Sermons

Click to view the president remarks from Sarah Holland.

Isaac is neurodivergent.

I do not say this to make fun of him or to insult him in any way. Isaac has something about him that makes him different. I have never liked referring to anyone as “on the spectrum,” because if it’s a spectrum we’re all on it, and that phrase is therefore not descriptive at all. So I am thankful that people smarter than I have brought...Read more...

Only one month ago, we stood on this beautiful bimah and celebrated the first Shabbat in our newly renovated Smith Auditorium. Now our transitional sanctuary, we’ve experienced many joyful moments, even in such a short period of time. In fact, the very first simcha, or joyful moment, occurred the first Saturday morning when we returned to Smith. On that bright and lovely day, we...Read more...

Once upon a time, there was a woman who thought she had it all. She built up a successful career that allowed her to do meaningful work. She had a loving husband who supported her every move. She had sweet children whom she loved dearly and did everything she could to spend time with them, to be there for every major event, to show her love for them with actions...Read more...

Dear Friends,
In keeping with time honored Jewish tradition, I want to pose a question that has no wrong answer: “What is a Jew?” Or, to pose the question another way, if I ask you, right now, to picture a Jew, what image comes to mind?

As I said a moment ago, there is no carved in stone answer to this question, and there are two reasons for that. First, there’s no single, official recipe for baking a Jewish identity cake....Read more...

Imagine for a moment that you are a person living in another country, a country filled with violence and danger, a place where the government is creating laws that suppress your rights each and every day. Imagine that you and your family are faced with prejudice and anger every day, only because of your religious beliefs, your background, your “disloyalty” to the country. Imagine that you made the brave decision to leave the country, the...Read more...

I have been very fortunate in my life. For 33 years, I have known that women could obtain essentially any job they desire (well, with one major exception, but we’re working on that). As I became an adult, I knew that anyone could marry whomever they loved, regardless of gender. And now, we are continuing to understand the broad spectrum of gender identity and gender fluidity, something that has become more apparent as the years go...Read more...

Dear Friends,
Yesterday morning, I decided that I wanted to talk tonight about the current “#metoo” Internet hashtag through which women have been identifying themselves as victims of sexually abusive male behavior. But there are two things that nearly persuaded me to find something else, something more benign and less disturbing, to talk about tonight.

The first is that reading those “#metoo” hashtag posts of female...Read more...