This sermon explores facing how often we humans "just want to be like everyone else" around us; and how we often misjudge what we call "what everyone else has." We also see how deeply the Prophet Samuel "got it." He was accurately onboard with God's "Abraham Project," and could not be deterred, even by the entire nation rejecting God's kingship in favor of a fallible human king. Finally, the Israeli song, "LaMidbar" ("In The Desert") informs our understanding of these Two Testament truths about ...
Jun 25, 2022•36 min
Rabbi Bruce is back from sabbatical, and again offering new, original sermons to us. This week, from the middle of the Parasha, "Beha'alotecha" - a deep-dive into the actual experience the Exodus Generation had learning to God-follow, by having their location totally dependent on if and when "The Pillar of Fire/Cloud" moved or stayed put. And - how it applies to each of us, here and now.
Jun 11, 2022•21 min
Due to the mitzvah of The Seder, we will not be holding Erev Shabbat Services tonight 15 April 2022. However, there will be 90 consecutive minutes of Two-Testament Jewish music broadcast during the service time on FacebookLIVE and YouTUBE, if you'd like that kind background for your in-home observances. Enjoy!
Apr 15, 2022•1 min
Until the Rabbi begins delivering new sermons/podcasts on May 6th, your synagogue's iTunes library, our website library, and our huge " Archive.Org " treasury of over 500 Beth El Sermons (under the "Learn With Us" top menu at www.bethelnyc.org ) ––– all offer you a chance to revisit favorite past sermons of yours, or listen to ones you may have missed. We cherish the place you have given us in your listening habits - and look forward to a new season sharing with you starting on Shabbat "Emor" in...
Feb 04, 2022•2 min
Congregation Beth El of Manhattan, a Conservative Synagogue of Two-Testament Judaism in Manhattan's Upper East Side since 1993. Parshat Yitro this week gives us a range of obligations – from can or may through could and should into must. We examine what the path of the God-follower / Truth-follower is in a world in which people can, at times, alter even the meaning of words to give themselves leeway to harm or defraud their fellow-humanbeings. May Heaven give us the light we need to “put aside l...
Jan 21, 2022•29 min
Parsha Bo, the first study of 2022 – is all about freedom. “Remember the day you left the house of slavery!” We are told in Exodus 13 – near the end of the parasha. Our rabbi delves into the personal experience of being set free from any kind of slavery, because “by what a person is overcome, by that (s)he is enslaved.” (2Peter 2:19) But, “If the Son shall make you free, you will be free indeed!” (John 8:36) Habits or patterns that “take control” from you – and you are no longer “in the driver’s...
Jan 07, 2022•43 min
Parsha for the last week of 2021: “Shemot” (Torah: Exodus 1:1-6:1 Haftarah: Isaiah 27:6 - 28:13; 29:22 - 29:23) – and the sermon title is ... or, “Game-Changing Truths Onto Your Radar.” With huge numbers throughout the world observing the Messiah’s birth ... what are we as Jews to do with the stunningly clear portraits in Scripture and Talmud about the “Messiah son of Joseph, who will be slain?” There is such clear understanding among our Sages of why He would come, when He would arrive, what He...
Dec 24, 2021•27 min
This week’s parasha is “VaYigash” – and the sermon has the title, “The Essence Of Healthy Prayer.” Rabbi Bruce delves into “drawing near” to God, and what makes sound prayer different than spiritistic activities like use of talismans and applying esoteric “special knowledge” as is done in Kabbalah. Enjoy “the simplicity of devotion” as Rav Saul of Tarshish taught it in 2Corinthians 11:3.
Dec 10, 2021•23 min
Hanukkah is the perfect opportunity to contemplate "the power of one." An old man in a backwater town, through his clarity and courage inspired his entire generation to defeat the greatest military power on earth, leading to over a century of Jewish self-government. The right person in the right place at the right time - can change the world. Am Yisrael Chai! And Happy Hanukkah!
Dec 03, 2021•19 min
This week’s parasha is “VaYeshev.” In it, we are shown how the all-foreseeing God directly, pro-actively stirs up trouble between people and nations in order to foment His objectives in human society. God tells us in Isaiah 54:16, “I, Myself created the smith who blows the fire of the coals (heats things up) I created the destroyer (intentionally) to ruin!” God claims SOLE ownership of all events in human experience, having deliberately created even the irritants intentionally to do what they do...
