On the 2nd Saturday of every month, we have an abbreviated Shabbat morning service with no Torah Service or Sermon, so after services the synagogue's members and attendees can do "Nosh n Drash" – a communal discussion of the weekly Torah portion and other writings or ideas related to it. S0 - instead of a sermon, this week we share with you our Rabbi's reading of the weekly Haftarah portion from the Prophet Isaiah 40:1-11,, in the style we read the Torah in Beth El services, based on Nehemiah 8:...
Aug 09, 2025•15 min
We continue this Shabbat with the theme of interwovenness: how our decision-making is guided by balancing what Scripture calls "our own interests" with "the interests of others" - and God's right as rightful Sovereign to "cast the tie breaking vote" in all our choice-making.
Aug 02, 2025•28 min
We learn this week how "me" is balanced by "we." This week's parasha "Matot/Maasei" continues our learning from the situation of the daughters of Tzelof'had. Last week, his orphaned daughters asserted their rights, and God backed them up. This week we see them learn from God that their rights had limits, and needed to be exercised factoring in the overall calling of the nation and the needs of their fellow Israelites in their tribe, in regard to their own personal desires in romance and family-b...
Jul 26, 2025•35 min
God, Himself, declares, "I remember your devotion in your youth, the way you followed Me into a wasteland with no life in it." What grace! God remembers YOUR every choice following Him, even when it took you into lack or danger. We meditate upon this in the Haftarah attached to the Torah portion "Pinchas" – named for a person whose devotion earned from God an eternal priesthood.
Jul 19, 2025•22 min
Everything is not relative. That perspective can affect accuracy of understanding is genuinely an important consideration; but still, there are still some things and some stories that are true - and some that are not. This week's Haftarah gives a stunning example of an anti-factual "narrative" being used to justify stealing Israel's land; and the careful historicity of the Israelite Judge Yiftakh's fact-recitative reply – and then his deeds of resistance against the acts the false story generate...
Jul 05, 2025•32 min
In the parasha, "Shelakh" we see what became our synagogue's logo: the Two Spies carrying the "Eshkol" (cluster of fruit). They saw the "land flowing with milk and honey, and full of enemies. God stated several times in "giving" us "our own land" that it would contain enemies needing to be overcome. Why is God's "gift" He is "giving" to us full of enemies?
Jun 21, 2025•30 min
The "Aaronic Benediction" is described by God in the verse following it as "how you (the Aaronic Priesthood) shall put My Name on the children of Israel." It invokes God's very presence, His "face" to shine on us. When His presence shined on Moses, the face of Moses beamed light for long afterwards. How shall we "shine" in era in which God has caused us to be born and reborn? We ponder this together.
Jun 07, 2025•29 min
The statement in the opening of this week's parasha is in the Hebrew future tense, which can read as either a statement of a future event, or a command. Most read it as a command: but it takes on a very different flavor when it is read as a predication of the natural result of spending time with, and following God, echoing Messiah's teaching, "Every student who has been fully trained will (inevitably) be(come) just like their teacher." (Luke 6:40)
May 10, 2025•8 min
Rabbi Bruce's first sermon back from his six-month sabbatical. [NOTE: Please forgive the sound quality: the air conditioner above the podium was mistakenly set on "high fan" and loud fan noise had to be filtered out of the mix, affecting the overall tone while making the words understandable. This will not be the usual sound quality of the podcast.] Shalom!
May 03, 2025•26 min
"These are the things the Lord has *commanded* (not suggested for) you to do."
Mar 22, 2025•22 min
In this sermon for the weekly Torah portion "Terumah" (Voluntary Offering), Rabbi Bruce explores in deep detail and with personal examples how to replace unhelpful complaining with constructive realism.
Feb 22, 2025•24 min
Starting from the Haftarah for this week in Isaiah chapter 6, our own heartbreak and that of others is pondered for wisdom and appropriate engagement/action.
Feb 15, 2025•28 min
During last Shabbat (8 Feb 2025), the service leader made reference to Rabbi Bruce's sermon "Hard Hearts, Soft Hearts" given on 18 January 2006. Since that sermon was the driver for the leader's comments, and no sermon was given last weekend because the congregation was saving the time for group-study after the service ... it seemed fitting to rebroadcast the sermon to which he referred from 19 years ago for another go-around. :-) We hope you find it nourishing. Shalom!
Feb 08, 2025•38 min
We present ourselves to God ... what happens then? How does it unfold? What results?
