We are amidst the joyous season of Sukkot — Sukkot is Zman Simhatenu (literally: the time of our joy), the season which immediately follows the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe, or, alternatively, the Days of Intensity.    Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are days that

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5785 I want to start my teaching this evening with one of the most well-worn stories of the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe, about a boy and his flute.¹ When Rabbi Israel was about to enter into his synagogue in Medziboz,

Yom Kippur, Society Hill Synagogue, 5784 There is one particular story from Torah that is sticking with me this Yom Kippur, and it’s a story that, while perhaps known to many, does not necessarily have an enduring role in the Jewish ritual calendar and so

Kol Nidre, Society Hill Synagogue, 5784 Rabbi Akiva has been called the greatest rabbi of them all, the most esteemed of the ancient rabbis. So when he identifies what he considers to be כְּלַל גָּדוֹל בַּתּוֹרָה, the great principle in all of Torah, you sit

Rosh Hashanah 5784 I have to say, I never imagined myself here. I never imagined myself as a pulpit rabbi.  Many of you know that I had a brief foray as an attorney before this, and even when I got to rabbinical school, I didn’t

Erev Rosh Hashanah, Society Hill Synagogue, 5784 Judaism is not a religion that is often closely associated with math; most of us rabbis got into this business precisely to avoid it, but I want to get into just a little bit of addition with you.

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

Yom Kippur 5783 Time for another song lyric. This one comes from a song by Jewish Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen that has been, as one writer put it, “repurposed and reinvented by other artists so many times, that it [has become] a latter-day secular hymn”—and

Kol Nidre 5783 Philadelphia’s own Tariq Trotter, lead MC and singer of the hip hop band, The Roots, one of the more successful musical acts to come out of Philadelphia in recent memory and current house band of The Tonight Show, composed one of my

Rosh Hashanah 5783 It’s been a rough year. Years? Decade? Century? We’re weary. How much longer is this pandemic going to last, we wonder? How many times do we have to turn on the news and encounter another attack on our democracy, or our personal

Yom Kippur Sermon 5782 I want everyone to look around for a minute. Those in the sanctuary, and those at home. Maybe Ven, our camera person can pull back for a minute so that those at home watching on Zoom can take a look at

Kol Nidre Sermon 5782 One of the stories that struck me this year going through our annual cycle of reading the Torah is one that is not often covered in your classic Hebrew School curriculum. Long after Noah and the flood, long after the Exodus

Rosh Hashanah 5782 I think I know what the most important piece of Torah is.  I know, it’s a lofty claim. It’s like saying you can identify the single greatest piece of art, the greatest piece of music, the greatest basketball player of all time.

With the High Holidays behind us, we are going to return to our minhag (custom) of sending out weekly summaries of our Shabbat morning Torah conversations. As a reminder, each week during our Shabbat morning service, we engage with a text from our weekly Torah portion and

Yom Kippur Sermon 5781 Al shlosha d’varim ha’olam omed. On three things the universe stands. Al ha’torah, va’al ha’avoda, v’al gemilut chasadim. On Torah; on Avodah, worship or service, and on gemilut chasadim, acts of lovingkindness. So says pirkei avot, the teachings of our ancestors,

Kol Nidre Sermon 5781 Tonight for my sermon I want to talk about a makhloket, so first I have to define what that term means. A makhloket is that component of a dialogue where a disagreement is discovered. It’s not necessarily acrimonious but it’s a

Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5781 For my first of three sermons this year, I figured I’d get right to it. The state of the world today. Humanity’s role in a broken cosmos. We’ve got about 10 minutes. Let’s figure this out. In all seriousness, what role

Kol Nidre Sermon 5778 Let’s play a game.  I’m not promising you it’s going to be a very fun game. It is Yom Kippur, after all –the moment we’re implored to afflict ourselves, to make atonement for a year’s, a lifetime’s worth of regrets, those

Teshuvah and Nostalgia: The Journey Through Time Kol Nidre Sermon 5779 Here we are at Kol Nidre. Perhaps the most sacred time of the Jewish year. A time when our worldly cares are set aside; when we are supposed to be locked in to this