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  1. DT Tetzaveh Schein

    What does the well-dressed Cohen Gadol (High Priest) look like? Quite resplendent, according to this week's Torah portion, Tetzaveh. Bearing on his chest the hoshen mishpat (breastplate of judgment) with twelve different minerals, each representing a different one of the tribes of Israel, the high priest is the living embodiment of the commandment of hidur mitzvah, beautifying the mitzvot that connect us to God.

    Halachic Clarification

    https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/holding-high-jewish-office-do-clothes-make-man

    Posted on: 2016/02/17 - 10:52am

  2. Israel sermon - sid - limiting debate

    (This article appeared in the New York Jewish Week on February 2, 2014.)

    The current controversy brewing in the Hillel universe is only the latest example of a Jewish community polarized over how we can or can’t talk about Israel. The guidelines, developed by national Hillel in 2010, were designed to provide a basis upon which a local Hillel could prevent overtly anti-Israel groups from speaking under the Hillel banner.

    https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/sermon/limiting-debate-israel-will-only-hurt-us

    Posted on: 2016/02/17 - 12:02pm

  3. Eleh Ezakara - Sacrifice and Martyrdom

    Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is never an easy day. Fasting, however, is not the real problem. Rather, the day's challenge comes from its demand that we confront deep spiritual, theological, and philosophical issues we would often wish to avoid. We are asked to consider, for example: the tension between sin and forgiveness, the relationship between suffering and redemption, and the emergence of hope out of tragedy. The prayers and readings of Yom Kippur demand that we meditate on these themes as personal challenges, but present them to us in grand images on a mythic scale.

    https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/eleh-ezakara-sacrifice-and-martyrdom

    Posted on: 2016/05/06 - 10:10am

  4. Our Akeidah, Our Binding

    There is a thread running through all the Rosh haShanah portions, except one: that thread is fathers and children, mothers and children.

    The Akedah is the sole exception.

    Where are the mothers today? 

    This is an impressionistic reading of the Akedah.

    It does not explain the text.

    This is not the comfortable reading that, in praising our ancestor Abraham, gains credit for ourselves.

    This is not the reading that shows we are a people who have long put aside idolatry and child sacrifice.

    I have no comfort today, only questions.

    https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/our-akeidah-our-binding

    Posted on: 2016/05/06 - 10:13am

  5. Sukkot: Yom Kippur's Counterbalance

  6. The Modern Meaning of Tisha b'Av

    The Jewish Memorial Day, The Fast of the Ninth of the Jewish month of Av, Tisha b'Av, marks the end of a three week period of mourning during which our people remember the series of events that led to the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of our people's first Temple on that date in the year 586 BCE.

    https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/modern-meaning-tisha-bav

    Posted on: 2016/05/06 - 10:25am

  7. What's God Have to Do With It?

    A High Holiday Sermon delivered by by Rabbi Sid Schwarz at Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation, Bethesda, MD
    Yom Kippur 2007

    Some of you will remember the old Art Linkletter show. His signature piece on the show was his interviews with children which he later compiled in a book called Kids Say the Darndest Things. I thought of this when I recently picked up a book entitled, Children’s Letters to God. Here are a few excerpts:

    “Dear God:

    https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/sermon/whats-god-have-do-it

    Posted on: 2016/05/06 - 10:32am

  8. Future Prayer

    Isaiah 57:14-58:14

    Are these the words for the future prayer not yet in our mahzor, the one all the generations after us will recite?

    We heard the prophet say: “Prepare, prepare the road - clear away the stumbling blocks.” But instead, we have built walls across the roads to keep out those we fear.

    https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/future-prayer

    Posted on: 2016/05/06 - 10:36am

  9. Filling the Earth with God's Presence

    Haftarah Yitro from last week includes words so important they were made part of the service: “Holy, holy, holy! All the earth is filled with the presence of the Lord of Hosts.”

    Or it could be, if we made room for that presence.

    Making room for God is a task set for us by all of Jewish teaching, and it is one whose details are included in Parashat Mishpatim.

    https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/dvar-torah/filling-earth-gods-presence

    Posted on: 2016/05/06 - 10:45am

  10. Being Part of the Universe

    Let us begin by remembering that the spiritual always points toward the unity of things, not their division. Judaism tries to help us to work from a higher perspective. To celebrate the creation of the world, as we do on Rosh Hashanah, is to see ourselves as an integral part of all that is and not to see ourselves as the measure of all things. The egotistical, self-centered part of our mind, “the evil urge” if you will, always leads us to experience our separateness from the natural world.

    https://archive.reconstructingjudaism.org/sermon/being-part-universe

    Posted on: 2016/05/06 - 12:54pm

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