Shabbat + Lifecycles / חיי קהילה
Where heaven meets earth

Justice + Activism / צדק
Torah comes to life on the streets

Torah + Learning / תורה ולימוד
How we interpret the world

Groups + Gatherings / מפגשים
Our tables always have room

Kids + Families / משפחות וילדים
Do jewish together

Kitchen Institute

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Read & Listen Posts

Yom Kippur AM 5784
Rabbi Noa Kushner
How to Return Where You Don’t Want to Go: Aaron and the Holy of Holies

You see, Aaron was never intended to return to that fraught place all by himself
Without anything whatsoever to guard him
He was supposed to bring something
But what?

→ Click here to read & listen to the full drash

Kol Nidre 5784
Rabbi Noa Kushner
זַ֖יִת טָרָ֣ף בְּפִ֑יהָ: A Torn Olive Branch in her Mouth

The Israeli flags, a hallmark of the protests, are in full display
A sea of hundreds of people gracing the Tesla entrance, chanting “Democracy,” full throated, on behalf of Israel,
a sight I never imagined I’d see

A few of the Israeli flags graze the top of my head as I stand
And I’m reminded of the feeling of being under a huppah, a wedding canopy
Only this wedding, this covenant is with the future of Israel

→ Click here to read & listen to the full drash

Rosh Hashanah 5784
Rabbi Noa Kushner
The Snake and the Garden: לִשְׁמֹ֕ר אֶת־דֶּ֖רֶךְ עֵ֥ץ הַֽחַיִּֽים / To guard over the way of the tree of life

You see, we've followed these voices, not to mention these leaders, at great cost
And we're already paying the price —
the accumulative and dramatic breakdown of social trust
in our institutions and in each other in this country
Doesn’t really matter who started it
The garden of America is beginning to evaporate around us

You see, like Eve, we have a choice:
It’s either ingesting the venom or being in the garden
We can’t do both

→ Click here to read & listen to the full drash

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5784
Guest Rabbi Michael Lezak
Standing in the Flood

What Sarah does every hour in the Tenderloin every day is what Amir did at the Qalandia checkpoint is what my mom did for Sheldon and his sons.

When floods came, when waters rose, when trauma or danger or peril forced their way to the front. These tzaddikim mimicked the Holy One when, God-like, they stayed put and present and proximate, and simply let a love from On High pulse through their every action.

→ Click here to read & listen to the full drash

High Holiday 5784 Drashot

Read & Listen Posts

Parashat Metzora / Shabbat HaGadol / April 19
Rabbi Noa Kushner
How to prepare to be free

People have been confiding in me that they're afraid to have Passover seder
They're afraid of destroying friendships and family over the arguments see
Because in recent years we have all taken on a polarized, untrusting mentality
We’ve become afraid to say what we think lest we are cancelled by our own friends
This is truly where we are
And this mentality is hard to break
Maybe, they tell me, better to not have seder this year

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Shmini / April 5
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Those of Us Left Behind

Who was Moses fooling anyway?
Wasn’t he also shattered by the deaths of these young men, his brother’s children?
Couldn’t he have just sat with his older brother, quietly, for a little while?

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Tzav / March 30
Rabbi Noa Kushner
?מִ֣י זֹ֗את עֹלָה֙ מִן־הַמִּדְבָּ֔ר / Who is she that arises from the desert?

Maybe it is the prayer that cannot be classified
We don’t know what it is for
It doesn’t fit neatly into a category
Maybe it is an unwieldy prayer for things to just get better
Maybe it is a prayer born from confusion or fear about our world
Maybe it is prayer concerned for those we love
And even for those in distant, far away places, empathy and love for those we don’t know, will never know
Maybe it is prayer born out of exhaustion, a prayer not fully formed, a prayer without all the proper words

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Pekudei / March 16
Rabbi José Rolando Matalon
The Mishkan as a new Creation: Restoring a home for God and for humans in the world
Visiting Scholar

We're overjoyed to welcome some of the most engaging, powerful teachers in the US and Israel. Many are long-time Kitchen favorites, some newer to us but all known for their ability to connect Torah to our lives right now. We'll spend a whole shabbat with these thinkers, like a retreat without having to pack. Listen to our past visiting scholars’ drashot here.

Our guest teacher this week is Rabbi José Rolando Matalon of B’nai Jeshrun and founding co-director of Piyut North America, a partnership between B’nai Jeshurun and Hazmanah Le-Piyut in Israel, which is dedicated to the dissemination of liturgical music from Jewish communities around the world.

→ Click here to listen to the full drash

Shabbat Drashot

The Jewish now is right here, look around

We don’t start with, “Are you really Jewish?” but rather, “What are you willing to do? What are you interested in doing? Where might we go together?” We welcome people because this is who we are: all genders, ages, colors, sexual orientations, and backgrounds—not to mention all members of modern families of one kind or another. In other words, we think who we are and how we came together is our blessing.

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One City

Sharing Our Abundance

 

אַחֲרֵי־כֵ֗ן יִקָּ֤רֵא לָךְ֙ עִ֣יר הַצֶּ֔דֶק

'After that, you shall be called a City of Righteousness...'
-Isaiah 1:26

 

What is the Kitchen?
Is this religious?
What if I don’t believe in God?
What if I’m not Jewish?

What if I’m not the praying type?
Where do I start?
Who pays for this?
What do I get when I join the Kitchen?