Tag: bible
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We Are Living in Sodom
It was already two weeks ago in our Torah reading cycle, but I can not get the story of Sodom and Gomorrah out of my head. In Genesis 18 we read how God says, “the outrage of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave!” (v. 20) and vows to destroy them.…
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The Mountain is Over Our Heads: Kol Nidre 5786
My sermon from Yom Kippur this year. I forgot to post it here until recently! I don’t know where you are getting your news from these days, but one of my go-to sources is the Onion. If you are not familiar with the Onion, it is a satirical newspaper that has been around for a…
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Was Noah a Righteous Person?
This week in the Torah we read the famous story of Noah and the Flood. We learn that God has decided that the people on earth are too evil, and therefore they need to be destroyed. Humanity itself—along with the other life on earth—will survive as God instructs Noah to build an ark and load…
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7 Ways We Can Meet this Moment: Rosh Hashanah 5786
It goes without saying that this has indeed been a difficult few years. Last year as we welcomed in the new year we were negotiating our feelings and response to October 7 and its aftermath. This year, we find ourselves in a place perhaps we didn’t expect, as hostages still languish in captivity and this…
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A Day of Love and Hope
This past Shabbat was also a minor holiday on the Jewish calendar: Tu B’Av, so named because of its date, the “fifteenth of [the month of] Av.” Not found in the Torah, it is a later addition to the Jewish calendar, but so seemingly obscure that the rabbis in the Talmud do not have a…
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Everybody Counts
Torah this week turns to a census. As we begin the new book of Numbers in our annual Torah reading cycle, the Israelites are preparing to restart their journey towards the promised land having spent time encamped at Mount Sinai, receiving the Torah, building the Tabernacle, and installing the priesthood. With the tablets in hand…
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Play Your Part. We Need You.
[Apologies: wrote this last week and neglected to post here!] A very common question many of us are asking these days is, what can I do? Well, I have an answer: you can do your part. At the end of the book of Exodus, which we read this past Shabbat, we read about the final…
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The Verse from the Book of Esther that is Giving Me Hope
Today is Purim, when we read the story of the biblical Book of Esther, also called megillat Esther, the scroll of Esther. It tells the story of Esther who, after initially hiding her Jewish identity, uses her proximity to power to subvert a plan to eliminate the Jewish population of the Persian Empire. The story…
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Our Pain Threshold
The thing about redheads is that we have a lower threshold for pain. Growing up, though I was not as brightly redheaded as others, people remarked about my “strawberry blond” hair, especially compared to my darker-haired parents and sister. It was a trait I inherited through my mother’s mother’s line. As I got older, my…
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