Sh’mini Atzeret: Reconsidering Our Relationship to Time (Delivered by Rabbi Sacks on October 16, 2022) If you were alive in the early days of television, you might remember one of the first television game shows, “Beat The Clock.” It actually began as a radio show in 1948 called Time’s A’ Wastin and later called Beat […]
Sukkot First Morning: Judaism and Environmentalism: An Obvious Sermon (Delivered by Rabbi Sacks on October 10, 2022) Chag Samei-ach I’m Rabbi Obvious, and this morning I’d like to give an obvious sermon. A sermon is a speech in which a rabbi tells people what they already know. Do I really have to tell you to […]
JEWISH QUOTES TO PONDER AS WE BEGIN A NEW YEAR–PART 1 (A community study period led by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on October 8, 2022) As we have just completed Yom Kippur Wednesday and are about to begin Sukkot tomorrow night, I thought we should take time to ponder various quotes that could help us to […]
Parashat Ha’azinu: Living Out the Poetry of Torah (Delivered by Rabbi Sacks on October 7, 2022) I studied in a program in Jerusalem. We traveled in the Galilee and came to the mystical city of Tz’fat in Israel’s Northern District. There our guide and teacher asked our group of young seekers, “What is the most […]
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, […]
Rosh HaShanah Second Day: The Tree and You (A Community Discussion led by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on September 27, 2022) We just put the Torah away, and the last words we sang were the Eitz Chayyim Hi. It is actually sung whenever we read the Torah. The chumash that we usually use to follow […]
Erev Rosh HaShanah: Rekindling Our Pintele Yid (Delivered by Rabbi Sacks on September 25, 2022) My practice on Erev Rosh HaShanah is to tell a story and to see what lessons it might yield. Tonight’s story is a true account, a travel story from a professional traveler. Some of you may remember the Birnbaum […]
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: Isaiah Readies Us for Tishah B’Av and Beyond (A community study session led by Rabbi Sacks on August 6, 2022) Tishah B’Av begins tonight at sundown. Questions to Consider As We Begin: What is Tishah B’Av? Why do we have it? How do we observe it? This Shabbat prepares us for Tishah […]