Watch, Listen, Learn

What do we do when Torah contains laws that violate our deepest moral commitments? A troubling passage from Parashat Ki Teitzei invites us to wrestle with difficult texts—and to see interpretation not as an escape from tradition, but as our obligation within it. Guest Sermon / Ki Teitzei 5786

I hunger for a leadership with the moral seriousness, the moral imagination to recognize that the greatest achievement is not brute force and military victory, but the embrace and affirmation of human life. Of peace.

What happens when we have the courage to really see what is before us—the blessing, the curse, and everything in between? Re’eh invites us to look up, pay attention, and enter Elul and this season with our eyes and hearts wide open.

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?

Rabbi Morris Panitz offers a prayer for our country in Lorenzo Salgado Araujo & Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, two men who lost their lives this week at the hands of ICE officers.

What happens when the man who once found refuge forgets the power of mercy? Drawing together Moses’ flight to Midian, the cities of refuge, and one of the Torah’s most difficult passages, we discover an enduring challenge to break the cycle of vengeance before it breaks us.

Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock is a transformational voice in Congress and the pastor of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and for the semiquincentennial of America, he exhorts us to reach for the highest and noblest aspects of our national character. Senator Warnock argues that we suffer not from a paucity of resources but from a poverty of moral imagination.

In this week’s Torah reading we meet a character who is mentioned just once and then vanishes from the story. Who is he, and what does he teach us? And what does all of that have to do with being 13?

The window of opportunity is closing. But as long as the spark of vitality remains within us, it’s not yet too late. Shalkh Lekha 5786

We are a nation built by people who dared to believe the unbelievable, even when the odds were far worse and the stakes much higher than at any blackjack table… Our shared history, our family stories, our collective legacy is one of impossible dreams made real– …we are our ancestors’ wildest dreams. -Sen Cory Booker (STAND, 215)

The Torah’s most repetitive chapter may conceal one of its most urgent lessons. Through a series of surprising midrashic connections, we discover that the leaders bringing gifts to the Mishkan are the same figures who once clashed bitterly with Moses during the struggle against Pharaoh. Their last-minute act of reconciliation raises a timeless question: what does it take for a divided people to rebuild trust before it’s too late?

We spend so much time preparing to speak, but what does Shavuot and revelation teach us about how we can prepare to listen?

Two extraordinary moments of recognition in the Book of Ruth remind us that the simple act of seeing one another—of identifying with another’s pain—can restore our humanity and redeem the world. May 16, 2026 – Bamidbar 5786

Ancient Biblical agricultural laws call us to imagine a radically inclusive social, political, and economic reality. That’s still possible for us today.

Between Pesach and Shavuot, we count the days of the Omer. What does this practice offer us about being present, making the most of the time we have, and cultivating faith in what is to come?

A lone figure escorts the scapegoat into the desert, carrying not just the sins of a people, but the unbearable weight of human truth. What unfolds is a raw confrontation with guilt, memory, and the fragile hope that love can outlast both. An ancient ritual becomes a deeply personal journey toward compassion, repair, and return. Achrei Mot-Kedoshim 5786

Are we ready to give sound to the silent beginning at Sinai?

The death penalty has no place in a just society. And it has no place in a Jewish society. Shemini 5786

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.

How do we think about mo’adim, the fixed times in our calendar when we are asked to show up for a meeting with God? Can we treat these occasions as moments of sacred recognition?

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.