Who here still has one of these? [middah bracelet] Last year, in conjunction with my Erev Rosh Hashanah sermon, we gave out these middot bracelets. Middot are the character virtues taught by mussar, a values-based approach to Jewish ethics and character development. The bracelets were meant to serve as simple...
Who shall live and who shall die? Who will be tranquil and who will be troubled? Life’s profound uncertainty is embedded in our ancient High Holy Day words. The Unetaneh Tokef prayer on Yom Kippur asks the hardest, deepest questions of our lives and leaves us without answer. We do...
A Berkman Mercaz Limud class was studying the Akeidah, or “Binding of Isaac,” one of the traditional Torah readings for Rosh Hashanah morning. In the story God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. As Abraham lifts his knife for the sacrifice an angel stops him at the last second; Abraham...
There is a new four-letter word in my household — plan. In these past months, we have essentially banned the word plan. We have hopes, we have scenarios, but when it comes to school, work, spending, visits with family, my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah, there is no plan. The Jewish philosopher...
A Commentary on Gen. 22:1-19 by Carl Schneider The Bible tells us Abe and Ike To Mount Moriah took a hike, To do the sacrificial bit. Who was the victim? Ike was it! This was no simple weekend frolic. The whole event was quite symbolic. Abe was the subject of...
From Psalm 11 – a Sukkot Prayer for Breaking Bread on Broad Families Inspired by Rabbi Eli Freedman’s Sukkot sermon for 2020 There is a catastrophe happening. The foundations have crumbled and lie like broken bricks on the sidewalk. Every Wednesday morning, a line of families straggles from the...
Delivered by Rabbi Jill Maderer on Friday, July 31. Eicha—how could this be. These are the first words of the Book of Lamentations, the biblical book read this past week on Tisha B’Av, the day of Jewish communal lamenting, for the destruction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. Beyond the...
Elisha ben Abuyah is the main character in Milton Steinberg’s famous novel, As a Driven Leaf. Elisha is born in second century Palestine, under Roman rule and Hellenistic influence. His mother dies in childbirth. He is raised by his father who is sympathetic to Greek culture and philosophy, but he...
Rabbi Maderer delivered this sermon on June 5, 2020. Our congregation mourns the brutal killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others whose stories we see in the news and whose stories we do not see in the news, such as Tony McDade. Tony McDade was a Black transgender man killed...
The divine image has been diminished by the recent unconscionable killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Dreasjon Reed, Tony McDade, and countless others, manifestations of systemic racism that has for many years pervaded the education, justice, economic, and healthcare systems, and now COVID-19 trends of our city and nation. Jewish tradition teaches:...
