Beth El of Manhattan, Two-Testament Synagogue

God saw the Hamas Massacre Jews in October 2023 coming - and did nothing to prevent it, nor even warn of its approach. How do God-followers go forward in faith and positive spirituality, knowing as Messiah taught us, "not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from Your Heavenly Father?" And what are we to not only believe or think ... but do, since as Scripture teaches, "faith without action is dead...

One week into The Hamas Pogrom in Israel - the mass slaughter of civilians by missile attack and ground-assault --- all aimed at civilians. Atrocities not seen since the Holocaust - happening on the Holidays of Shmeini Atzeret and Simchat Torah and Shabbat - on the 50th Anniversary of The Yom Kippur War. "God saw the light - that it was good; and separated between light and darkness." We are seein...

Human understanding of reality changed in 1923 when our species did what Isaiah 51:6 suggests, and looked (in)to the heavens and looked at (the structure of) the earth ... and learned that ALL physical existence is only temporary. Temporary like the Sukkot we build each year: a house "not built to last" and that will one day cease to exist. We are we to do with this knowledge in contrast to the "e...

For Yom Teruah (misnamed "Rosh Hashanah" in common use; the actual Biblical New Year is 1 Nisan (see Ex. 12:1ff) on the other side of the year.). The Day Of The Alarm/Trumpet-sound. We explore what it means to both be set free by the truth, and imprisoned by it, the way Galileo in the 1600s was both set free by his direct observation of the moons orbiting Jupiter (freeing him from the wrong world-...

T.S. Eliot said, "Most of the world's trouble comes from people trying to be or seem more important." This sermon on Haftarah Ki Tavo – the 1st Sermon of Beth El's 30th year - explores how to cease striving to be (or seem) more than we actually are - and get "comfortable in our own skin – strengths and limitations all-included. Kadima!

The parasha this week is "Shofteem" - "Judges (empowered expert legal authorities) and officers (enforcement/police) you will install in all your gates (where decisions are made)." Such personnel are only needed in places where crimes and harms are done. In "The Promised Land?" What gives, here? We find that banditry - using force and alliances to do self-beneficial harm to others by theft and oth...

On the Parasha "Re'eh" - and more so, on Jeremiah 26, this sermon explores the necessity of learning how, when situations turn upside down, to get them right-side up again; especially when some sort of "goodness" from God, expected by us because it was promised IN GENERAL by Him, does not make its way to us as individuals in real life, and our little boat capsizes. You can't sail if you can't hand...

Piggy-backing off of last week's Torah, "you have been SHOWN to know" – this week focuses from the current parasha, "Ekev" on what we "know" as PROVEN propositions, AND what we have come to "know" by EXPERIENCE; and how we can use all these to neutralize fear when under pressure to make decisions having much at stake in them.

For Shabbat "Nachamu" ("comfort") after Tisha B'av ... the kind of comfort that comes from having been, as this week's Torah portion "V'Etchanen" describes –– "shown to know." The comfort of having seen clearly, so as to know clearly - and thus, be able to choose with certainty a forward path in conformity with truth.

In this week's passage giving Israel's gathered "leaders of tribes" moral-guidance directives about vow-keeping, the word for "tribe" is actually the word "mateh" for a "shepherds staff" - not "shevet" - the most common word for tribe, a "scepter" as a symbol of governmental authority. "Matot" reads oddly on the page. Why is this the word God's Spirit put into the pen of Moses at this moment? We e...

All of Israel just stood and watched; but Pinchas acted; because he felt the same "zeal" God felt. What is the right kind of "zeal?" How do we acquire zeal that is healthy? People have zeal for many things, ranging from exalted pursuits like human rights to mere spending of time, in hobbies like video gaming, activity clubs, tv bing-viewing, etc. How do we rightly acquire and rightly use healthy z...

Invited to give the Erev Shabbat sermon via "Zoom" on 7 July for the weekly Torah portion, "Pinchas" – our Rabbi Bruce puts focus on the zeal of Pinchas directly affirmed by God, Himself; and asks, "How can we each develop healthy zeal for rightful things, causing us to use our time wisely rather than just 'spend' it, getting nothing of genuine value in line with God's will in return?"

