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Rabbi Noa Kushner 9/19/20 Rabbi Noa Kushner 9/19/20

Looks Like Rain

Rosh Hashanah AM 5781

Who, when they are at their most tired, most weak — insists on exploring the root causes of the lack of rain in order to address them? Who takes a draught, the anguish of thirst, and a lack of livelihood and uses it as a springboard towards justice?

Jacob Blumberg 9/19/20 Jacob Blumberg 9/19/20

קומי / RISE

A visual and audio exploration of Rosh Hashanah Day 1 Torah reading, training our lens on Hagar’s experience — on her vulnerability in the wilderness, and on her strength and her connection to the Divine.

Credits: Torah reading by Jen Moses, Avi Klein, and Naomi Bardach // Created by Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer//Directed by Jacob Blumberg//Hagar interpreted by Jessie Austin

Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 9/18/20 Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 9/18/20

Take Refuge

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5781

Our sages understood this period--Elul and the Days of Awe--as an ir miklat, a city of refuge reconfigured in time.

These 10 days, these עשרת ימי התשובה are our days of return. Tonight, the door opens for us to enter this sanctuary. In ten days, at the close of Yom Kippur, we will symbolically close the door behind us. But for now, let these ten days be our refuge. Our coming home. Our place to pray, to cry, to dream and renew.

Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 8/21/20 Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 8/21/20

Find Someone Who’s Turning

Parashat Shoftim

As we stand in our foggy oasis, surrounded on all sides by raging fires whose glow casts an eerie light at sunset and whose smell seeps in through our closed windows, as we see images of bumper to bumper traffic of mass evacuation, with ash falling down, and read about Torah scrolls swiftly wrapped in tallitot and whisked to safety, how do we show up? What is our responsibility?

Mi Chamocha / Who is Like You / מי כמוכה

Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 8/21/20 Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 8/21/20

Mi Chamocha / Who is Like You / מי כמוכה

Our davening team tried something new. We made you a prayer music video. Because we miss harmony. Because we miss each other.

Rabbi Noa Kushner 8/7/20 Rabbi Noa Kushner 8/7/20

Four Songs

Parashat Ekev

Because these moments in the desert are just the moments are most interested in now

Because we too are looking for clues

As to how to live in an in-between time

Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 7/10/20 Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 7/10/20

Greatness Thrust Upon Us

Parashat Pinchas

It’s been 38 + years since the original Israelite census, the one before everyone over 20 was condemned to die in the wilderness because they couldn’t hold onto faith for five minutes before getting distracted.

Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh 6/19/20 Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh 6/19/20

A Giant Leap of Faith

Parashat Sh’lach

Here's the missing pull quote: Faith means trusting and believing

and seeing --that just as quickly as a bad pandemic,

can arise out of nowhere,

so too there can also arise, a miracle.

Rabbi Noa Kushner 6/5/20 Rabbi Noa Kushner 6/5/20

Stealing and Lying in America

Parashat Nasso

Words like 'racism' are so euphemistic - they sometimes obscure the problems rather than reveal them. ⁠

⁠

So for tonight, instead of the word 'racism' I'd like for us to substitute: 'Stealing from people we think are less powerful and then lying about it.'

Rabbi Noa Kushner 5/22/20 Rabbi Noa Kushner 5/22/20

Remember the Everything

Parashat Bamidbar

We might not feel we deserve Torah. We might be afraid to try to receive it.

Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 5/15/20 Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 5/15/20

Lift your Eyes

Parashat Behar-Bechukotai

“A song for Ascending: I lift my eyes up to the mountains, from where will my help come” — Psalm 121

Rabbi Noa Kushner 5/8/20 Rabbi Noa Kushner 5/8/20

Midnight

Parashat Emor

No matter how faint the fire gets -- even if we tried to extinguish it, the fire within each of us does not go out, it cannot go out.

Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 5/1/20 Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 5/1/20

Reset

Parashat Achrei Mot-Kedoshim

Rabbi Noa Kushner 4/24/20 Rabbi Noa Kushner 4/24/20

Waking Up Is Hard To Do

Parashat Tazria-Metzora

The holiest places are within our reach but we cannot enter them because we are half asleep

And we are afraid to even admit we let things get this far

and so we pretend the country is better than it is,

we pretend all kinds of shiny objects are stars,

so we don’t have to wake up.

Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh 4/18/20 Rabbi Tarlan Rabizadeh 4/18/20

Sanctifying Time

Parashat Shemini

In fact, in Hebrew, each day of the week doesn’t have it’s own name. ...Every day is a countdown to Shabbat—the only day of the week that has her own name. And this isn’t because all of the other days of the week are insignificant. But rather that we count up to the day when our soul is heightened, are spirits are moved, a day where the air feels different because we treat it differently.

Rabbi Noa Kushner 4/3/20 Rabbi Noa Kushner 4/3/20

The Simple Question

Parashat Tzav

As we consider moments like the one we are living through now -- 'Mah zot?' / 'What is this?' --

seems to be not only the right question, it is the only question.

Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 3/20/20 Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer 3/20/20

Toward the Center

Parashat Vayak’hel-Pekudei

What is at the center? What’s in the Holy of Holies? This enclosed space measured in handbreadths, not in square feet? It is the beginning of divine communication. You could call it our DNA.

Rabbi Noa Kushner 3/13/20 Rabbi Noa Kushner 3/13/20

The Torah of Unknowing

Parashat Ki Tissa

The unknown may be a starting point for everything that doesn’t yet have a name.

Rabbi Noa Kushner 2/21/20 Rabbi Noa Kushner 2/21/20

Visiting Paradise

Parashat Mishpatim

So this week, I was thinking about, how after it is all over --

I was thinking about how Eve and Adam never try to get back in to Eden.