Parashat K’doshim: The Holiness Mirror delivered by Student Rabbi Maayan Lev on Saturday, May 7, 2022   We just finished reading this week’s Torah portion, K’doshim. K’doshim is about holiness. Its passages form the core of what is referred to as the Holiness Code. K’doshim begins, “You shall be holy, for I, HaShem your G!d, […]

EIGHTH-DAY PASSOVER YIZKOR: Shirah Chadasha–New Songs (presented by Rabbi Sacks on April 23, 2022) We just chanted a selection from the Song of Songs. We read:  Arise my darling, my fair one, come away! For now the winter is past…the blossoms have appeared in the land, the song of the turtledove is heard in our […]

The One Who Redeems Our Children[1] (Study led by Rabbi Sacks on Shabbat, the first morning of Passover, April 16, 2022)   At our Passover seder, we use a Haggadah. The word Haggadah means “a telling.” But whose story do we tell on Passover? One obvious answer: Our people’s. We might also think: our own. […]

Parashat Tzav: Telling It Like It Is: A Haftarah Study on Jeremiah 7-8 (led by Student Rabbi Maayan Lev on March 19, 2022)  This week’s Haftarah selection comes from the Prophet Jeremiah (7:21-8:3, and 9:22-23). It is a lecture that he gives to the Israelites shortly before the destruction of the First Temple. The people […]

Parashat Pikudei: The Holy Vessels in the Temple and Within Us (Haftarah Study led by Rabbi Sacks on March 5, 2022) Today we read the haftarah that Sephardic Jews read for this week’s portion, Pikudei, from I Kings 7:40-50. As it happens, Ashkenazic Jews read the same passage as the haftarah from last week’s portion, […]

Selections from Parashat Ki Tisa: Equality, Sin, and Atonement A Torah study led by Maayan Lev on February 19, 2022) Because we did not have a Torah scroll for our online services this Shabbat weekend, there was a need to temporarily depart from the usual format of our Torah service. I used that need to […]

Haftarah for Lech L’cha 5782/2021 – Torah Study Shabbat Torah Discussion with Rabbi Sacks (given on October 16, 2021)   Once again, yasher ko-ach to Maayan on his chanting of today’s haftarah. In the haftarah, Second Isaiah wants us to see ourselves as a people who live and act in the world as Abraham lived […]

Yizkor Sermon for Sh’mini Atzeret: “Tattered Shoes” (delivered on September 28, 2021) We are completing Sukkot, one of our shalosh regalim, our pilgrimage holidays. Shalosh regalim literally means “three feet,” reminding us that since ancient days, three times a year, on Sukkot, Pesach and Shavuot, pilgrims would make a journey to the holy city. The […]

The Akedah, The Un’taneh Tokef and the Pandemic:  Part 2: Lessons Learned and Lived Rosh HaShanah, First Morning 5782 (September 7, 2021)   Boker tov. Good morning. L’shanah tovah to all of you. Last night I spoke mainly about the Akedah, the story of the binding of Isaac which we’ll read tomorrow, and a bit […]

­The Akedah, The Un’taneh Tokef and the Pandemic: Part 1: “Envisioning” the Akedah Erev Rosh HaShanah 5782 (September 6, 2021) Tonight I share a story that I have never before seen in the light of the High Holy Days. I have told this story during the internment portion at funerals, though I did not learn […]