Under the dinner table, my hands fidgeted with a clean napkin. Folding it, twisting it, turning it every which way. Above the table, conversation flowed, another family dinner. Until someone noticed something. I can't tell you who pointed it out first, but suddenly my brothers and I realized we were all doing the same thing to our napkins. We looked at each other and laughed. We had watched my dad do this at nearly every meal our entire lives. Somehow, without ever deciding, our hands had learned. It made me wonder how many other things we carry around without realizing where we learned them. How many of the ways we speak, the ways we react, the things we notice or don't notice, we practiced long before we ever chose them. Judaism itself is something we practice. Not quite like a doctor who practices medicine- a profession that you eventually master....

“Did my parents tell you my favorite food used to be stone crab?” They had not. But they had told me the important part. Sometime after October 7, she decided she wanted to start keeping kosher. She was only nine years old. So I asked her why. Of everything she might have reached for after October 7, why kashrut? She looked at me as though I had made a very simple question unnecessarily complicated. “To connect to the hostages.” She knew exactly what she was reaching for.  I’m not sure I ever did.  When I was in rabbinical school, I decided I wanted to keep kosher. I thought it mattered to try it seriously, not only to study the laws but to live inside them for a while. And for a time, I did. Eventually I stopped. Partly because it was inconvenient. Eating out was harder. Traveling was harder. Ordinary...

Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova!  One of my favorite moments in this sanctuary is Friday night, when I ask you to turn to the people around you and wish each other Shabbat Shalom.  Let's do it now. Turn to your left. Turn to your right. Turn around if you have to. Just find someone and wish them a shana tova. And if you're joining us on the livestream – wave at the screen. I love that.  A stranger reaching across an aisle. A hand extended. A hello from an old friend. That's how community begins: we turn toward one another.  Some of you probably did a smaller version of this on your way this morning— in the lobby, on the stairs, finding your seat.  It went something like this:  "How are you?"  "Fine. How are you?"  We say it without even thinking. Almost more of a reflex than a conversation....

Remember the last time you were really afraid? Heart racing. Hands shaking. Chest heavy. Mind already three steps down the worst possible path.  Some fears don't stay in our heads. They live in our bodies. And fear has been running more of our lives, and more of this country, than we are willing to admit.  I once worked on a mental health helpline. Again and again, during my four-hour shifts, I heard this question: "Am I going to be okay?"  Individuals in a mental health crisis would ask me — searching for assurance, sometimes between long silences, sometimes through tears until they got the words out. Spouses and parents would ask it too, is my loved one going to be the same? "Am I going to be okay?"  I never really knew how to answer it. "You're not alone," I'd say, and I'd pass along resources — support groups, books,...

  The year is 1945: Bess Myerson, daughter of Russian immigrants from the Bronx, becomes the first, and to this day, the only, Jewish woman to be crowned Miss America.  Hank Greenberg, the baseball star who once refused to play on Yom Kippur, hits a ninth-inning grand slam that sent the Detroit Tigers to the World Series.  Two years later the film Gentleman’s Agreement, which exposed lingering antisemitism, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture.  Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow, and Norman Mailer sit on bookshelves nationwide Senator Abraham Ribicoff brings a Jewish voice to congress.  This was the beginning of the golden age of Jewish life in America.  The era right after World War II was a time when Jews achieved economic security, political acceptance, and communal strength beyond what had been known in centuries. From the 1940s until recent years, this era is described as feeling like a “bear...

“How are you?” It’s such a simple question. But these days, it feels impossible to answer. Every time I’m asked, I take a deep breath, because whatever I answer, feels dishonest. Fine, I'm holding up, ok…all things considered. But the truth is — the real answer — is I am not fine. Everything feels heavy. Overwhelming. Our country and our world feel fragile.Every day brings headlines that make me wonder: what crisis has deepened, what violence has spread, what truth has been shaken, what new level of uncertainty must I now sit with?  I don’t need to give you the headlines, or ramble off every crisis that is plaguing us right now – they are running through my mind, and I’m guessing yours, too. Every minute of every day, I am living the headlines and I know I’m not the only one. I’ve heard from so many of you, from...

I am exhausted, and if I’m being honest, I don't think I’m the only one. This past year has brought a litany of unfamiliar experiences and emotions.  This year, we’ve had to wrestle with questions like - Where do I fit in? And - what does it mean to live as a Jew, to be part of a local and global community, to be part of a peoplehood and also part of a modern society where we are an ethnic and religious minority?  Perhaps some of us are perfectly comfortable, we do not feel so different from anyone else around us. For some of us, this has been a persistent feeling throughout our lives - antisemitism, hate, feeling like we are on the outside, like we are other. For many of us here, this is a new reality that we have had to grapple with over the past year. Growing...

“If we just sat here, all of us, and cried together today, that might be the most eloquent response to the year we’ve just lived through.” These are the words that Rabbi Rachel Timoner opened with on Rosh Hashanah morning five years ago.  I don’t know about you, but the anticipation leading up to these High Holy Days have felt different than ever before. This year was filled with so much communal grief for the lives of all of the victims of the horrific pogrom of October 7. So much grief for the thousands of innocent victims of the war that began on October 8. This year has been filled with so much fear as Antisemitism continued to rise and then rise again to the surface and explode in our faces, here in America. This year, I prayed and prayed, as did so many of us – that all of...