Divrei Torah/Torah Talks

These divrei torah have been delivered on High Holydays and on other occasions.

Rosh Hashanah I 5776

PDF:  RH1 Talk 5776-Asking for Fear.pdf

Last year, I cut out of the paper a graphic op-ed called “100 Years of Fears,” by Phillip Niemeyer.  In it, he puts a little graphic and a heading for the major cultural fear of each year.  Here are a few of what he includes:

1915 - U-Boats
1921 - Reds
1924 - Immigrants
1934 - Hunger
1943 -...Read more...

Kol Nidre 5776

PDF: Aleynu - Praise Be! - KN 5776.pdf

In a few moments, we will recite the “Aleynu.” The prayer begins, “Aleynu l’shabe’ach la’adon hakol—“It is up to us to praise Adon HaKol” - ‘the Master of All’ – a poetic way of referring to the Power of life itself, the organizing force behind the cosmos.

The next line is intended to parallel the...Read more...

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5775

PDF: Uncertainty, Boredom and Patience: Entering the New Year

Advice to Myself

Louise Erdich

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
Don’t patch anything....Read more...

Kol Nidre 5775

PDF: Overcoming Anger - Kol Nidre 5775

We are approaching the Selichot prayers, that part of the Kol Nidre service where we have an opportunity to reflect on those ways in which we have “missed the mark,” done things that have hurt ourselves and others. For the next 24 hours, we have an opportunity to reflect on this, to take to heart the ways in which we can do better.

In a few minutes we...Read more...

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5774

PDF: The Wonder of Not Knowing 

I wanted to share with you a piece that appeared in the Boston Globe a few years ago, by Joan Wickersham.  It’s called “Too Much Information”:

AT A recent dinner with friends, someone was telling a story about taking her teenage kids to New York, where they’d stumbled into a store so cool that she hadn’t been...Read more...

Yom Kippur 5774

PDF:   Israel: Telling a New Story

We have come a long way since the rituals described in our Torah portion today–a long way since Yom Kippur was focused on the Temple, on animal sacrifice and the central figure of the High Priest.  At the center of the Biblical Yom Kippur were rituals of purification, for the Temple itself, for the High priest and his family, and for the entire...Read more...

Rosh Hashanah I 5774

PDF:  A Door Closes, A Door Opens: Exits into the New Year

I wonder, sometimes, why these stories of Abraham and his family were chosen as the Rosh Hashanah Torah reading—instead of reading, say, about the Creation of the world—which  we add as an alternative maftir reading.  One answer, perhaps, is the theme of birth and new beginnings that we find in today’s...Read more...

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5774

PDF:  The Wonder of Not Knowing

I wanted to share with you a piece that appeared in the Boston Globe a few years ago, by Joan Wickersham.  It’s called “Too Much Information”:

AT A recent dinner with friends, someone was telling a story about taking her teenage kids to New York, where they’d stumbled into a store so cool that she hadn’t been...Read more...

Yom Kippur 5773

PDF:  YK Talk 5773 - Who Will Live.pdf

Rabbi Alan Lew, the wonderful writer and teacher, has noted that the ten days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur are like a compressed voyage from birth to death.  Rosh Hashanah celebrates birth - the creation of the world, the birth of humanity - and Yom  Kippur is the day we “rehearse” our own death - by wearing white, like the shroud we’ll...Read more...

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5772

PDF:  5772-erev-rh-the-place-where-we%27re-perfect.pdf

As many of you know, over this past year we had a special Torah of Chesed campaign focused on the inclusion of children with special needs and their families in the life of our community. There is still much work to be done in this arena, but we had a good year in which we did some important learning together, and began to make some...Read more...

Kol Nidre 5772

PDF: 5772-kol-nidre-a-soul-accounting.pdf

Before we begin the signature prayers of Yom Kippur, the Selichot, prayers for forgiveness, I wanted to share a few thoughts with you.

It may have been that I had a somewhat over-active imagination as a young person. Or an odd way of making myself feel better. Whatever it was, when I was a kid I would sometimes imagine my death-bed scene. In this...Read more...

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5771

PDF:  an-invitation-to-prayer-erev-rh-5771.pdf

There are many things that I love about Rosh Hashanah and about the High Holydays in general. I love that our Jewish new year begins just as the season is beginning to change, as summer gives way to fall; the crispness in the air is Nature’s signal to me to wake up, to think about where I am in my life and where I want...Read more...

Kol Nidre 5771

PDF: two-pockets-kol-nidre-5771.pdf

I’d like to share with you a Hasidic teaching that I talked about 11 years ago on Yom Kippur (just in case any of you have really good memories). I’ve decided that after 10 years I’m allowed to recycle a teaching! It’s good environmental practice, so that we don’t have an overflow of rabbinic words clogging up the atmosphere.

But seriously, it’s a...Read more...

Pesach 5770

PDF: God%20and%20Liberation.pdf

The question: How do we understand God’s role in our master narrative of liberation, the Exodus story? In the traditional haggadah, there is no mention of Moses – the emphasis is on God’s miraculous redemptive power. In both the Reconstructionist and many other non-traditional haggadot, we have the opposite: Moses, Miriam, the midwives, and the Israelites are placed front...Read more...

Rosh Hashanah I 5770

PDF: RH1%20Talk-Sarah%20and%20Hannah.pdf

The story of our matriarch, Sarah, and the story of Hannah from the book of Samuel are an interesting pair of stories to have associated with the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Both of these texts recount the story of a woman who has longed for a child and finally gives birth. In the Biblical idiom, each woman is “remembered” by God after a long period of...Read more...