Sermons
Let There Not Be Strife Among Us
Can we be like Abram? Can we center ourselves on our morality and center each other’s humanity? Can we hold difference and create space? Can we recognize grievance and pain, diversity and blessing? Can we leverage wealth and power not for prestige and conquest but for compassion and the common good?
Power and Virtue: the Davidic Calling and Promise
Not so long ago, before the Jewish High Holidays, my five-year-old daughter – the middle child – insightfully asked me whether God ever makes mistakes.
Neilah Sermonette
‘Did they’, she wondered out loud, ‘consider the gardens they planted, their last garden?’
Yom Kippur Day Sermon
Be still, my soul, the Psalmist sings. Isn’t that soothing? Isn’t that what the current moment cries out for?
Kol Nidrey Sermon
The human family. All of us. Remember that idea?
Erev Rosh haShanah Sermon 2020
There’s a joke floating around the Internet, which I cannot take credit for but I am happy to share: ‘The question no job applicants in 2015 ever got right was, ‘so, where do you see yourself in five years?’’
Rosh haShanah Day 1 Sermon
I don’t know if I can speak on behalf of anyone else, but I have felt the silent emptiness stretch like a wasteland across my soul.
The Heritage of the Sword
He gripped his little brother’s hand, his stomach churning with fear and embarrassment, his fingers slick with his own sweat. He didn’t dare look at him; the lids of his eyes weighed down by shame and grief, for he knew what was yet to come.
Storm-tossed
The stars in the sky shone brightly and clearly and I could point out Orion and the Big Dipper to my children on our evening walk. The neighborhood was cast in darkness and we picked our way past downed trees and broken branches by the light of the stars and our flashlights.
