Category: Uncategorized
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Parasha Beraisheet
Twenty Feet from Stardom This past Monday I saw a movie called “Twenty Feet from Stardom”. It focuses on the careers of a number of African American women – Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fisher, Tata Vega and Judith Hill, to name a few – who provided the background voices to the likes of Mick…
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Yom Kippur Morning 5774
Second Chances Members of our congregation are wonderful when it comes to asking questions. Some of my best sermons, I think, are based on questions that congregants ask me. I would venture to say that even the most inquisitive minds in our congregation have never even thought to ask the question I am about to…
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Kol Nidre 5774
This Day of Judgment A few weeks ago, a young man, Michael Brandon Hill, walked armed into the McNair Elementary School in Georgia and barricaded himself into a small office, and threatened a massacre. The only person standing between him and another Sandy Hook was the school bookkeeper, Antoinette Tuff. Perhaps you heard the riveting,…
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Rosh Hashana Day 1 Sermon
The Kittel The story is told that Elijah the prophet once showed up to a wedding dressed as a beggar. “Please sir,” he asked the father of the bride, “May I come in and have a bite to eat.” Seeing this disheveled man standing before him, the father of the bride ordered to leave –…
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Rosh Hashanah Evening 5774/2013
A Good Year Good evening. Once again, on behalf of the Cantor and myself, I want to welcome you to our High Holiday services. Some of us have been together greeting the New Year for some time now – others have joined us this year for the very first time. To all of you, I…
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Parashat Nitzavim-Vayelekh
The Songs of our Lives It was really an extraordinary sight!!! A totally unexpected, amazing and startling scene!! During our congregational trip to Israel this summer, we visited Masada, King Herod’s mountain fortress in the Judean desert, the site of the last stand of the Zealots against the Roman Legions in 72 CE. Our group…
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Parasha Ki Tavo
Regaining our Sense of Purpose The year was 1936. The Olympics were being held in Germany, and two Jewish men, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, were in Berlin to compete as part of the US Track and Field Team. Glickman was eighteen years old at the time, and scheduled to complete on the 4×100 meter…
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Parasha Ki Tetze
Enlarging our Tent Last week I attended a fascinating Webinar hosted by an organization called “Jumpstart.” This was a webinar held exclusively for rabbis across the United States to share the findings of a comprehensive survey done this past year on Jewish giving to charitable causes. Previous surveys have found that people in the United…
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Parasha Shofetim
We The People For me, one of the most significant things about our first congregational trip to Israel this June was seeing Israel through fresh, bright and clear eyes. Although I have traveled to Israel many times by now, there is, of course much I have not seen. Yet it was quite amazing to me…
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Parasha Re-eh
Justice and Trayvon Martin This summer I had the opportunity to do some readings that I had put off for too long. One of these readings was a book entitled The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, writes about one of the great untold stories of the twentieth…
Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph 