Parashat Pinchas: “She Never Told Her Love” (D’var Torah delivered by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on July 7, 2023) Henry Peach Robinson was a nineteenth-century English photographer who was best known for pioneering the technique of joining multiple negatives or prints to form a single image. His most famous work, “Fading Away,” is a great example […]
Parashat T’tzaveh: Remember to Forget (delivered by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on March 3, 2023) Psychologists, neurologists, and cyberneticians all study memory and forgetfulness. They seek to learn and explain the “how” of these processes–the dynamics. But these processes constitute the substance of spiritual life. We are more familiar with mitzvot about remembering. For example, […]
Parashat Chayyei Sarah: All Years Are Equal (Torah study led by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on November 19, 2022) We do not have a lot of time, but it’s important for us to share words of Torah. So let me speak briefly on today’s Torah reading. The first verse we read today, Genesis 23:1, is […]
Shabbat of Sukkot: Kohelet Through The Lens of Yizkor (Delivered by Student Rabbi on October 17, 2022) Over the course of our lives, the number of people we carry with us grows and grows. Sometimes that number starts when we are very young. Some of us find healing. Some of us don’t. Some people find […]
Yom Kippur Yizkor: Finding Life Again After Tragedy (Delivered by Rabbi Sacks on Wednesday, October 5, 2022) It was an ordinary day. Grandma Suzie had taken Greta, her two-year-old granddaughter, out for a walk in her Upper West Side neighborhood. She babysat at least once a week, and tonight was going to be a sleepover, […]
Coming to Pray These High Holy Days (A text journey & sermon delivered by Rabbi Sacks on Saturday, September 17, 2022) Some years ago Israeli archaeologists were cleaning a wall in the remains of a fourth or fifth century synagogue they had uncovered in Meroth in Upper Galilee. Suddenly a small metal artifact fell onto […]
First Shabbat in Elul: An Accounting of the Soul (delivered by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on September 2, 2022) Author Linda Weltner wrote an interesting essay about her brother Kenneth, who visited her on the East Coast from California. Since Kenneth was spending a month with her, she asked him if he would spend some […]
Shabbat Chazon: Moses’ Lessons As We Head into Tishah B’Av (delivered by Rabbi Sacks on Friday, August 5, 2022) The Torah has a sense of humor. Tomorrow we read from Deuteronomy, the fifth and final book of the Torah. It begins,[1] אֵ֣לֶּה הַדְּבָרִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֨ר דִּבֶּ֤ר מֹשֶׁה֙ אֶל־כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל בְּעֵ֖בֶר הַיַּרְדֵּ֑ן These are the words that Moses […]
Parashat Korach: Moses and Korach, Without and Within (Delivered by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on Friday, July 1, 2022) In this week’s reading, we witness three dramatic power struggles that have national repercussions! Korach, a fellow Levite, leads a struggle against Moses’ religious authority. Datan and Aviram, descendents of Jacob’s first-born Reuben, push back against […]
Seventh Day Passover: Crossing the Red Seas of Life (delivered by Rabbi Sacks on April 22, 2022) Today we read the unforgettable, thrilling episode of the crossing of the Red Sea. The Israelites, in great haste, cast off the chains and shackles of their servitude when Pharaoh, finally, granted Moses permission to take them out […]