From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

Enjoy our Shabbat Sermon from November 20th, 2021 with Rabbi Michelle Robinson

The story is told of a woman who feels that something is missing in her life.  She has heard that there is a wise yogi, a spiritual virtuoso, who lives and radiates holiness on the top of a mountain in a remote part of India.  She is told that this yogi holds court, and that people from all over the world make a pilgrimage to see him.  It’s not easy.  You fly to India.  &n...

November 13, 2021

Enjoy our Shabbat Sermon from November 6th, 2021 with Rabbi Michelle Robinson

It was a hot summer day in 2008.  Rick Mangnall was driving from his rural trailer home in Three Rivers to work at the Community College in Visalia.  Living out in the wilds of California, Rick was used to encounters with wildlife.  He was used to scorpions hiding out in his clothing drawers and popping out suddenly to attack.  He was quite adept at smashing them.  But tha...

Talmud from 10/29/21

Is a complicated first line an inevitable part of living a human and therefore imperfect life? Is worrying about the complicated first line, and how to avoid it, a healthy practice or a morbid neurosis?

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. It is the best of times: David Rosemberg’s Bar Mitzvah.  David radiates joy, and that joy fills our congregation. It is the worst of Times.  The Red Sox.  The Red Sox’s utter collapse.  We win games 2 and 3 in historic fashion, and then lose the next three games.  What is that? These two events, the joy of David’s Bar Mitz...

It was 5:30 AM.  Solomon and I were sitting in our usual seats on the boat behind the captain’s chair, watching the shores of Plymouth speed away as we headed towards our favorite fishing spot.  After chatting with the captain for a while, Solomon decided it was time for breakfast.  He walked over to our bags and pulled out a banana. “Is that a banana?!” the captain asked, turning w...

Cancel culture. What two words are more fraught, more charged than that?

Have you ever seen the cartoon of Noah’s ark floating on the water in the distance while two dinosaurs in the foreground look out and say, “Was that TODAY?” Or the one with unicorns standing at the foot of the ark saying to Noah, “We’ll wait for the next one.” My favorite of this genre pictures Noah standing on deck as two holes gush with water. He looks down and says, “Maybe I shouldn’t have brou...

Talmud from October 9, 2021

For years now, every few months I receive a failing grade as a good citizen.  Every quarter it comes in the mail: the dreaded and terrifying, triggering and retraumatizing Home Energy Report from National Grid.  It compares our energy usage to that of Efficient Neighbors and Average Neighbors. It is never pretty.  There are three possible grades:  Great, represented by a big sm...

October 2nd, 2021

Imagine a friend or loved one comes to see you with a problem.  They are wrestling with a dilemma. Should I stay where I am at in my current job, or should I take a risk and take a new job? Should I break up with my current boyfriend or girlfriend? Should we be open to moving cities, to starting all over again? Somebody offended me. Should I talk to the person, or do I let it go? They are ope...

Join Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger for her sermon from Sukkot Day 5

September 25th, 2021

Very often I feel that my hair is not doing anything for me.  It’s just kind of there.  So before Yom Kippur, since I was about to see the entire congregation, I have to confess that in addition to teshuvah, I was thinking about my hair. I shared my dilemma with Shira:  Should I go see my hair stylist, Tami, who works at Dellaria?  Why, she asked.  Because my hair is not d...

In my synagogue growing up, we had a vibrant tradition of journaling and reflection during services.  On the high holidays, they would assemble four tents in the four corners of the sanctuary and during services, it was common for community members to duck into a tent for a moment of quiet meditation or to jot down some ideas in a journal.  I always thought that writing was an integral p...

September 18, 2021.

When I turned 60 this past summer, I developed an intense fascination with my grandfather, my mother’s father, Will Bloom. It is not just that I am named for him. He was Will, I am Wes.  We are both Yechiel Shneyer. The connection is deeper.  My grandfather was, in the last season of his life, a traveling salesman.  He would drive hundreds of miles a week making sales calls.  H...

How are we to think about this day, the 20-year anniversary of 9/11?  This is a day of double memory, double mourning, double pathos. We remember the lives that were lost on that terrible day, and what that meant to the families who lost them, the spouses who lost spouses, the parents who lost children, the children who lost parents, the brothers and sisters who lost brothers and sisters. &nb...

From 9/11/21

The story is told of a man named Max Gelberg who was 70 years old when his beloved wife of more than 40 years, Goldie, passed away.  After mourning her for a year, he decides he has to live in the present.  He is only 70.  Life must go on.

Does God act in history?  If you look at the world, does it testify to the existence of a loving and powerful God who acts to make sure that God’s highest ideals are implemented? Of course, even asking the question in this hot mess of a summer suggests the implausibility of the premise that God acts in history. How could God act in history when floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, mass...