Vivian Silver (founder of Women Wage Peace, lifelong Israeli-Canadian peace activist and beloved friend to many in our community), was murdered by Hamas on October 7th. Since then, her son, Yonatan Zeigen, has dedicated his life to realizing her vision of peace. Arab Aramin is a Palestinian peace activist whose sister was killed by an Israeli soldier in 2007. The two are members of the Parents Circle – Families Forum, a grassroots organization of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost im...
Sep 22, 2024•1 hr 10 min
As we prepare for the High Holy Days, what difficult things do you need to say to God? Covenantal relationship must be able to hold it all. The anger and the disappointment, the heartbreak and the rebuke.
Sep 22, 2024•15 min
We say Psalm 27 100 times in the High Holy day season. Why?
Sep 15, 2024•18 min
Six beloved hostages were executed in a tunnel beneath Rafah, leaving behind broken-hearted loved ones and a shattered nation. We must be clear about who is responsible.
Sep 08, 2024•25 min
At this time of year in our Jewish calendar, we are in a season of second chances. We are reading Moshe's retelling of the people's journey through the desert in Deuteronomy, and we are about to enter into the month of Elul, the month of spiritual preparation for the High Holy Days. It is also the moment when Moshe went back up the mountain to get the second set of tablets - the ultimate story of second chances. We are about to start our own month of reflection and repair - let's see what we can...
Sep 01, 2024•13 min
Water is not only a building block of life, but also of culture. How we receive water shapes our consciousness and has the potential to remind us of the ultimate truth of our existence: we are always, and inevitably, dependent.
Aug 26, 2024•16 min
Source Sheet: https://ikar.app.box.com/s/rtmn38bq994apeql50rea60v1irkvvsg An extraordinary rabbinic story re-imagines the final conversation between Moses and God, exploring core questions foundational to the human experience. What happens in the moment of death? And, what peace can be found when learning to let go?
Aug 18, 2024•17 min
Some years, the mourning and reflection of Tisha b’Av can feel performative. This year, it will be deeply personal. Even as we approach the abyss, we must remember the redemptive vision planted deep within our souls. Parashat Devarim, Shabbat Hazon -- 5784
Aug 12, 2024•19 min
Sermon from 8.3.2024 / Matot-Masei 5784
Aug 05, 2024•16 min
This week we find ourselves freed from some of the defeatism and despair that was taking root these last weeks and months. And now, with a bit of renewed hope, we have so much work to do. In the parsha we see a model of a collective that includes everyone and centers marginalized and unexpected groups. This moment demands we show up, no matter what that looks like. Find a way in - this fight will take all of us.
Jul 28, 2024•17 min
The sense of defeatism, all too present after the events in this country over the last week, is the most dangerous myth threatening our future right now. To throw up our hands and surrender to the myth of inevitability is to relinquish the most precious gift given to humanity: our capacity to change the world around us. We can be scared without being resigned. We can be exhausted without being fatalistic. We can be discouraged but nonetheless courageous.
Jul 21, 2024•14 min
When we roll open the sacred Torah, what we see is monochrome. Pale parchment, dark ink, black, and white. Which are the only colors the human being can see when we are born. If today's parsha had a color, it would be red. Click here to see the painting Hope, by George Frederick Watts, painted in 1886: https://www.wikiart.org/en/george-frederick-watts/hope-1886
Jul 14, 2024•18 min
We are living in a world that is broken and painful. It is a moment to turn towards the angels within us and around us in order to find our way through.
Jun 30, 2024•17 min
Our family is broken. Please, God, help us heal.
Jun 24, 2024•29 min
Every ounce of our energy must advance a vision of peace. There is no other way to rebuild a society in ruins. Our God, and God of our ancestors. Our God, and God of our descendants. Grant us peace.
Jun 16, 2024•12 min
A special discussion with author Mickey Bergman about his book, In the Shadows: True Stories of High-Stakes Negotiations to Free Americans Captured Abroad.
Jun 11, 2024•56 min
A warning, from our dark and pained past: remember, even when confronted by external enemies, it is the extremism in our own Jewish community that poses the most potent threat to our survival. We are at an inflection point: will we again fall prey to the zealots?
Jun 09, 2024•24 min
Source Sheet https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/568347?lang=bi Full class: https://youtu.be/xCIiAkZDSGQ
May 31, 2024•40 min
A tribute to some of the many moments with this beautiful community that have changed me over the past 16 years.
May 27, 2024•18 min
Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/566742?lang=bi Watch the Full Class: https://youtu.be/FRhY5TSlsqo
May 24, 2024•39 min
Source Sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/404083?lang=biWatch the Full Class: https://youtu.be/YrP-HnwjiNc
May 20, 2024•40 min
“It is not a tragedy to me that I'm living in a wheelchair. Disability only becomes a tragedy when society fails to provide the things we need to lead our lives, such as job opportunities or barrier-free buildings…” - Judy Heumann, of blessed memory.
May 19, 2024•18 min
Weekly Parsha Study with Rabbi David Kasher Full unedited class: https://youtu.be/tQGKQYEjVKA Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/563716?lang=bi
May 13, 2024•41 min
Holiness is recognizing that what looks like the whole story is always, necessarily, only part of the story. It's the stretch that moves us beyond what we know and what we’ve seen and into what we can imagine and dream.
May 13, 2024•16 min
Weekly Parsha Study with Rabbi David Kasher from 5.2.2024. Full unedited class: https://youtu.be/O-gaUHURJBA Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/562111?lang=bi
May 05, 2024•49 min
With Auschwitz Survivor Ella Mandel and Amit, Zeve, and Oren Zilberstein, Jason Neidleman, and Alexia Gyorody, the second, third, and fourth generation of family members who both survived and perished in the Shoah. As living survivor numbers dwindle, we will explore together how we can understand and hold their experiences in ways that co-create a more just, humane and dignified future for one another and our world. Co-produced by Peanut Productions. Videos by The Righteous Conversations Project...
May 05, 2024•59 min
We must have zero tolerance for violent and racist rhetoric in our Jewish community. We must support the birth of a new mixed multitude: those who reject extremism, who reject the violent, reductive idea that Palestinians and Jews must be eternal enemies. That one’s victory necessitates another’s victimhood, or even worse: elimination. This mixed multitude is made of people who know that we do not undermine our own sorrow or betray our own people when we see one another, those who understand tha...
May 05, 2024•27 min
The protest movement has unleashed a virulent and dangerous antisemitism that endangers Jews, threatens democracy, and undermines the fight for justice and liberation for Palestinians. We must do better. What we need is a movement fueled by empathy and moral imagination. One that recognizes that both peoples have suffered terribly. That neither is leaving. That a just future is possible for everyone.
Apr 28, 2024•24 min
Source sheet: https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/558262?lang=bi
Apr 22, 2024•47 min
The free person, awake and humble, can acknowledge the truth that emerges from various even contradictory perspectives. This is not a sign of weakness, but of spiritual liberation. Perhaps that the very essence of freedom is growing in spaciousness.
Apr 21, 2024•18 min
