Patience

March 10, 2022

How to Start Another Pandemic Year: Learning from Leviticus

This is the D'var Torah I gave a year ago in our Torah reading cycle, March 20, 2021. It was by the Torah reading calendar the first reading of the second year of pandemic restrictions. I read it now and so much of how I'm reflecting is the same. When we last checked in at… Continue reading

Calendar, Coronavirus, Current Affairs, Ethics, Parashat Hashavua, Patience, Shabbat, USA, Vayikra
February 1, 2022

Na’aseh V’Nishma Meets Yes-And

This was my D'var Torah on Shabbat morning, Saturday, January 29, on Parashat Mishpatim. When I was trying to decide whether to apply to rabbinical school, as a senior in college, I gave myself an ultimatum: I would not apply until I was putting on tefillin every day. Tefilllin are basically mezuzas but for the… Continue reading

Education, Freedom, Holidays, Jewish Education, Midrash, Mishpatim, Parashat Hashavua, Patience, Prayer, Rabbi, Shabbat, Spirituality, Study, Synagogue, Tefillin, Temple Beth Abraham, Theology
July 20, 2021

Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy — A Map of Spring and Summer 2021

I've been wanting to get this down for weeks…. I’ve been very affected since March by Torah time – by how the cycle of reading the Torah in synagogue has mapped onto our experience of the pandemic since its one-year anniversary. The first anniversary of the formal declaration of the pandemic and the massive shut-downs… Continue reading

B’haalotcha, B’midbar, Behar, Calendar, Coronavirus, Current Affairs, Elul, High Holidays, Holidays, Ki Tetze, Ki Tissa, Korach, Leadership, Mas’ei, Mattot, Metzora, Naso, Numbers, Parashat Hashavua, Patience, Pekudei, Pinchas, Re’eh, Rosh Hashanah, Shmini, Shoftim, Study, Tisha B’Av, Torah, USA, Vayakhel, Vayikra, Yamim Noraim
June 28, 2021

Ships, Planks, and Storms — Looking Back and Ahead

These were my words of Torah at the start of Temple Beth Abraham's annual congregational meeting on June 15, 2021. Though they refer specifically to that occasion in places, I think the Torah here is apt for all of us as we reflect on the past fifteen months and the transitions we in, each in our own… Continue reading

Calendar, Coronavirus, Current Affairs, Hope, Middot, Patience, Prayer, Soul, Spirituality, Study, Synagogue, Talmud, Temple Beth Abraham, Torah, USA
April 1, 2021

Clubhouse Experiment Friday 4/2 at 1:00 pm — Help Me Finish My D’var Torah!

I'm going to dip my toes into Clubhouse this week, and talk with anyone who shows up about the D'var Torah I promised to complete when I spoke last week. If you're on Clubhouse find my room "Help Me Write My Shabbat Sermon!" Friday at 1pm eastern time. Or feel free to read this and… Continue reading

Calendar, Current Affairs, Freedom, Holidays, Jewish Education, Justice, Patience, Study, Tikkun Olam, Torah, Tzedek, USA
December 10, 2020

Thinking Out Loud — COVID Curfews

I'd like to be using my blog more to model and invite some ethical deliberation more of the time. This is something I dashed off to post on Facebook the other night. Particular references are to my locale of Nashua, NH, but it's relevant for elsewhere. Wondering about the curfew debate. This isn’t an argument in favor… Continue reading

Bioethics, Coronavirus, Current Affairs, Ethics, Freedom, Health Care, Leadership, Patience, Science, Taking Sides, USA
July 29, 2020

Your Two Personal Assistants Toward the High Holy Days

This year I updated my usual re-post about Moshe and Yeshayahu, your "two personal spiritual assistants", and published it at the Times of Israel: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/your-two-personal-spiritual-assistants-toward-the-new-year/ Continue reading

Calendar, Coronavirus, Current Affairs, Devarim, Elul, Foregiveness, High Holidays, Holidays, Patience, Rosh Hashanah, Soul, Spirituality, Teshuvah, Theology, Torah, Yom Kippur
July 20, 2020

Rubik’s Cubes and Cities of Refuge

This is my D'var Torah for Parashiyot Mattot-Mas'ei, on July 18, 2020. This is a Rubik’s Cube: The Rubik’s Cube starts all jumbled up, with random colors mixed together all over each side. The goal is to get every one of the six sides to be entirely one single color. This is tricky because whenever… Continue reading

Calendar, Community Relations, Coronavirus, Current Affairs, Ethics, Inclusion, Justice, Leadership, Mas’ei, Mattot, Numbers, Parashat Hashavua, Patience, Torah, USA
January 23, 2017

Crowdsourcing a Sermon on Integrity and Community

After the inauguration of President Trump and the nationwide protest marches, I am planning what I think will be a series of Shabbat morning sermons. I want to attack from various directions the question of how to weigh or integrate pursuing one's convictions with creating and sustaining a broad political community where there is fundamental… Continue reading

Community Relations, Current Affairs, Election, Ethics, Freedom, Inclusion, Interfaith Dialogue, Leadership, Patience, Peace, Taking Sides, Tikkun Olam, Tzedek, USA
January 20, 2017

Inauguration Day Thoughts

I did a lot of my thinking about today even before Election Day, so attached is what I said in our synagogue on Yom Kippur. The theme was "repairers of the breach", after the words of the prophet Isaiah. I was pretty sure then that the division that we felt then and feel today would… Continue reading

Community Relations, Current Affairs, Election, Ethics, Inclusion, Justice, Lashon Hara, Leadership, Patience, Peace, Taking Sides, Tikkun Olam, Tzedek, USA
October 6, 2016

Rosh Hashanah Sermons 5777

Here are my two Rosh Hashanah sermons from this week: 1st Day — How Good Do I Have To Be? 2nd Day — Hope In An Uncertain World Continue reading

Foregiveness, High Holidays, Holidays, Middot, Patience, Rosh Hashanah, Shabbat, Torah, Yamim Noraim, Yom Kippur
September 12, 2016

How To Be Judgmental

This was my D'var Torah in services on Sept. 10, 2016, Parashat Shoftim. On my first Rosh Hashanah here, I recounted a small vignette that happened to me, that happened in me, when we were living in an apartment in Queens more than ten years ago. I was walking out the basement exit, near the… Continue reading

Elul, Ethics, Foregiveness, High Holidays, Holidays, Patience, Rosh Hashanah, Shoftim, Spirituality, Yom Kippur