This week's parasha shows the Israelites being slandered "because they are mighty." Why do people who are not mighty slander those who are? Messiah Yeshua - as his path was getting harder - taught His disciples how to have "fullness of joy" while facing such upticks in challenge. This excludes slander of those who outshine us, urging us in the Haftarah to walk "in modesty (accuracy and righteous r...

Criticism is often a placebo for genuine spirituality. The Letter of Ya'akov ("James") almost did not make it into The "New Testament" – because the redactors were concerned it places "too much" emphasis on ACTION rather than "faith & grace" (mere words and ideas). This sermon starts with the premise, "if you see a man drowning, do you CRITICIZE his poor swimming technique, or DO something (entail...

Two Torah portions in a row - last week's Shalakh and this week's Korakh - Moses and God kept losing "the best people." Why? How did Moses and the remaining crew keep "enduring to the end, so as to be saved" in a calling repeatedly seeing "the best of the best" turn out to be not only useless - but toxic? From where and what came their "endurance" – and whatever "success" they had?

Numbers 13 holds forth for us how different people can view challenges through entirely different lenses. 10 said "No, we can't." And 2 said, "Yes, we can." Why? How? What can we, as pioneers of Two Testament Judaism, still in 1936 so-to-speak, developmentally, in the era of the "Tower And Wall Kibbutz," learn from it?

How healthy people made decisions to leave safety and comfort and go into lack and danger on frontiers in order to raise up things they believed to the core of their souls were so necessary, their "normal" and "comfy" lives among "their peeps" were acceptable risks or casualties.

On Shavuot, we recite the Torah-commanded trope, "My ancestor was a perishing Aremean." Yet – that description of his current state was not the final word on it. We see Ruth, a woman excluded from Israel by law – with her widowed and child-bereaved Jewish mother in law, Naomi, declaring "all hope for me is past." Yet – while these both seemed accurate at the moment, they was not close to the final...

Right use of our words in quantity and quality has been, in our present era, moved from the Biblical standards "where many words are, error is unavoidable" and "a harsh word stirs up anger," and "a slandering tongue hates the one it crushes" – into admiration of fast and hurtful speech, using humor to devastate others and using quantity to word-swamp rather than listen. Are values like, "Let your...

This is audio of the 8 April 2023 Passover Service segment in our synagogue when we observe the commandments Yeshua our Messiah gave us to remember Him in two key elements of the Pesach Seder, and do them forever "in remembrance of Me" – the 3rd cup of the Seder (after dinner) called "The Cup of Redemption," and the breaking/eating of the "Afikomen" – which does not mean "dessert," but is Greek fo...

Ps 119 gives us an intimate portrait of King David's love, not only for God's "Torah" (teaching) - but the individual laws and statutes (chuk'eem and meeshpat'eem): he "meditated" on them in a way that "made (him) wiser than (his) enemies." How? We explore that dynamic to rescue Leviticus from being the book everyone skips on their treks through the Bible, seeking stories and songs that hold one's...

There is hot discussion in religious leadership over, "What is the future of 'congregating?'" Are people of faith going to cease gathering together IN PERSON as humans have done for the millennia of our existence - and segue into watching a "virtual" world, and attend virtual gatherings through screens as small as those on an iPhone. What is the essence of "being gathered" by God, for God-focused...

God's contract with us. God told Moses, "Write down THESE words, because THESE words are my covenant with YOU and with ISRAEL." Yeshua the Messiah echoed this concept: "My words which I speak to you, they are 'spirit' and they are 'life.'" Given the level of priority God assigns – how vital is it that we define what we expect from God according to "these words," and not some other defining source?

In this week's parasha "Terumah" (Freewill Offering), the Scriptures explore how people's responses to what is requested rather than commanded reveals the nature of their hearts. And oddly oxymoronic pairing of values: materials required are requested to be volunteered: they are not demanded. God put His entire Nation-Building project into the hands of people willing to do more than just the minim...

How could the Elders of Israel be in the very presence of God on Mt. Sinai, and "see God" as they are described in this week's portion to have done --- and still later have Aaron sink into repeated rebellions and his sons Nadav and Avihu treat God so profanely that God ended their lives over it? Shouldn't having "seen" God carried them forward with ironclad focus? Why is seeing NOT necessarily bel...