Watch, Listen, Learn

There is a dominant story in America today—a story of isolation, alienation, and narrow-minded extremism, fueled by a deeply unsettling convergence of right- and left-wing antisemitism. This story—propagated by a would-be authoritarian—plays on our worst instincts: the smallness, the fear, the ever-present sense of scarcity. And it threatens to do untold damage. We must write something new.

The only way forward is one broken heart next to another, crying together, awakening to the reality that grief is our common bond.

The Torah of Joy, and the Power, Promise, and Necessity of Laughter in Dark Times. | Rosh Hashanah II 5785

Hope doesn’t die, and despair is a privilege we cannot afford. | Rosh Hashanah I 5785

What can returning to a place surface for us? And what does our tradition show us can come from that journey? | Erev Rosh Hashanah 5785

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy & Rabbi Sharon Brous in conversation.

How must we respond to the danger posed by Israel’s extreme, ultranationalist government?

Kol Nidre Sermon 5784.

Pastor Eddie Anderson, Reverend Zachary Hoover, and Rabbi Sharon Brous in conversation on Rosh Hashanah day 2 5784.

Some reflections on ending well, and what we pray will never end, offered on my father’s shloshim—the end of the most intense period of mourning.

Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon. Engaging fully in the introspection of this High Holiday season can land us deep in shame and unable to move. But there is another way: be honest about our shortcomings, witness them and embrace them, and then transform them into something else entirely.

Yom Kippur 5783/2022. I spent the summer reading banned books. Here’s what I learned: empathy poses the greatest threat to tyranny. Art is the antidote to numbness. And Torah is the most dangerous book of all.  

Rosh Hoshanah I, 5783. Our world is crying out for a subversive sequel, a redemption narrative. It’s time to write a new and better, more just and more inclusive version of our story. We must plant seeds for the future now, before it’s too late.    

The Earth’s chorus of voices demands moral engagement, a new approach to our planet in peril.

Yom Kippur 5782/2021 Sermon. In this time of us vs them, tribalism and violence, dehumanization and cruelty, we must remember: we belong to each other.

Kol Nidre 5782/2021 Sermon. Angels appear in moments of vulnerability and fear. They are sent on sacred missions at particular moments to offer moral strength, clarity and hope. This is a call to recognize the angels among us, and to hear when we, too, are called to step forward on a sacred mission of our own.

Rosh Hashanah II, 5782 Sermon. My brother and I have been having this recurring argument, for the last five years or so. And he always wins. And the basic question always being debated is, “Are we doomed?

Rosh Hashanah I, 5782 Sermon. We’re taught calculus and economics, US History and British Literature in school, but we’re hardly taught anything at all about how to get quiet, how to find awe, to cultivate conscience, to develop a moral compass. We start the year with a call to stillness: a reordering of our inner world. A discernment practice that is both spiritually and morally audacious, and utterly essential today.

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5782 Sermon.

Yom Kippur 5781 Sermon.

Kol Nidre 5781 Sermon. At some point, we will emerge from the acute, multilayered crises of our time. We’re not there yet. Before us will be battles great and small. This will be a defining moment, not only for our nation, but for each of us. We must act with fierce determination in the coming months, and even as we confront these challenges with everything we’ve got, we must plant for tomorrow, holding faith that those seeds will eventually bear fruit.

Rosh Hashana II 5781 Sermon. I want to tell you, today, a little bit about what it has been like being alone, living alone during this pseudo-quarantine, and spending most of my time, for half a year now, alone in my house. I want to talk about it in part because I know there are a lot of you out there who have been alone during this time, and I want to lift up this experience of ours – a shout of solidarity to my brothers and sisters in solitude! But I also want to talk about it because I learned things from that solitude, and because I think there’s something important about being alone that matters for us all.

Rosh Hashana 5781 Sermon. Our ancestors grieved. They told the truth about the past. And they built a new future—a counter-testimony to the world that was. This is our blueprint, an ancient wisdom born of suffering, and a way forward through painful and uncertain times.

Erev Rosh Hashana 5781 Sermon. Given the harrowing year we’ve been having, you might think that the spiritual work we are called to do during this holy season, the work of teshuvah, is too much to ask of us. Haven’t we been through enough? Aren’t we just trying to survive all this? But it turns out that what we have been enduring might actually be the climate most ripe for self-reflection and transformation. While there has been so much upheaval and loss, all this forced, destructive change has also given us a chance to engage in generative change. This Rosh Hashanah, more than ever, we are galvanized for renewal and growth.