On Power, Hope, and Change

A Sermon for Rosh Hashanah, 5772 Rabbi Barbara Penzner   I’d like to start by talking about the movies. Who here has seen “Moneyball”? Who is planning to see it? Good, that means that you may have some idea about the movie. It’s the story of Billy Beane, general manager of the 2002 Oakland Athletics....
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Kindness in the Days of the Judges

When the book of Ruth is read each Shavuot, I sometimes have a hard time relating to the idyllic world that the book describes. Sure, Boaz is such an upstanding guy; who wouldn’t want to fall in love with him? Ruth herself is an amazing role model, the Jew-by-choice who becomes the great-grandmother of King...
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Listening for God

Only Moses, suggests the Ma’or VaShemesh, can imagine a world beyond that which he has experienced. To truly hear God, accordingly, is to recognize that the world as we know it is contingent: it does not have to be as it is.
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Tazria: Fear of Impurity

The words we speak may soothe our spiritual and emotional wounds when spoken in kindness, but speech has the potential to “sicken” us, as individuals and as a society when spoken in malice.
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Kernels of Inspiration for the Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe) 2022

Five chaverim share thoughts on a social-justice-themed sermon they might give in the upcoming High Holiday season. We hope that their insights will move your intellectual gears as you prepare to deliver sacred messages to your community.  Each chaver will share a topic, the text they are basing their sermon around, and the takeaway they...
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Dispossession in our text and in our world

Jewish stars spray-painted by settlers onto the deserted shops left by Palestinians after they were expelled from Shuhada Street. Bullet holes shot by settlers into the water tanks of Palestinians, who already have erratic and dramatically insufficient water supplies.  The palimpsest of “Free Palestine” where settlers have spray painted bold blue stars over the green...
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Dreaming the World Into Being

Tuning into the news these days can feel like we’re trapped in a bad dream. The rollback of protections for the most vulnerable, the closing of our shores to refugees, the use of xenophobic, misogynistic, Anti-Semitic, homophobic speech by those in power and the resulting violence this has incited (to name just a few of...
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“Get Out of the Ark!”

We can imagine how miserable it was for Noah, his wife Naamah, and their whole family, spending nearly a year in the ark, filled with pairs of every animal and bird species – let alone seven pairs of the kosher animals! Yet, it seems that somehow Noah was hesitant to leave the ark. He sends...
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