Sermon Archives

Contranyms

Contranyms, sometimes called “Janus words”  are words that mean the same as their opposite - like the figure Janus in Greek mythology who had two faces that looked in opposite directions. 

To bolt is to secure something to prevent escape…and it means to escape.

Consulting means soliciting advice and offering advice. 

Cleaving is severing and...Read more...

Heroic Potential

One of the saddest experiences I have had over the course of a very sad year was listening to the livestream broadcast of Rachel Goldberg Polin speaking at the funeral of her son Hersh, just days after his murdered body was recovered and brought to Israel for burial. An extended clip of that hesped was broadcast here in DC at a memorial vigil that Federation...Read more...

Three Confessions 

Since this is the season of teshuva, I come here today with some confessions.  

One: for the past few months I’ve been doing a little light stalking.  If you are one of the women in this community who expressed to me, even a passing interest in learning to layn, I have been, as the youths would say, blowing up...Read more...

When the Supreme Court overturned 40 years of Chevron deference earlier this summer in the case Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, our regulatory agencies were actually not left without a leg to stand on. When Congress tells our administrative branch (and I use this phrase intentionally) that they have to go and produce clean water, the Environmental Protection Agency has to go and figure it out. Sure, Chevron deference might...Read more...

Prayers for Peace

It is wonderful to be back with you all in shul. My time in Israel was thought provoking and rewarding and I know I will be processing my reactions for many weeks to come. I am so grateful to the community for making it possible for me to spend the past three weeks studying at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and I am very grateful for the care and consideration you showed my...Read more...

Spy vs Spy

We inaugurated a new tradition this Shabbat by having all of the Torah reading this morning read by men named Joshua. Yeshar Koach to all the Joshua’s who participated this morning and Mazal Tov to all of their families. This is a very fitting way to observe Parashat Shelach. Yehoshua and Kalev are the heroes of our parasha as the only spies who resist the evil council of...Read more...

Thou Shalt Not Kill

Decades ago the Israeli novelist Amos Oz visited Sweden and, as a famous novelist, received an audience with Olof Palme, the prime minister of Sweden. Palme was an outspoken critic of both the Soviet Union and the United States and supported the PLO when it was nearly universally designated as a terror organization. Palme served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 -...Read more...

Its Way of Life

When I was in high school I once picked up the Thanksgiving edition of the Village Voice and saw a humor column titled something like “Fifty things to be thankful for about living in America.” After many years I can only remember three of the items on the list. Reenacting our Civil War is considered a harmless activity. For a country where it is not a national...Read more...

Such Things Have Befallen Me

Sefer Vayikra has a bad reputation as a book without much plot. Perhaps for this reason, anytime there is narrative action in Sefer Vayikra it grabs so much of our attention and the death of Nadav and Avihu after they bring a “strange fire” has all of the features of a gripping story. On the very day that the mishkan is inaugurated and begins operation,...Read more...

Boundaries and What They Protect

The morning of August 11, 2008 began like any other. Sara went to a routine prenatal exam and I drove to Princeton to spend the day unpacking boxes in our new home. Minutes after I arrived in Princeton Sara called me from her doctor’s office: something was not quite right and our twins would need to be delivered that day. 

“Should I come right now and meet you?” I asked. Sara explained that there was a medical need for a six hour delay before the twins could be delivered and I should spend another hour or two unpacking boxes before meeting her in the hospital.Read more...

The Place Where People Seek the Highest

A few weeks ago I attended the Shepherd Park Citizens’ Association potluck gathering. The event took place just up the road at the Washington Ethical Society and the room where we ate is the same meeting room where the Ethical Culture Society has their own gatherings. Over the stage, front and center, was the motto of the Ethical Culture Society:...Read more...

As One Person with One Heart

If you ever attended a Pesach Seder at our home you would have heard my sister in law, a”h, ask how it is that we sing Dayeinu and declare that it would have been enough for us if, for example,  God had only taken us out of Egypt but not made judgements upon the Egyptians, אִלּוּ הוֹצִיאָנוּ מִמִצְרַיִם וְלֹא...Read more...

Instruments of Cruelty

Before we were married, before we were even formally engaged to be married, Sara and I each spent a portion of the summer of 2001 studying Torah in Israel. The terror wave that characterized the Second Intifiada was still ongoing - I’m sure some of you remember the bombings at Sbarro’s in Jerusalem that summer. As a way to reassure her parents, Sara promised...Read more...

Between Persecution and Salvation

When Sara, Noam, and I lived in Jerusalem we befriended a Christian family whom I met in the playground. There was some exchange among the  parents where my ability to speak both in English and Hebrew was very helpful to them and after spending several Shabbat afternoons together at the playground, I invited them to our home for a Shabbat meal and...Read more...

Qualitative & Quantitative

Three books are opened on Rosh Hashanah. The fully righteous are written and sealed immediately for life. The fully wicked are written and sealed immediately for death. And those in the middle have their judgment suspended until Yom Kippur. If they merit, they are sealed for life. If they do not merit, they are sealed for death. 

This...Read more...