Recent Sermons

Yizkor 5786
October 2, 2025
Congregation B’nai Jacob

As we prepare to say yizkor today, I want to begin by acknowledging that all of us are sitting here with broken hearts. Many of us have suffered personal losses this year, and I will speak about that in a few moments, but I want to begin with our...Read more...

This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared

Rosh Hashanah, Day 2 5786
September 24, 2025
Congregation B’nai Jacob

Although I have often thought about doing this book, This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared, for the Big Read, I have always hesitated...Read more...

Yom Kippur Sermon from B'nai Jacob on Vimeo.

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city...Read more...

Rosh Hashana Day 2 Sermon from B'nai Jacob on Vimeo.

Before I begin to speak about this year’s Big Read, I want to step back and take a wider view of my High Holiday sermons this year. Yesterday I spoke about the importance of community, specifically Jewish community and synagogue community as a source of resilience. On Kol Nidre night I will speak about community as a lynchpin of democracy. My sermons today...Read more...

Because we had a holiday, because we have had a couple lovely bnai mitzvah, I haven’t talked to you about current events recently. Truly, that has been a blessing, and even this morning, when we have a beautiful aufruf, when we read one of the most important Torah readings of the year, I am reluctant to speak of hard things, especially when we could discuss loving your neighbor and loving the stranger. And yet I feel I...Read more...