There is something about Yom Kippur that can make us uncomfortable. We come into this day knowing that we are going to have to face ourselves. We will confess our sins and recite the Al Chet, acknowledging the many ways…
Shabbat Shuvah – Can’t Buy a Thrill
When We Do It Again There is an old Steely Dan album called Can’t Buy a Thrill. One of the best-known songs on the album is “Do It Again.” It has that unmistakable Steely Dan sound, a relaxed, bluesy groove…
Rosh Hashanah – Back to the Future
JMortonPhoto.com & OtoGodfrey.com, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Back to the Future Rosh Hashanah gives us something that is increasingly difficult to find in modern life: a sacred pause. We spend much of the year moving forward at a…
Vayeilech – If Life Is a Journey
This Shabbat, we read from Parashat Vayeilech, which brings us to the conclusion of Moses’ life. After forty years of leading the people of Israel through the wilderness, Moses knows that his own journey is coming to an end. He…
Ki Tavo – Do Not Neglect Nor Transgress
Listen to an audio version …lo avarti mi’mitzvoteycha v’lo sha’chachti “I have neither transgressed nor neglected any of your commandments” (Devarim 26:13). This is the pledge that God commanded the children of Israel to declare every third year after removing…
Ki Tetze – Loving the Unlovable
An Enduring Question Several years ago, while teaching a seminar at a UMJC conference on nonviolent resistance, one of the participants asked me a question that has remained with me ever since. “Rabbi Paul,” he said, “if you had lived…