kind of love is most important of all.

Our Choice Not to Fear? (P. Devarim)

8/4/2024

Fear doesn't seem like an emotion we choose. Whether we experience fear as an overpowering wave, a dull ache in the gut or something else, we rarely go looking for fear. Even so, especially so, our existential choice in this season, especially this year, is whether we will choose to allow fear to inhibit us. Our answer matters utterly now.

<<Previous

Rabbi's Corner – December 2024: The Most Important Light

The Flags Up Front (P. Toledot)

On Love and War – Sermon for Yom Kippur 5785 (2024)

The Tunnel of Love – Sermon for Kol Nidre 5785 (2024)

Our Shared Heart – Sermon for Rosh Hashanah 5785 (2024)

What the World Needs Now – Sermon for Erev Rosh Hashanah 5785 (2024)

Our Own Way? (P. Re'eh)

The Neck's Cure is the Heart (P. Eikev)

What's Love Got to Do With It? (P. Vaethanan)

Our Choice Not to Fear? (P. Devarim)

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