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REBBE LONGING, Erev Rosh Hashanah 5772, From every human being there rises a light that reaches straight to heaven.

Who Shall Live, Who Shall Die, Who Can Bear This Prayer? Rosh Hashanah Morning, 5772.

WALK HUMBLY IN YOUR DESPAIR: An Uplifting High Holiday Sermon, 5772. …it is to explore what I’ve observed is most useful for living to in uncertain and challenging times, and how to keep going and growing.

HOW THIS RABBI PRAYS, Yom Kippur, 5771,September 18, 2010 What I want to talk about this morning is how to open the window to prayer.

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION: HOLY LISTENING, Kol Nidre, 5771, “A rabbi has two tasks: to bring forth creativity in others and to reveal oneself.”
Hanukkah …this year this is the gift I want this Hanukkah: to look forward with the joy of a five year-old and to remember that the highest wisdom is joy.

Hanukkah Teaching “What’s the best holiday? Hanukkah, of course.

Being Jewish Enough and Hanukkah We do not cede authentic Judaism to those who do or know “more” than others.

The Fifth Candle A story about faith, the Holocaust and a special menorah on Hanukkah.

GROWING A HEART OF WISDOM: THE PATH OF THE SAGE, Kol Nidre 5770. I’ve waited until Kol Nidre, the highest and deepest night of the year, to talk about a new way understand our lives and our relationships to the generations before and after us.

WHY ISRAEL, Rosh Hashanah Morning 5770, When I began to think about the future of Judaism, I asked friends what came to mind for them…. I’m going to tell you about the Israel I love and why I see it as key to the future of Judaism.

THE BEST NEWS IN JUDAISM TODAY: JEWISH RENEWAL, Erev Rosh Hashanah 5770, … it’s important to remember that Judaism is still here because it’s been elastic enough to grow and learn how to remain potent for each generation.

Elul, August 31, 2009. Today is the eleventh day of this lovely month that brings us closer to the Source.

How We Do Business Erev Rosh Hashanah 5769,September 29, 2008. How we do business is the bedrock of all relationships.

Study As A Ladder To Heaven Rosh Hashanah Morning 5769,September 30, 2008 What a wonderful technology we have that commands us not only not to rejoice but to think!

Did You Keep Faith for the Future? Kol Nidre 5769, October 8, 2008 May the New Year bring us hope for the future, and may we find it in our embrace of the children of this generation.

5769-It is mortality that gives meaning to life. Harold Schulweis would ask his students, “What will they say at your funeral?”

A Time of Caution-Tisha B’Av When I was a child and I’d ask my father when something was going to happen, he’d answer, “Tisha B’Av.”

A Time of Caution, 2005: Tisha B’Av … the saddest day of the Jewish calendar, is known as a black fast.

Teshuvah This is the time of year to know about the High Holidays.

Selichot, 2005 If we want forgiveness, we have to offer it and ask for our own.

Selichot Selichot and the night of forgiveness, a step essential to the healing of the heart.

Wrestling the Fifth Commandment Erev Rosh Hashanah, 5768, 2007 I will begin at the beginning, which is in our families of origin, because it is with our parents, our first leaders, that we learn how to live in community.

Enlightened Leadership Rosh Hashanah 5768, 2007 In truth, the path to enlightened leadership applies to anyone who has the charge to show the way, including parents, as we discovered last night.

The Longest Hatred, Erev Rosh Hashanah, 5767, 2006…Unless you’ve been sitting in a cave for the last five years, you know only too well that the world is trembling for its life, and we have been chosen to bear witness.

ISRAEL, Rosh Hashanah 5767, 2006…I doubt that there is a High Holiday congregation anywhere in the world that is not talking about Israel.

5768 In preparation for the sea crossing of our community, I’m going to speak this year about enlightened leadership, the relationship between parents and children, and conscious community.

SACRED COMMUNITY Kol Nidre 5768, 2007 Since we began the High Holidays looking at the relationship with our parents as our first leaders and our families of origin as our first community, this evening, the holiest night of the year, I’d like to explore how and why we gather together as a community.

5767 -This year I’m inviting you to think not only within but as a member of an ancient civilization that, despite all odds, still exists. I trust that we have much to learn and teach among the nations.
Welcoming the Stranger, Kol Nidre, October 1, 5767….Convert and Jew by Choice are graceless words that don’t do justice to the love, faith, hope, and courage of those who people want to claim Judaism and the Jewish people.

Awakening the hero within, Erev Rosh Hashanah, 2005… I invite you to look at the differences between what the world calls a hero and how our tradition defines it.

Jewish American Heroes Rosh Hashanah, October, 2005, When I was a child, I loved to read biographies, especially about sickly kids who overcame great obstacles….

Varieties of Heroism, Yom Kippur, Kol Nidre, October, 2005. What does being the smaller one have to do with heroism? Everything. It’s the counterintuitive path.
Rosh Hashanah … celebrates the creation of the world, yet nowhere in the service do we read about creation.

ISRAEL Erev Roshanah 5763 We come to High Holidays with less optimism and hope than in past years.

BEING A BLESSING Rosh Hashanah 5764 Rosh Hashanah, the value of prayer and tradition.

LIVING WITH FEAR Kol Nidre 5764 These are the Days of Awe, the days of fear, and tonight’s teaching is about fear: how it affects us, how to live with it, and how we can learn from it.

RADICAL AMAZEMENT-Yom Kippur Day 5764 We live with fear not only because we have no choice but because it may help us to live.

Behaving in God And if self-examination weren’t daunting enough, don’t we question, especially when the sermon gets too long, why we bother being Jews?

The Technology of Judaism I can tell you that there is a way to live in these times with peace of mind and hope.

The Light and the Dark of the High Holidays We’ve been traveling together since Selichot to a place of hard scrutiny and courage.

The Days of Awe: September 11, 2001 and After I write books for children. I have two rules: they can’t be dull and they must, no matter how frightening or sad, offer hope.

The Kabbalah of Prayer No matter how faithful or optimistic you may be, I doubt that there is anyone in this room who does not grieve and worry about these times in which we live.

The Kabbalah of Belief it’s good to know that to be a Jew is a glorious mix of meaning that includes reaching beyond the physical realm to speak to our deepest questions.

The Kabbalah of Righteous Generosity But Tzedakah means justice, it isn’t about emotion.

The Kabbalah of Community You cannot be a Jew alone, and we can do together what we cannot do alone.

Community High Holidays and what they mean to Jews as a community.

Eco-Kashrut …whether we Jews, so long an urban people, have any relationship with the natural world.

A Kabbalat Shabbat Sermon-the Shabbat of Memory We are a people with strong association to memory. It is our weapon against disappearance…

Tu B’Sh’vat: The Trees Birthday Tu B’Sh’vat, the New Year of the Trees, is one of the few Jewish holidays that isn’t connected to a historical event.

Chol Ha-Moed Shabbat It’s eight days to Passover and I’m already crazy with getting ready…

Shabbat Hagadol Even if you knew nothing about Passover, you’d know that it was a big deal by all that precedes it.

Numbering My Days Counting the omer for the forty-nine days between the second day of Pesah and Shavuot is slightly outside my practice.

The Book of Ruth If she were alive, I’d do anything to get an interview with her.