Two weeks ago, I had the intention on starting a new sermon series. It was Parashat Bo, and two years – according to the Hebrew calendar, that is – since I had first preached on a ‘novel coronavirus’ that had put a Chinese city in lockdown.
Exactly two years ago, according to the reckoning of the Hebrew calendar, that is, I preached a sermon on the ‘new coronavirus’ that had put a Chinese city, Wuhan, into lockdown.
The baby is born, fragile and innocent. Lovingly swaddled, she nurses him at her breast but then knows what needs to be done. The wicker basket has been prepared and she gently lowers him into it.
This year, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah are almost back-to-back. The last time there was a complete overlap was during the ‘Thanksgivvukah’ of 2013; the next time this will happen is in the year 79,811.
She woke up to the faint blue glare, as usual. The silk sheets and down pillows were inviting and she just wanted to burrow down deeper into them, into the comforting oblivion of sleep.
The charge that the ‘Torah is homophobic’ engages in one important fallacy: it assumes that the Torah is a static text and that our relationship to it is stagnant.
View Rabbi Hugenholtz’s High Holiday sermons.
I propose we look at God’s relationship with humans in the Torah as a model for intimate relationships between humans.
Thousands of miles away from our immediate, local concern, is a country and a region in crisis; in the grips of renewed violence where the horrific count of casualties is rising relentlessly.
