Adding Holiness to Our Lives through Mitzvot

I gave this sermon at Temple B’nai Shalom in Braintree, MA, 0n March 22, 2008. My conclusion: by introducing  observance of mitzvot in our lives, we elevate our lives with holiness and move beyond our animal selves to experience fully our true humanity. 

Choosing Our Lives

I gave this sermon at Temple B’nai Shalom in Braintree, MA, on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, September 24, 2006. By describing life choices I made, to convert to Judaism and, much later, to become a rabbi, I urge my congregants to choose the paths they will follow.

Letting Go of Our Grudges

[I delivered this sermon at Temple B’nai Shalom in October, 2005.]

Carol’s mother died after a long illness. Carol had cared for her Mom constantly. After her mother died, Carol displayed her Mom’s photograph prominently on the mantel in her living room. One winter day Carol’s friend, Susan, was visiting. A fire burned in the fireplace. As Susan passed near the mantel, she accidentally knocked the photo off. Before she could think, she reached out to catch it. To her horror and shock, the photo bounced off her hand into the fireplace, where the glass of the frame shattered. The photo burst into flame and was gone.

Opposing Terrorist Threats By Lawful Means Only

December 26, 2009 

I delivered the following sermon at Temple B’nai Shalom in Braintree, MA, on January 14, 2006. I was then serving that congregation as a student rabbi and am now serving there as Associate Rabbi, a part-time position. 

President Barack Obama officially renounced the use of torture immediately after his inauguration in January, 2009. He also promptly announced that the government would close Guantanamo by January, 2010. The government now appears to be unlikely to meet that specific deadline but continues to assert its intention to close Guantanamo as soon as it can do so. 

I present the sermon here as an argument against any resumption of the practices condemned in it.

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What Matters Most To Me Is Community

December 27, 2009

    I enrolled in the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College as one of 17 founding students when the school opened in 2003. I was then 60 years old.

    In my last year, in the fall of 2008, we studied the book of Deuteronomy, the last of the five books of Moses. Deuteronomy is a retelling by Moses of the story of the Israelites’ journey from slavery in Egypt to the edge of the promised land of Canaan. Our final project in the course was to retell the story of our own journeys on the way to becoming rabbis. This is a portion of my response to that assignment.

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