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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High Holidays: Making Your Soul a Vessel for Change

For those of you, like me, who love a podcast, or who are exploring the medium, I loved being interviewed on the latest Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations podcast. You can listen to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is titled, “High Holidays: Making Your Soul a

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Ever-Relevant Modes of Interpretation

One of the highlights of my summer—besides discovering my four-year-old daughter Lila’s obsession with being in the pool for hours on end; or my seventeen-month-old-Nina’s increasingly adorable pronunciation of Aba (dad, in Hebrew); or the few extra hours here and there that I’ve gotten to spend with

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How Exile Shows Up In Our Lives

Starting Wednesday night and continuing through Thursday, we honor Tishah B’Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, the date which commemorates numerous tragedies over the course of Jewish history, including and especially the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, the Temple in Jerusalem, the focal point of

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Belief in Our Capacities | A Tale of Two Ships

This past week at Shabbat services (9:45 am – 12 noon followed each week by lunch with the community) we discussed the notorious incident of the twelve scouts. As the Israelites are approaching the land of their ancestors, God instructs them to send twelve representatives,

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A Year In Review, And The Year To Come

Dear Friends, We’ve reached, in many ways, our summer season, featuring a different pace. We catch our breaths a bit from the year that has been, while also taking advantage of this slower pace to lay the groundwork for the year to come. This spirit

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Tallitot in our sanctuary

What Our Own Prayers Can Say

Last week we talked about the Amidah, and we talked about the Amidah because it is in some ways the perfect encapsulation of the tension between two instincts when it comes to prayer in Jewish tradition—one instinct in prayer is the spontaneous, the extemporaneous, the

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Tribute to Rabbi Avi, my Mentor and Friend

I’ve been waiting a long time for this opportunity—the opportunity to pay tribute to a cherished mentor and a dear friend, Rabbi Avi Winokur. The annals of synagogue histories are replete with stories of contentiousness between Senior Rabbis and Rabbis Emeritus. Not here. Not with

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