Between Two Mountains

We welcome everyone to our Shabbat morning services at 9:30am PT, no matter their level of observance, experience, or familiarity with Hebrew. Daven with us in person at Shalhevet, or join us virtually on YouTube or Zoom. Childcare is available during Services for kids ages 2-5. Stay afterward for our kosher, vegetarian community lunch. 8/15/2026 Jonah YoonWoo Kend 8/22/2026 Noa Ellis Goldstein 8/29/2026 Archer Mekor Sroka 10/10/2026 Myla Vener 10/17/2026 Ayla Morchower 10/24/2026 Samuel Ethan & Joshua Gabriel Goldstein 11/7/2026 Lucille (Luci) Halpern-Fingerhut 11/14/2026 Henry Posalski 11/28/2026 Ezekiel Mataan Brous-Weber 12/5/2026 Samuel Rafael Marquit 12/19/2026 Finch Rhodes

From the broken brotherhoods of Genesis to the final conversation between Moses and Aaron, the Torah asks what it truly means to become our brother’s keeper. Through a relationship shaped by speech, silence, conflict, and compassion, a vision emerges of how even fractured relationships can find redemption when truth remains bound to love.

Va’etchanan 5786 In this week’s parsha we read that Moses pleads with God, and the form of that word (va’etchanan) only shows up in one other place in the Torah – with Joseph. What do these two moments come to teach us about yearning for things we may never get? Why is it important that we articulate those desires anyway? *ASL Interpretation for this sermon is available on YouTube.

The book of Deuteronomy has begun, and our people are as numerous as the stars in the sky. But Moses cries out, “Eikhah!” The famous heart-broken “how” that foreshadows the tragedies of Tisha B’Av. What mournful message does Moses see in the stars? And what, instead, can we learn from the dust?