Jan 25, 2025•22 min
During the rabbi's sabbatical, every 2nd Shabbat of the month is not recorded so the congregation can have after services an on-site "Nosh & Drash" in which the week's Torah section ("Parashat Ha-Shavu'a") is discussed while we eat together. So – this week, in lieu of a recorded sermon from the service, we offer the pilot episode of an experimental podcast Rabbi Cohen and Beth El's social media team recorded in December 2018. We feel the pilot has genuine value for anyone interested or invol...
Jan 11, 2025•35 min
A mental health-care professional gives us a very insightful glimpse into the relational dynamics presented by the Biblical scenario of our patriarch, Joseph - a victim of terrible harms - reacting to seeing genuine repentance and change in his brothers who did him those harms.
Jan 04, 2025•26 min
Hanukkah is Hebrew for "dedication" – and dedication as service to God and to Humankind is role-modeled for us by Messiah Yeshua, who was "The Light of The World" – and urged us as His followers to live as "lights to the world" and to "shine in the darkness."
Dec 28, 2024•10 min
Joseph was an ethically better and exponentially more capable man than his eleven half-brothers; and they hated him so much for it, they conspired to murder him. Yeshua of Nazareth told us, "Blessed are you when people hate and revile you for (your faith in) My Identity's sake (as the true Messiah)." What makes goodness or commitment to the truth lead to being hated?
Dec 21, 2024•19 min
Sermon from streamed service on 7 December, not In-Person Service. That sermon will be podcast next week. Enjoy, and may it all be for shalom!
Dec 07, 2024•24 min
A very personal sermon built around an actual recent experience of a long-prayed prayer suddenly being answered.
Dec 07, 2024•18 min
God, at times, puts us out on the end of a ledge – and then causes the ledge to evaporate under our feet. As we start to fall, with nothing visible between us and the ground below - at some point in the fall, "The Everlasting Arms" of God show up, and we are rescued. What IS this aspect of God-following?
Nov 16, 2024•30 min
A stirring look at the utter disruption of a family's entire status quo, leading to greater self-realization, long-unfulfilling goals – and challenges along the way that boggle the imagination.
Nov 09, 2024•17 min
Since last Saturday morning was Simchat Torah, and no sermon was given in the Shabbat morning service in Manhattan - so we offer Rabbi Bruce Cohen's sermon "in" Congregation Beit Ariel of Cape Town, South Africa - given via video the evening before for Erev Simchat Torah there. We hope you enjoy it! Shalom.
Oct 29, 2024•22 min
In North Carolina last week, people of both political parties, facing Hurricane Helene's recent damages impeding their ability to get to voting stations, became a shining example of what America can be if her citizens decide to be the non-adversarial, right versions of themselves. Let us feast together on the encouragement coming from a great real-life example of many Scriptural precepts about partly-agreeing/partly-disagreeing members of a community working as a team.
Oct 19, 2024•19 min
How Yeshua the Messiah's atonement provided by God is not just "'a' way to God," but "'THE' (exclusive, single, only) way" to God ... given there were countless people who lived and died before His arrival in Israel; and there have always been human beings far out of reach of hearing about, or knowing of the faith of Israel.
Oct 12, 2024•32 min
Handling things of the highest value in ways their value deserves; and avoiding toying with things in life not meant to be toyed with.
Oct 11, 2024•21 min
Shabbat "Shuvah" is the "Sabbath of 'Return'" after Yom Teruah (aka, "Rosh HaShanah") and before Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. Returning to God is taught to us by Messiah Yeshua in the form of the parable of "The Prodigal Son." It is a powerful model of how return from irrational separation into relational joy is enabled by rational and spiritual erasure of ill-founded shame.
Oct 05, 2024•23 min
Creating rightful newness by removing what IS, which has no or lesser merit - and replacing it with what SHOULD BE, having greater merits as to accuracy or truthfulness. Specific example: assaying for merit the system of "trope" - the tradition of singing the Torah scroll's contents –– rather than following the one clear model Scripture gives us (per Isaiah 8:20) of how to run a Torah service. (Nehemiah 8:8).
Oct 03, 2024•24 min
From the Parasha, as to how the Levites became the priesthood. Don Quixote style, they saw things others did not see, and so acted in ways masses of other others did not act. Human history's heroes are such. We explore this idea together.
Sep 28, 2024•27 min
The ceremony of the First-fruits commanded in this parasha has the impact of connecting FORWARD parts of the Jewish journey in God's will with the PREVIOUS legs of the journey. As Yeshua of Nazareth taught, "Others before you have labored, and you have entered into their labors." Healthy connection to the past is important to the present and future. We explore this in the parasha "Ki Tavo" today.
Sep 21, 2024•22 min
