A Time for Wailing, A Time for Dancing
These verses from Ecclesiastes come to me in this moment that feels like both “a time for wailing and a time for dancing.”
A time for dancing because, after 15 months of war, hostages will be reunited with their families, rockets — at least between Israel and Hamas — will stop firing, families will return to their hometowns. Peace, albeit limited, tentative, and fragile, will reign.
Israel and Community, and the California Fires
I’d like to share a reflection flowing out of a monthly course I’m teaching here at Society Hill Synagogue on Zionism: Understanding The Yearnings For A Jewish State. For the moment, I don’t want to get hung up on defining the word “Zionism;” people often mean different things when they invoke the word, oftentimes when […]
The Jewish Story: Resounding Through the Shofar
Rosh Hashanah 5785 This year has changed my relationship to what it means to be Jewish. Every year, during the High Holidays, I give a sermon, in one version or another, making the case for getting more deeply connected to Jewish communal life. I make this case because I genuinely believe in it. I have […]
Bearing Witness to Heartbreak — Reflections on the War’s Toll
This has been a brutal week for the Jewish people. Six hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi, and Alexander Lobanov, individuals whom we had gotten to know through accounts by their loved ones, were murdered by Hamas in the tunnels of Gaza, executed just hours before they could be saved by […]
Chosenness, Conflict, and a Path Forward
This past Shabbat we began the final book of the Torah, Sefer Devarim, the Book of Deuteronomy. The word “Deuteronomy” comes from a Greek translation of the phrase “Repetition of the Torah”, which is in a sense a fitting name for this final Book, because it largely consists of Moses, on the brink of the promised […]