I’m thrilled you are exploring Society Hill Synagogue and have found your way to the page of Divrei Torah, words of Torah, which are part of a generations-long Jewish practice of refracting sacred Jewish teachings through the light of our own day and age.
For me, Judaism is an opportunity to nourish ourselves, grounded in the Jewish story: a story that has unfolded throughout the generations, with twists and turns, tragedy and triumph, serving as a source of life to those who engage with it.
The Jewish People are known as B’nei Yisrael: the people who wrestle with the Divine. The name comes from that moment in our tradition in which it is understood that our ancestor Jacob “wrestled with a figure,” a figure understood to be a manifestation of that very Divine Being (see Genesis 32).
That moment produced a legacy of sacred wrestling; grappling; seeking to make meaning of, and find purpose in, our time on earth.
These Divrei Torah are my efforts, in conversation with the community of Society Hill Synagogue, to make meaning and to find purpose, seeking to serve this community, our broader world, and the Divine.
I hope you find meaning in them yourself, and I encourage you to reach out to me if you would like to discuss their contents or to discuss becoming a part of the Society Hill Synagogue community. Welcome!
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The Sacred Art of Listening
When I introduce the shema, that central call of Jewish tradition, I often say it is the call to listen—to listen to the one-ness that underlies and connects all of life. In some ways, that understates the case for the centrality of the act of
What does Judaism say about the afterlife?
I am so glad we were able to have a scholar-in-residence last Shabbat on the topic of Jewish beliefs in the afterlife. Here is what I shared on Friday night to help frame our learning: This need sparked for me at a funeral I officiated
The Hidden God
The other night I was reading my four and a half year old daughter Lila a bedtime story. We have a routine that she gets to watch two music videos and read three stories before bed (I spoil her, I know). So we’re on our
Listening at Sinai
Last week’s Torah portion was Parashat Yitro, the portion in which the Israelites receive the revelation of Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. Here at Society Hill Synagogue we spoke last Saturday morning about what the nature of that revelation was—what did the people hear as
Welcoming Guests, Welcoming Ourselves
This past Shabbat, we celebrated all the new members who have joined this community in the last year or so. In honor of our growth as a community, I offered the following teaching on what it means to make ourselves—all of us—feel more at home
Building New Worlds with our Torah
One of the core features of the Bar Mitzvah is when a student offers his own teaching, his own D’var Torah—words of Torah reflecting his interpretation of his Torah portion after a period of wrestling with it. As Rabbis Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman put
The Holiness of Place
I made a pilgrimage this week. Not to Mecca, or even to Jerusalem, but to La Jolla, California. La Lolla, if you don’t know, is an idyllic seaside village just north of San Diego, and it’s where I was born. Despite not living there for
Finding God in Alienation
Dear Friends, About a month after October 7, my wife Caroline, stretching to find something with which to introduce the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and, more precisely, a pathway through it to a better future — to our daughters Lila, 4 (and a half, she would
Thank you, and upcoming events
Dear Friends, I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you so much for your collective response to our call for contributions at the end of the year to help us meet this community’s needs. We exceeded our ambitious goal of $45,000 and it
Gut-Wrenching Reporting
Dear Friends, It is heartbreaking to continue to reflect on the war flowing out of the October 7 massacre. I wrestle with whether ongoing commentary from me is worthwhile or whether we all just need a break. Of course we recognize that Israelis and Palestinians
A Different Kind Of Hanukkah
You all think you know the story of Hanukkah, don’t you? You think it’s about that little vial of oil that was only supposed to be enough to keep the temple menorah lit for one night and yet lasted for eight. Or perhaps you say,
Three Really Hard Incidents in Philadelphia This Week
Dear Friends, The reverberations and fallout from the October 7 massacre persist. Of course within Israel—victims and hostages and their families, soldiers and their families, and really every citizen of Israel experiencing their world turned upside down; for residents of the West Bank and Gaza,
Pain, Heartbreak, and the Voices of our Parents
This week’s parashah is action packed. It begins with our ancestor Jacob preparing to meet his twin brother Esau for the first time since Jacob deceived their father Isaac and stole the sacred blessing from him; it also includes that seminal moment in Israelite history
The Return of Hostages: Where Do We Go From Here?
Dear Friends, This has been both an inspiring and continuously heartbreaking week; the latter word—heartbreaking—I’ve been using so often lately as to put it in danger of becoming trite, and yet that is the effect of the images we see pouring out of Israel and
Reflections on the Israel March in DC
Dear Friends, I joined over 290,000 people at the National Mall in Washington DC on Tuesday for the March for Israel, March to Free Hostages, and March Against Antisemitism. While I did not agree with everyone that was selected to be a speaker at the