Sermons

One of the strangest, most difficult and at times most exciting responsibilities of being a rabbi is preparing and delivering a sermon. It is a strange form of communication, almost completely “one way,” with little opportunity for the congregation to respond or for the rabbi to know how it was received. The blank sheet of paper before beginning to write is so daunting: what should I talk about? What should I say about it? How should I say it? But looking back now over forty years of sermons, I realize that being required to stand up in front of the congregation and open my mouth and speak has forced me to think deeply about my own life, Judaism, and our world. Below are many recent sermons and some of the sermons from the past which capture important moments in my life, or the life of our community or the world.

Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

To be a CBB Member

June 2, 2023

The house we are building together is an invisible, spiritual structure, built of friendships, and memories, shared grief and celebrations, deep learning and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of acts of kindness and connections between one soul and another.  That is the house of living Judaism that we are building together.

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

We Jews

April 21, 2023

April is the month in which we grapple as a people with our history, both ancient and recent. In April, we face the consequences of what it has meant and what it means for each of us today to say “we Jews.”

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

Protect the Shabbat

March 10, 2023

The word v’shamru means “they shall guard.” They shall watch and observe. They shall protect. With this word, the Torah evokes the fragility of Shabbat, it’s vulnerability to all the storms and tides and winds that threaten to erode it.

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

Our Move to Trinity

February 3, 2023

We are here in a church, Trinity Lutheran Church, whose members have welcomed us into their home. Not just for tonight, but for virtually every Friday night and Saturday morning for the next year and a half. As you can see, the cross--which declares the essence of their faith-- is concealed by this curtain. Our friends here at Trinity have allowed us to obscure their most sacred symbol during our services, so that we can feel at home here. It is a breathtaking, inspiring, heart-warming gesture of hospitality.

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

Abraham

November 4, 2022

I believe that Abraham was moved to open his home, and himself, to the people around him because of his great discovery. Abraham was the first to look into the face of another person, and to see in that other face the God of his own soul.

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

In the Cave of Lascaux

August 5, 2022

We have not forgotten the entrance to the cave.

We remember how to go in and to bring that cave to life.

Deep in the caves of Lascaux, I discovered that our Jewish tradition is not a lost cause.

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

Why We Pray in Hebrew

March 9, 2018

Some Jews walk away from our religion because they just don’t see the point of all the Hebrew.  Many. For Jews who take the time and put in the work to learn, Hebrew can be a doorway, leading into a magnificent palace.  But for the many Jews who do not know how to read Hebrew, the door is shut.  Hebrew is a wall, shutting them out. So why do we pray in Hebrew?

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

Christmas

December 22, 2017

Here is the crux of the dilemma.  The hyper-commercialized Christmas is not a problem; it is not even a little bit tempting, and is easy to reject.  But it is the beautiful Christmas, the warmth, the friendship, the good music, a group of neighbors walking and singing together and homemade food.  This is the very best that American culture has to offer.  Why would we turn inside, and remove ourselves from this moment?

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

Song of Songs

April 22, 2011

Then an electric current passed between me, and my rabbi and that girl…..and I felt the frozen earth thawing within me, and the Exodus alive inside me, and the Jewish people being born again within me.  I heard a voice calling…and I have no idea whether it was the voice of my rabbi, or the voice of the text, or the voice of God….declaring “arise, and come away.” That morning I learned what Rabbi Akiva meant when he said, “All of the books of the Bible are holy.  But the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.”

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

The Jewish People

Rosh Hashanah 2010

Mount Moriah—mountain of yirah and r’iyah…fear and vision! What is that place to us? We are here in Santa Barbara, on the other side of the planet. What is our connection to the Kotel, and its crowds of black-hatted Jews? What is our connection to the Old City of Jerusalem, with the tense alley-ways of the Muslim Quarter and the tacky and commercialized Jewish Quarter? In fact, what is our connection with Israel? That country of traffic jams and tourist traps and lethal hatreds?

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

Is Shakespeare Torah?

July 23, 2010

Is it OK to say such a thing? Is it OK for a rabbi to say such a thing from the bimah on Friday night? Can one speak of Shakespeare and the Torah in one breath? Is Shakespeare a kind of Torah?….Is Homer Torah?, or Dante, or Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson for that matter? I’ve wondered about that question for thirty years, and am still stuck on it. Does God speak to us through the voices of all the great human authors and teachers? Are they all Torah, or is only the Torah, Torah?

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

Leonard Cohen

September 4, 2009

    Last week, on Thursday night, my family and I were driving home from Sequoia National Park, barreling down Route 5 and across on the 126 at night, in the dark, singing along with Leonard Cohen….all these songs and more.  Marian, Rachel, Ari and I each have our own, very different views of God, and Judaism.  Our kids are now 19 and 21.  But the four of us were there together in the dark….singing Who By Fire, Hallelujah, If it be Your Will, Anthem.  It was one of the nicest moments we have had with our children in recent memory.

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

Two Kinds of Reform Judaism

March 7, 2008

One camp within our movement believes that Reform Judaism is a Judaism of reason, modernity and the enlightenment. And the other camp holds that Reform Judaism is a Judaism of personal, individual choice.

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Steve Cohen Steve Cohen

On Halakha

Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis, June 1995

I am trying to sing a much more complicated Jewish song than my parents did and perhaps am singing it with much less grace and beauty than they sang, and continue to sing, that simple folksong. But after a person learns the easy songs, they do crave the challenge of something more difficult. That is where I am personally--caught between a childhood of simple, touching Judaism and a vision of a wonderfully complex and demanding ideal.

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