Facing Life’s Big Questions this Rosh Hashanah

I’m writing to share the D’var Torah, the words of Torah, I offered this past Friday night on the eve of celebrating a young person in our community, Arielle Schwartz, becoming Bat Mitzvah. It comes on the eve of a moment in our own life cycle as a community, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, a […]

T’shuvah and the Margin for Error

I’d like to share with you the D’var Torah I shared Friday night in advance of Abigail Hamilton’s beautiful Bat Mitzvah celebration this past Shabbat: There’s a phrase that’s been floating around in the public consciousness lately that has been resonating with me on a number of levels in this season of t’shuvah, of repentance […]

One Thing I Ask

This past week, as part of our celebrating our first Bat Mitzvah of the year (Mazal Tov, Madeleine Wilson!), I shared the following D’var Torah: In a few moments, we’re going to sing a verse of a psalm that anchors us in the season in which we find ourselves, the season of the Yamim Nora’im, […]

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 it, “This is the core of the Bar Mitzvah event, […]