Sermons

Our greeting tonight is Tzom Kal -May we have an easy fast.

Tomorrow morning we will read in the Torah that on this day, each year, we are to offer a series of sacrifices to atone for our sins and we are to practice “Self-denial” a term that the Sages teach means we must fast from tonight until the stars rise tomorrow night.  In fact, fasting is the most singular ritual for Yom Kippur. And yet, after reading in the Torah that...Read more...

Mitchell, you talked today about Mitzvot; especially the responsibility to look out for each other. As you said, you can’t just turn away from someone in need; you have to get involved and help make things better. And then, as you prepared for this day, the skies opened up over Houston and our country’s fourth largest city was inundated with water in a flood that has displaced thousands of people. Clearly, it is not just lost items that...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom.

The People of Israel are nearing the end of their travels in the wilderness. They are approaching the Promised Land after their 40 years of punishment have come to an end. Our parshah has many details about how life for the Israelites will be different when they are no longer wandering and finally living a settled life.

But at the beginning of the final parsha, there is a long section that deals with the many...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom.

Troy, Rabbi Lawrence Kushner once asked a pre-school child who was looking around the synagogue, “What do you think is behind the curtain on the Bima?” The Rabbi had asked this to other students and had gotten different responses. One child told him that there was nothing behind the curtain. Another little girl said that behind the curtain was a Torah scroll. One little boy announced that behind the curtain was a...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom.

Lauren, you spoke today about your Torah reading but I want to spend some time on the Haftara that you read. You read the beginning of the story of Sampson, a man who led a very complicated life that ended tragically as he tried to save his people.  The beginning of the story in your Haftara is interesting in its own right. A man comes to Sampson’s parents and tells them a remarkable son will be born to them and...Read more...

Hag Sameach.

We are here this morning to celebrate a very special anniversary, the anniversary of the giving of the Torah by God to the Jewish People on Mt. Sinai shortly after the Exodus from Egypt. We talk endlessly about God freeing us from Egyptian slavery, but there is a second part to that redemption. God freed us from Egypt so we could SERVE God. We were not to tolerate having a human master but we should see...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom

Mimi Feigelson is a woman Orthodox Rabbi in Los Angeles who works as a spiritual mentor for rabbinical students and as a lecturer of Rabbinic Literature at the American Jewish University. She has a command of the works of many of the early Hasidic Masters. This week, she found a question in the Mei HaShiloach, the teachings of Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Lainer of Ishbitza who lived in the first half of the nineteenth...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom.

Harrison. I don’t think that there is anyone in this room today that does not understand how much work and effort you put into your preparations for this day. You understood almost from the beginning what this “Bar Mitzvah thing” was all about and with your teachers, especially Dr. Mandell, you put it all together and this morning has been exceptional.

Harrison, while you and your family were preparing...Read more...

The Haggadah never mentions the role that Moses plays in the journey from slavery to freedom. The Haggadah is God’s story. The story of how God remembered the promise God made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. How God saw the oppression and cruelty of the Egyptians. How God had compassion on the Israelite slaves and so with a mighty hand liberated the slaves and taught them, through the 40 years in the desert how to live their lives as free...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom.

I read an unusual story this week. It was an opinion piece by a former college admissions officer about the kinds of essays that high school students submit as part of their college applications. She said that it was hard to select students for admission when they all pretty much said the same thing; they were bright, active students with interesting after school activities and long lists of service projects. And yet,...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom.

As Miriam sang at the Red Sea, in our Parsha, and as Moses sang the great Shirat HaYam, this Shabbat has music at its core. Not surprisingly, the Haftara for today is also a song of victory, the Song of Deborah after the great victory over the Canaanite city of Hatzor.

The calendar even sings this week. Judaism does not mark the end of winter with a groundhog; the Rabbis looked to the almond trees, the first to...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom

This week we prepare to finish the Book of Genesis. After weeks of following the chronicles of the Patriarchs of the Bible, we close the story with the deaths of Jacob and Joseph, the settlement of Jacob’s family in Egypt and we have set the stage for the even larger story of the enslavement and emancipation of the people and their journey to the Promised Land.

As Jacob lies dying on his bed, his 12 sons...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom.

So three Hasidim were bragging about their Rebbe. The first one said “It was Shabbat and the day was brutally hot and we were all melting from the heat and we said to the Rebbe, “Rebbe, it is too hot; you must do something.” So the Rebbe prayed and in front of us it was hot, behind us it was hot, on each side of us it was hot, but where the Rebbe stood, we had shade.

The second Hasid was not impressed,...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom.

In the beginning of this week’s parsha, we find Rivka barren and Isaac praying on her behalf for a child. It must have been a pretty effective prayer for in the next verse, Rivka is pregnant with twins! You would think that everyone would be happy but the pregnancy is so difficult, there is so much movement inside her, that she is uncomfortable. The original case of “be careful of what you ask...Read more...

Shabbat Shalom.

This is the Shabbat before the Great Fast of Tisha B’Av. The day we commemorate the destruction of the first and second Temples of Jerusalem. Over the centuries there have been many tragedies associated with the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av. This Shabbat, just before the fast, we are reminded of the many sad events that have plagued our people.

The explanation of the destruction of the Temple has never...Read more...