Pesach Yizkor: Empty Chairs at Empty Tables (delivered by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on April 30, 2024) (Singing:) “There’s a grief that can’t be spoken There’s a pain goes on and on. Empty chairs at empty tables Now my friends are dead and gone”…… Eight days ago we all sat around our seder tables where […]
Yom Kippur: The Power of Postcards (delivered by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on September 25, 2023) American poet Elaine Equi[1] speaks of her relationship to postcards: “The postcard is sacred to me. It makes me sad that no one sends them very much anymore because of email and texting. I still like to buy them, but […]
Consider Roddie Edmonds and So Consider Your Mortality (A Yizkor sermon delivered by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on May 27, 2023) On this Memorial Day weekend, I’d like to recall the life of Master Sgt. Roderick “Roddie” Edmonds from Knoxville, Tennessee, who enlisted in the United States Army in 1941 and served in the 106th Infantry […]
Eighth-day Pesach: The Tale of The Four Mourning Children (Yizkor d’var Torah delivered by Student Rabbi Maayan Lev on April 13, 2023) Remembrance. We’re all here today to remember. In Judaism, we have an obligation to remember. The Haggadah teaches that in every generation, we’re all obligated to see ourselves as though we had personally […]
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, […]
Shavuot Yizkor (delivered by Rabbi Sacks on June 5, 2022) We are all reeling from the tragedy at Uvalde. It’s a lot to process and a lot of issues have rightly captured public attention. Yet now I hone in on one overlooked piece.. When the detailed official timeline of the shooting emerged, Texas Department of […]
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 […]
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 […]
What do we need to remember? Don’t forget that I existed. My time here had a purpose. You know how to love because of me. A beautiful and meaningful sermon shared by Rabbi J.B.Sacks. Yizkor. Yom Kippur.