Sacred Meetings

An introduction to the Yizkor service

Judaism greets our most powerful experiences of salvation and redemption with song and music. Using the lens of Franz Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption, we find music not only passively accompanying our experiences of the Divine, but also actively attuning us toward justice, bringing redemption to others and joy to God.

Ezekiel’s prophecy, read on the Shabbat of Passover, challenges us to dream audaciously. You cannot tell a redemption story that leaves some behind. And that includes those amongst our own people who’ve gone terribly astray.

We Jews are obsessed with telling stories – as the core of the Passover Seder and beyond. The obsession to do so is woven into the fabric of Jewish life and practice. Through interpreting our people’s narrative, we become the story we tell about ourselves and we partner with God in completing creation.