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Sermon
3 years ago • Nov 27, 2021
The Essence of Hanukkah: Creating Light or Kindling Fire?
Shabbat Vayeshev Sermon. Is the work of transformation primarily about building positive habits or rooting out negative behaviors? Lighting the hanukkiah offers a glimpse into both strategies and a challenge for the 8 nights of Hanukkah. Click here for source sheet.
By: Rabbi Morris Panitz
Sermon
3 years ago • Dec 12, 2020
To Soften the Darkness
Shabbat Vayeshev 5781 Sermon. Our Jewish tradition calls us to be extremists in one way and one way only: in the fight to mitigate the darkness and bring more light into the world. A look at Hanukkah in dark times, America’s fatal attraction to the death penalty, and our stubborn insistence that we can and must do better.
By: Rabbi Sharon Brous
Sermon
3 years ago • May 8, 2021
Hanukkah in May
Shabbat Behar Behukotai Sermon. We are, thank God, finally coming back to pray together in person. So what will this experience of reentry be like for us, after having been apart for so long? In our tradition, we have a word for this act of rededication: ‘Hanukkah.’ And if the Hanukkah ceremonies of the past are any indication, this will be a complicated emotional process.
By: Rabbi David Kasher
Sermon
4 years ago • Dec 21, 2019
Joseph, The Real Hero of Hanukkah?
Shabbat Vayeishev Sermon. The way the Jewish Calendar tracks with the cycle of reading the Torah, we are always in the Joseph story during Hanukkah. And so, every year, there are a slew of valiant rabbinic attempts to somehow link the figure of Joseph to the themes of Hanukkah. But all of this effort is a bit ironic, since Hanukkah seems to celebrate the Maccabees resisting cultural assimilation, whereas Joseph is perhaps the most successfully assimilated character in the Torah. Yet it is precisely for that reason that Joseph may be just the Hanukkah hero we need.
By: Rabbi David Kasher
Sermon
5 years ago • Dec 8, 2018
By The Hand of a Woman: Judith and the Miracles of Hanukkah
Shabbat Miketz Sermon. In an era of radical reclamation, what will we learn when marginalized stories move to the center?
By: Rabbi Sharon Brous
Sermon
6 years ago • Dec 16, 2017
The Light That Will Shine
Shabbat Miketz Sermon. Rabbi Sharon Brous Rabbi David Hoffman teaches that Hanukkah is about “experiencing fear, vulnerability, and darkness and not being consumed.” May 2018 be the year in which the sun starts to bring greater and greater light into our days and our hearts.
By: Rabbi Sharon Brous
Sermon
7 years ago • Dec 24, 2016
Winter Solstice
Shabbat Vayashev Sermon. Rabbi Nate DeGroot Hanukkah, our little festival of light, comes in the dark of winter to proclaim that great miracles are possible if only we take the first step.
Sermon
7 years ago • Dec 10, 2016
Against the Dying of the Light
Shabbat Vayetzei Sermon. Guest sermon – Rabbi Adam Greenwald Talking Hanukkah, light, and spiritual resistance in a dark time.
Writing
4 years ago • Jan 2, 2020
Hanukkah in a Time of Renewed Hatred
A Note From Our Rabbis
By: IKAR Clergy