Found In Translation: Weekly Divrei Torah and Sermons from the BJ Rabbis and Guest Teachers

On Pride Shabbat, Rabbi Shirley Idelson wove together Miriam's story, Jewish tradition, and her own experience to explore belonging, resilience, and how loss can open the way to new possibilities for ourselves and our communities.

In his final Shabbat kavannah as Rosh Kehillah, Rabbi Roly reflected on the mysterious ritual of the red heifer and what it teaches about humility, belonging, and resisting the urge to divide the world into insiders and outsiders.

In this week’s D’var Torah, Rabbi Becca Weintraub explores the tension between envy and gratitude at the heart of Parashat Korah. Through the examples of Korah, Moshe, and Aaron, she asks what it would mean to live as though we truly had enough—and to find joy not only in our own blessings, but in the blessings of others.

Rabbi Felicia Sol explores how the trauma of October 7 has challenged our capacity to tolerate disagreement. Jewish tradition, she argues, calls us not to certainty, but to the sacred work of engaging with difference.

In a world obsessed with productivity and optimization, Senior Rabbinic Fellow Joe Blumberg reminds us that our deepest purpose is something far more human: to help blessing flow freely from one person to another.

Rabbi Roly Matalon asks: what must die in the wilderness before something new can emerge? Drawing on the painful wandering of Bemidbar, he reflects on what it means to hold onto moral seriousness when everything around us is eroding, and why Torah is given not in moments of clarity, but precisely here, in the chaos of now.

The Torah isn't given only once. Each year, a new unfolding arrives, one that speaks to this particular moment in history, and to each of us at our particular moment in our lives. But to receive it, we have to be standing in our own place. As Shavuot approaches, Rabbi Roly Matalon draws on a Hasidic teaching to ask: what does it mean to inhabit your own truth so that when the Torah is given again,...

Senior Rabbinic Fellow Joe Blumberg reflects on the Torah’s radical vision of the Jubilee year: a system that resets the economy every fifty years. More than freeing the enslaved and forgiving debts, the Jubilee year is a powerful reminder that in a world driven by achievement and accumulation, we are ultimately caretakers, not owners.

BJ Rabbinic Fellow Iliana Brodsky takes a troubling passage from Leviticus and turns it into something beautiful — a reflection on what allows us to truly trust and connect with one another, even across every difference.

Former Rabbinic Fellow, Rabbi Dara Frimmer, reflects: when religion becomes spectacle, Torah calls us back to what matters most: humility, accountability, and shared responsibility.

Rabbi Roly Matalon shares that too often language is misused, especially in the name of what is holy. Drawing on the wisdom of our tradition, he reminds us that on Shabbat we are called to be especially mindful of our speech. What would it mean to carry that consciousness into every day, using our words not as tools of harm, but instead as vessels for elevating one another?

Rabbi Deena Cowans reflects on the awe that arises when we stand before something vast and unknown. From the fire of the Mishkan to astronauts circling the moon, these moments remind us that fear and joy often arrive together when we encounter the sacred.

In a special pre-Passover conversation, Rabbi Roly Matalon and Rabbi Felicia Sol explored how the Haggadah’s questions about freedom, responsibility, and compassion resonate amid war, rising antisemitism, and moral challenges in our own times.

What does it mean to be a witness to God in the world? Rabbi Roly Matalon and Reverend Dr. K Karpen explore this question while reflecting on the enduring partnership between BJ and the Church of St. Paul & St. Andrew.