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.
Land of the Living, Land of the Dead
Friday, January 6, 2023
As I sat in the theater watching Coco, like people everywhere, I wished desperately to be part of that vibrant Mexican culture. But I also thought to myself: This is very Jewish. “Recuerdame, Remember Me” the song at the heart of the film expresses the deep idea embedded in our Jewish tradition of Yizkor. The redeeming power of memory. Our beloved dead depend upon us, here in the land of the living, to remember them.
Gratitude
August 19, 2022
Like “I love you” and “I’m sorry,” if the words “thank you” are forced or faked, then what’s the point? Much more difficult, and much more important than teaching our kids manners, is the question: how do we teach our children to feel honestly grateful? For that matter, how do we bring ourselves to feel honestly grateful?
The Purpose of a Sermon
July 1, 2022
The purpose of a sermon is to remove our sandals, so that with the sensitive soles of our souls, we may feel all the pain and all the joy of being alive in this beautiful broken world.
Lies and Truth
June 10, 2022
We are living in a time when it often seems as though truth lies gasping on the ground. In our haste, we may decide that kol ha-adam kozev, everybody lies. But if we care for this fragile but marvelous creation, democracy, we will interrupt our haste, our rushing around. We will pay attention to the seriousness of this moment in history, and we may be blessed to see the miraculous return of truth imagined in the midrash. Emet mei-eretz titzmach. Truth will sprout forth from the earth.
Choose Life
April 29, 2022
God declares, “if this human being chooses correctly, then this entire creation will endure. But if this human being chooses badly, the heavens and the earth will disintegrate, and return to tohu vavohu, the primordial chaos. In our generation, we have come face to face, at last, with the planetary implications of our life choices.
Reading and Love
February 11, 2022
We heard these stories from our mother’s mouth, three of us children sitting together with her on the sofa, her arms around us, the scent of her perfume in our nostrils. Our mother loved us by reading to us.
On Suffering
December 10, 2021
the truth is that we are not meant to be happy all the time. There is vast suffering in the world, more than I ever imagined when I was young. And I think that one of our greatest challenges as human beings is to somehow make room in our hearts for both all of the exquisite beauty and joy, and also the suffering that is all around us. Is that even possible?
On Charoset
March 12, 2021
To find the apple in the Exodus story, we need to go deep into Jewish folklore….beyond the written Torah….to stories of Egypt that were told by word of mouth, across the centuries, around campfires, by storytellers. There, in that bottomless well of Jewish memory and imagination, there was an apple tree in Egypt, and it is remembered in a verse from the Biblical book of love poetry, Song of Songs. “Under the apple tree, I aroused you.” Tachat hatapuach orarticha. “Under the apple tree, I aroused you.”
Heart Attack
Friday night, January 8, 2021
After the January 6 Capitol riot
Our nation suffered a heart attack this week; can we change our national, political lifestyle? Can we become healthy again? Can we ever hope to create a government with well-functioning institutions, which is more or less trusted by most of its citizens?
Sadness and Hope
October 24, 2020
This is the story that we Jews are telling this week, just as we have told it every year at this time, for three thousand years. I tell it to our kids, and to myself, because it reminds me that I am part of something old and vast. I will tell it even to little children, because this story is a good way to learn that we human beings have seen trouble before; we have experienced countless times in which the world felt strange and unstable all around us.
Truth, Justice and Peace
Friday night, June 5, 2020
After the murder of George Floyd
Tonight I want to propose that if we hope for a livable world for ourselves and for our children, we must consider Rabban Shimon’s three pillars: truth, justice and peace. In that order.
The Afterlife
October 27, 2019
The problem with death is not that we want to live forever. After a long life, we all need to rest. The problem with death is that we are taken from the people we love. .. in the course of our lifetime, our soul becomes completely intertwined with other human souls. …We become so thoroughly enmeshed with each other that when death takes us from each other,… we are overcome with grief.
What is Revelation?
May 22, 2015
When those two young people opened up to each other, it was revelation! And when they shared their story with me, in all its strangeness and power, it was revelation again! Our souls can meet, in falling in love, or even just in sharing a story. The story of the volcano, and the thunder and lightning, and the voice of God speaking out of the silence, is all a glorious metaphor for the way that something deep and true can rise up within us and erupt in tears, laughter, and powerful words of truth. This is revelation; this is Torah. It is the best thing about being alive. And it takes courage.
Do Not Covet
February 6, 2015
one question remains unanswered about that tenth commandment: You shall not covet. Can the Torah really command us not to feel something? The other commandments all speak to behavior: do not murder. Do not steal. Rest on the Sabbath. Do not sleep with another person’s spouse. These are all behaviors which we expect ourselves and others to control. But envy is an emotion; bubbling up at times unexpectedly and uncontrollably. We might wish we did not feel envy….but we either do or we do not. You can legislate actions, but can you legislate feelings?
Two Wrestlings
December 5, 2014
This week we read the story of Jacob wrestling all night long with a mysterious man, and in the same week our televisions and computer screens have placed before us devastating video footage of a forty- three year old black man Eric Garner being placed in a chokehold, and wrestled to the ground, to die on a street on Staten Island. Two very different wrestlings fill our minds in this single week.
To Slow Down
August 29, 2014
As Marian and I walked through the mountains, we slowed down and met some new friends…all those wildflowers… and learned their names. This is our people’s old wisdom, contained in the ancient commandment to rest on Shabbat.
Tonight God is calling us, urging us to slow down, asking us “Where are you?” As we enter this season of turning, may we find the quiet to hear that voice, and the strength to turn toward God and to respond: Hineni. Here I am.
Running Away
Yom Kippur 2012
Tonight I would like to explore together what it means to stop running. To courageously take a stand. That is the opposite of running away: to stand our ground.
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.”
February 8, 2011
All of this has happened so quickly that it is still too soon to understand what these changes mean for us. Just a couple of months ago, we saw long-standing, powerful dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia collapse in a matter of days, brought down by uprisings orchestrated on Facebook. In the aftermath of those revolutions, it is no longer possible to regard Facebook as trivial. The social network has emerged as a powerful force in our world. That is a fact. But we do not know: Will it be a blessing or a curse?