Sermon from Yom Kippur — October 9, 2019 In late April of 1913, a night watchman at an Atlanta pencil factory discovered the bruised and bloody corpse of a 13 year-old employee named Mary Phagan in the factory’s cellar. As news … Continue reading
Sermon from Kol Nidrei — October 8, 2019 It is striking that we initiate Yom Kippur with Kol Nidrei, a liturgical poem that both highlights the promises we make and alludes to the fact that we have an unfortunate … Continue reading
Sermon for Day 1 of Rosh Hashanah 5780 — September 30, 2019 According to tradition, the powerful, piercing cry of the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah is meant to awaken us from our spiritual and moral slumber, the mindless and purposeless … Continue reading
Sermon for Rosh Hashanah Day 25780 — October 1, 2019 Just over 400 years ago, in August 1619, a ship called The White Lion landed at Point Comfort, now Fort Monroe, in Hampton, about 60 miles downriver from us here … Continue reading
Parashat Mas’ei, the last portion of Ba-Midbar, is both backward and forward looking in nature: It is backward looking, because it begins with a recapitulation of all the places the Israelites sojourned in the wilderness; and it is forward looking … Continue reading
This sermon was originally delivered at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia on April 3, 2019. At the center of the Jewish Sabbath liturgy is a question. The Jewish worshipper asks God: “מתי תמלך בציון, when will You reign … Continue reading
Recently, my congregation’s lay leadership voted to permit its clergy to officiate at marriages between a Jewish individual and a partner from another background (with some important conditions), if and when the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly and the Cantorial Assembly … Continue reading
The Tisch