Sermons

Good yontiff.

Two years ago, before the pandemic, but following a year of upheaval and disorientation, which now seems distant and remote, my colleague, Rabbi Rachel Timoner, addressed her congregation on Yom Kippur with these words:

“If we just sat here, all of us, and cried together today, that might be the most eloquent response to the year we’ve just lived through.”

I have to say...Read more...

"A Stolen Beam"

Perhaps the most foundational text of this day comes from the Mishnah, the early third century code of Jewish law on which all subsequent Jewish legal tradition is built: "There is no atonement for transgressions of one human being against another until that person has reconciled with the other" (Mishnah Yoma 8:9). We can spend this whole day fasting, reviewing our behavior over the past...Read more...

"This too, shall pass"

There is a Sephardic custom of a Seder for Rosh Hashanah which includes words that I suspect all of us are prepared to chant: Let the old year end with all its curses! Let the new year begin with all its blessings!

Let the old year end with all its curses! Let the new year begin with all its blessings!

If there was ever a year when those words...Read more...

Temple Isaiah Shabbat 3.6.20
Rev. Barbara Callaghan

It is good to be with you this evening. I have offered prayers and some words here and there at Jewish services but this is my first time preaching at a Shabbat service. When Howard and Rachel shared with me the texts for the service tonight I diligently read them, quickly realizing these were parts of the Torah I really didn’t know much about. I read the Exodus passage about...Read more...

The Ethics of Responsibility

I don’t know about you,
but I’m feeling tired.
And not just the kind of tired
from being busy
and having too many things on my to-do list,
more to accomplish than I can in a day.
“Not just “sleepy,”
but “exhausted, weary, fatigued, and fed up”;
drained, disillusioned, and disenchanted”;
the opposite of “inspired, stimulated,
motivated and...Read more...

This is the 20th year that I stand before you as rabbi of this congregation. I know what some of you are thinking: how can that be? He does not look any older than he did when he first arrived here…

Those who have been here for high holidays over these years know that I generally prefer to focus on that which is timeless at this time of year, in the hope that what is shared can inform how we respond to the timely. There are times,...Read more...

A Growth Mindset for the New Year – Rosh HaShanah 5779/2018

This summer, I took one of my sons to a rock climbing gym. It was a new experience for us; we had never climbed before. We laced up our climbing shoes and let our eyes scan up the height of the wall. As we prepared ourselves for the challenge, we turned to the staff member nearby and said, “We’re ready.”

And he said, “Great. Now it’s time for your falling...Read more...

There are certain events which are indelibly etched into our memories, because they left us with an understanding that the world is different from what we had imagined, or perhaps from what we had allowed ourselves to believe. Those of us who are old enough remember vividly where we were when we heard the news that Pres. Kennedy had been shot, where we were when we heard about the Space Shuttle Challenger, and of course, where we were the...Read more...

Temple Isaiah Shabbat 3.6.20

It is good to be with you this evening. I have offered prayers and some words here and there at Jewish services but this is my first time preaching at a Shabbat service. When Howard and Rachel shared with me the texts for the service tonight I diligently read them, quickly realizing these were parts of the Torah I really didn’t know much about. I read the Exodus passage about the consecration of the...Read more...

Pockets

Every year at the beginning of the second semester of our tenth grade confirmation experience here at Temple Isaiah, I create two concentric circles of chairs, one facing in and one facing out so that my students can look one another in the eye as I ask them a series of questions. Every once in a while I say switch and the inner circle moves down by one.

It’s like speed dating…but not.

I ask them to listen...Read more...

The Moral Courage to Be Our Best Selves

Tonight, I want to talk about courage.

I don’t mean the courage to stand up in front of a room packed with upwards of a thousand people, but come to think of it, that’s not a bad kind of courage to have either.

I want to talk tonight about moral courage, and about the moral choices that we make every day from the small to the grand to do right, despite our fear of punishment...Read more...

You’ve probably heard it before. I know that I’ve said it before from this very spot on this night in years past: that Yom Kippur comes to us shrouded as a rehearsal for our death.

Yom Kippur asks us to imagine that we are living the last day, preparing for our last breath. Traditionally, we wear white like the shrouds in which Jews are buried. We recite vidui or confession just as those facing death traditionally do. We reject...Read more...

Shalom.  I am honored to commemorate Yom HaShoah with you this evening and to speak with you about the Armenian Genocide.  On behalf of the Armenian community, I would like to thank Temple Isaiah for its valued support, and, in particular, I would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to Rabbi Jaffe for his principled dedication over the past seven-and-a-half years to the cause of Armenian Genocide recognition.  Your...Read more...

Seek Peace and Pursue It
It was a mild Tel Aviv evening, a bit cooler than it usually is in the middle of July. I was sitting with my friend, Rabbi Eric Gurvis of Temple Shalom in Newton, on Rothschild Boulevard, sipping a cup of ice coffee on a bench by one of the ubiquitous kiosks that line that thoroughfare and give that part of the city much of its character. He was on the phone with his son, and I was looking at email on my...Read more...