Nov 26, 2021•26 min
This week’s parasha is “VaYishlakh” – “And He Sent Out” – and the Haftarah from the itty-bitty 1-chapter book of Obadiah, we see see spiritual plutonium-strength display of the Deuteronomy 18 standard for the authority of the Scriptures: such specific long-range prophecy so accurate it is almost scary to read it. The prophet predicts when Israel returns from scattering across the world, exactly where in Israel certain populations will settle – abnd it is not the region of our land from which the...
Nov 19, 2021•27 min
This week’s parasha is “VaYetzeh” – “And He Went Out” – and we continue to see the soft under-belly of the Patriarchal Era ... the under-theme of limitation and temporality soaking every moment we read about. The sermon this week is “Life’s Two Fake-Outs” – dealing with the ways we distract ourselves from the reality about which God teaches us so clearly: 2 Cor. 4:7 – "we have this (spiritual) treasure in earthen (clay) vessels.” And why it is this way.
Nov 12, 2021•26 min
Sermon was given via the ZOOM teleconference app "in" Congregation Beit Ariel of Cape Town, South Africa - and then rebroadcast as the Sermon for the Manhattan Erev Shabbat Service 7 hours later. This week’s parasha is “Toledot” – “Generations” – and we see the full range of human glory and weakness expressed in one family: ours! Nature and Nurture, Favoritism and Faith, Lion-heart and Lily-liver ... the sermon this week is aptly entitled “The Reality Of Duality.” How God engages with our flaws ...
Nov 05, 2021•35 min
"Whatever a person has decided is God's will, it should be done without grudging or complaining," the Scriptures teach us. So – does what we NOW do, and what we NOW have bring us genuine joy without being yet perfect? Or - are "our eyes always on the ends of the earth" and is "the grass always greener elsewhere?" This sermon offers positive tools for assessing our personal joy-index, and what joy, or lack of it, teaches us.
Oct 29, 2021•21 min
This week’s parasha “VaYera” yields two themes and a sermon entitled “Two Comforts: Human Integrity & Divine Ubiquity” – both equally present and nourishing – so our Rabbi shared both. Also - quite unusually for our synagogue, the Rabbi shared a Christian music video with top tier musician Dolly Parton as a duet partner to Zach Williams, showing from “the other side of Two Testament culture how these truths make their way into our experience. The Video can be found on YouTUBE: “There Was Jes...
Oct 22, 2021•22 min
Parshat "Lecha Lecha" – "Get Yourself Moving" – how Golda Meir turned a room full of totally uninterested observers into zealous co-laborers when their choices in that room that night might decide whether the new born State of Israel would live or die: and the Biblical precepts that apply.
Oct 15, 2021•35 min
The story of Noakh is perhaps the clearest and best known container of the idea of the existence of limits to God’s grace. We learn how to set healthy boundaries, and we see this week how often in Scripture God portrays this aspect of “shalom” (wholeness, not merely the absence of conflict) for us.
Oct 08, 2021•29 min
Rabbi Bruce brings his Comparative Literature chops to bear on one of the most-often misread and misapplied sections of Scripture used by God-Dodgers as an excuse to avoid The Scripture, claiming they are "obviously just myths, and untrue because they say the entire universe was created in 6 earth days 6,000 years ago." This Sermon is a GREAT "sharing tool" for anyone who has offered you the "mere mythology" rebuttal.
Oct 01, 2021•25 min
On Erev Shabbat Hol HaMoed during Sukkot - a preparatory jaunt into the joy of being able to proclaim, "We Have A Torah!" (Yesh lanu Torah!). Contrasting God's laws with religious law erupting from the human mind, or what the New Testament calls, "doctrines from unclean spiritual sources." May the joy of having God's Torah (Teaching/Law) abound! Hag Sameakh!
Sep 24, 2021•24 min
The entire holiday of Sukkot emphasizes the transience of life - yet, we are commanded to rejoice for 7 straight days. How does one GENUINELY rejoice in ALL seasons, full and spare and everything in-between. There "a secret" to this Rav Saul tells us in the New Testament, "I have learned." Let's learn this precious secret also!
Sep 20, 2021•15 min
Given on "Shabbat Shuvah" 2021 – Beth El of Manhattan is the only synagogue of Two Testament Judaism having been in Manhattan before, during, and after "9/11" occurred. We lived and worked and ministered here. In the ensuring decade, ours was the only synagogue of any kind in all 5 New York Boroughs targeted for direct Islamic Terror threats: and it happened to us twice! Our story should be heard: and here, in this sermon, twenty years after – it is. May it be all for shalom.
