Parashat Hukkat: Adulting Isn’t Easy (originally appeared in the the Jewish Community VOICE, June 25, 2025) Immediately following the death of Miriam, the Israelites find themselves in the wilderness without water and begin complaining to Moses: “Why did you bring us up from Egypt to this bad place? It’s not a place of seed and fig and vine and pomegranate, and there’s no water to drink!” (Num 20:5) Moses and Aaron come before the people…
Rabbi's Message
Shavuot 5785 Yizkor Sermon – Tuesday, June 3, 2025 (written text was revised June 8th to include unscripted remarks from that morning) Before I share the words I had prepared, I want to mention that I prepared them before I heard the news of the attack in Boulder, Colorado. I generally don’t check the news or use my phone during shabbat and yom tov, but I checked early this morning to see if there were…
For nearly four decades, the Torah that is read during the month of Kislev—known to Hebrew Bible scholars as Sippurei Yosef, the Stories of Joseph or the Joseph Narrative—has been particularly meaningful to me. It was one of the first biblical texts I studied in Hebrew with the poet and professor David Rabeeya z”l at Bryn Mawr College and, more than 20 years later, I revisited these stories with my younger daughter who celebrated her…