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We Are Marked
Parashat Bo
Rabbi Noa Kushner
We Are Marked
The mark, the reminder in the Torah is that we left Egypt once and so we will leave it again
That even this plague will end
That even this plague will end
That even this plague will end
Little Vessels: Hanukkah 2021
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Little Vessels: Hanukkah, 2021
Vessels of oil / small, vessels, cruises of oil
The kind of vessels that once, long ago, gave us just enough hope to try to change everything in our world
Just enough hope to get us to the next miracle
Nothing is Lost
Parashat Toldot
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Nothing is Lost
There are two life changing prayers in the parasha, one from Isaac and one from Rebecca. Both ask, “If this is the way it is, then why am I here?”
Name It
Parashat Lech-Lecha
Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer
October 15th, 2021
Open all the doors
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Parashat Re’eh
August 6, 2021 / Open all the doors
A time to mourn, a time to love
Parshat Va'etchanan
Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer
July 23rd 2021
In the journey from Tisha B’Av to Tu B’Av, we come to understand love differently. In the face of death and destruction and existential fear, we remember how to love each other.
Defenses down.
Rules for the Wildnerness
Parashat Matot-Masei
Rabbi Noa Kushner
July 9th, 2021
Four Basic Rules for Moving Through The Wilderness / Life
Rule #1: You Can’t Leave Until You Journey
Rule #2: You Cannot Name the Station Until You’re Done With It
Rule #3: Sometimes Backwards is Forwards
Rule #4: Every Station is Essential
We’re All Mourning Something
We’re All Mourning Something
Parashat Chukat
A teaching about the consequence of skipping grief and going to the next crisis, how we might instead shoulder the losses and build new/old ways to be together again.
Grasshopper Syndrome
Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer
Parashat Sh’lach
But what about the damage we do to others, and to the world, to God, when we sink into the victim place, make like Gregor Samsa and morph into grasshoppers, not taking the impact of our actions seriously? When there is a discrepancy between perceived impact and actual impact, things get dangerous.
Call To Prayer
To silence prayer is to silence a soul.
So many bad actors and bad actions have been amplified - spewing hate - while prayer is quieted.
And we know that what gets amplified draws us toward it.
RUTH 5781: CLING
A film by Jacob Blumberg
Can You Hear Me Now? : Walking in the Garden
Can You Hear Me Now?: Walking in the Garden
If you run you'll be far from me, says God
But you don’t have to run
No one is actually chasing you
The Skin We’re In
Parashat Tazria-Metzora
Our skin, our boundaries,
must be permeable to receive nutrients from the sun,
from light reflected in one another’s faces, from touch.
Porous enough to breathe in and release out.
Facing the Field
Facing the Field
When the plague is gone
When we have declared it safe
How do we avoid the strong pull towards endless self protection?
How do we return to life?
What direction do we face?
Going Out The Door You Came In
Going Out the Door We Came In
Parashat Shmini
In our holiest places
It's not even that everyone is welcome —
But that everyone is flawed, no one is unblemished, everyone can make t’shuvah
and that is the point
What do you pack when you don't know where you are going?
Parashat Chol Hamoed
What would you pack in the middle of the night, in hipazon/frenzy? What do you drop at the edge of the sea before crossing?
What are your non-negotiables?
Karev Yom // The Day is Coming
A musical collaboration between our own Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer & Jacob Blumberg, Aviva Chernick, Daniel Ori, Eliyahu Sills, & percussionist Rich Stein.
Open Your Invitation
Parashat Vayikra
Even when we think we’re standing on the outside looking in,
even when we can’t hear the divine voice calling our name,
we use our own voice to call someone else’s.
The act of inviting brings us all inside.
Back from the Dead
Parashat Ki Tissa
In that moment Moses knows
God is mistaken
For God, like it or not, is always with us
The Mask That Reveals
Parashat Terumah
If the space between the wings of the כרובים were too close, obscuring the Divine Presence titrating through the schach, the keruvim themselves would become idols--masechot--as heretical as the golden calf. Key difference? The schach.