Sep 10, 2021•31 min
RabbI Bruce Cohen, invited to share the Rosh Hashanah Sermon for Beit Ariel of Cape Town with which he has been involved as a 'shaliakh' since 1986 – a heartfelt outpouring of encouragement and exhortation to pour ourselves into "The Return" – the long-foretold thing God is doing with us in our era, scattered throughout the world, but pulled by God toward returning to our God, our Messiah and our national identity/Homeland.
Sep 06, 2021•35 min
פרשת נִצָּבִים Nitzavim, "we are standing here" before God to enter into covenant with Him ... or are we? Do we "tell" God what we are willing to do, and for how long? How do we leave His rightful Kingship over our lives in the hands of our rightful King?
Sep 03, 2021•31 min
פרשת כִּי־תֵצֵא In this parasha, we see God show compassion on us by giving us commandments which, if heeded, can prevent us from giving away our lives on impulse. It is human nature to be drawn to diverse genetic traits in mates – diversity helps us avoid genetic inbreeding are repeats of genetic errors. This good aspect of our instincts renders us vulnerable to being overwhelmed by an exotic, foreign exterior. In this parasha, we see a pattern for making sure whom we think we love, we actually...
Aug 20, 2021•38 min
בּוֹנֵ֣ה יְרוּשָׁלִַ֣ם יְהוָ֑ה נִדְחֵ֖י יִשְׂרָאֵ֣ל יְכַנֵּֽס׃ "The LORD builds up Jerusalem; He regathers the outcasts of Israel." Much of the world has no idea what Israel is: they view it through the narrow lens of their own religious predispositions. This teaching from our weekly midweek "TnT" (Torah & Tefilah" - Teaching & Prayer) Meeting on 11 August 2021 after our Rabbi returned from 17 days in Israel, is a real eye-opener as to what God is doing ... and how we can seek and find o...
Aug 11, 2021•24 min
פרשת רְאֵה What happens if we accept or decline God's invitation? Yeshua the Messiah taught us, "When invited by the Master, some began to make excuses, and for those reasons said to The Master, 'Please consider me excused.'" Now, the place is empty God Almighty intended to be yours since before time, itself, existed. What happens now?
Aug 09, 2021•26 min
On 9th of Av in the Jewish lunar calendar, both the 1st and 2nd Temples were destroyed on the same date: the 1st in 586 bce and nearly 700 years later, the 2nd in 70 ce. The Sages of Israel attribute God's choice to erase our Temples and scatter our nation primarily due to "seenát ḥeenám" (baseless hatred). This Shabbat, we seek to understand "baseless" as a description of truth being lost and replaced by contrived and inaccurate "narratives." We hope to learn from our history, so we do not repe...
Jul 16, 2021•25 min
The story of the reaction of Pinchas reveals to us how we can be in lock-step with God and how that condition manifests in action! INCLUDED BONUS: a brief teaching on "A Tale of Two Spellings," resolving the movement-wide issue of "Yeshua" vs. "Y'shua" – is there a genuinely, clearly correct first-name spelling of The Messiah? Happily, the answer is, "Yes." A VIDEO of the "Tale of Two Spellings" (not the entire sermon) is provided, because the teaching on Hebrew vowels has important Visual Aids ...
Jul 02, 2021•32 min
Bil'am heard and knew the will of God – and connived to do otherwise. King Saul did the same, and was told, "because you have rejected the word of The Lord, God has rejected you from being king." Being religious, but "rejecting the Word of The Lord" is how Bil'am and King Saul met their fates we all hope to avoid. So, this week, let's learn from their "anti-models" – and strengthen our relationship with our Father in Heaven.
Jun 25, 2021•28 min
The song entitled, "Cover Me In Sunshine" by contemporary songstress, "Pink" on her album "All I Know So Far" was the inspiration for this attempt to get to the core of what every heart expects from God – how we handle "the real world" as we grow past youthful fantasies of life as a kind of Disneyworld-on-Earth – and how evildoing often arises from people simply trying to get enough of a slice of the pie to feel some measure of security and dignity for themselves, their dear ones, or the "crew" ...
Jun 18, 2021•26 min
