Sermons, Songs and Services

My sermon as we entered the book of Shemot, Exodus, from January 5th, 2024. Entitled “The Power of Names,” this sermon is about the importance of humanizing even our enemies, rather than succumbing to the temptation to collectivize them. Let us not take the “easy way forward” as the war between Israel and Hamas evolves.

This is my sermon from Yom Kippur 5784, in which I address the Death Penalty, Military Killings, and our ethics in response to recent events, including but not limited to the trial of Robert Bowers, the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter. Watch to the end to see me and Cantor Rachel Rhodes sing Nefesh Mountain’s beautiful and mournful song, “Tree of Life,” which they wrote in the aftermath of the 2018 shooting.

This is the video from our DC community vigil after the Simchat Torah war with Hamas broke out. Together we prayed, grieved and recommitted ourselves to standing shoulder to shoulder—with each other and with Israel. Scroll to minute 30:45 to see me lead our incredible community in heartbreaking prayer as we sang Oseh Shalom.

This is Temple Sinai’s musical “Shabbat in the Round” service from the Friday after the outbreak of the Simchat Torah war with Hamas. Normally we’d be set up in concentric circles, but we had so many folks coming to Temple that we had to make extra space beyond our sanctuary. It was a meaningful, heart opening night and the congregation sang so beautifully as our hearts broke open together.

This was our “Shabbat in the Round” service for Selichot. We sang beautifully, we danced with Torah scrolls, and readied ourselves for our High Holy Day season.

My sermon from Yom Kippur 5783, entitled “We Need Each Other Now,” in which I talk about our emergence from pandemic living and how badly we need to come together.

Our “Shabbat in the Round” service where we celebrated Pride and our LGBTQ+ congregants and their families. We sang amazingly in our Bet Am, and heard amazing words from some special congregants of multiple generations.

Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat before Purim, 2022. Scroll to the 1 hour mark to hear my sermon on the importance of memory and what it means to “Remember Amalek” as I responded to the outbreak of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, and their bombing of the Babi Yar ravine.