Daily Kavanah – Friday, April 5, 2024
Tomorrow is called “Shabbat Mevarchim,” the Sabbath on which we announce the date of the coming Hebrew month. Since we are lunar people, Rosh Hodesh (the new month) coincides with the new moon. While [...]
Sharing the Burden
Sharing the Burden Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback March 29, 2024 | 19 Adar 2, 5784 Your browser does not support the audio element. In his Shabbat sermon, Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback highlights the idea that [...]
Daily Kavanah – Friday, March 29, 2024
My soul, my heart really needed Purim this year. Or, to be more precise, it needed the fun, silly, colorful, joyous part—the part where the kids dress up as Queen Esther or Mordechai, Spiderman [...]
Search for Meaning with Audrey Birnbaum
Audrey Birnbaum grew up in New York in the late 1960s, the child of a Holocaust survivor. When her father, Jack, died in 2018, Audrey discovered hundreds of pages of notes [...]
Daily Kavanah – Friday, March 22, 2024
Purim has a different resonance now, in the middle of this terrible war. Megilat Esther is essentially a Jewish fantasy about what it would mean to be given permission to fight back. And not [...]
Daily Kavanah – Friday, March 15, 2024
This week we’ve been focusing our daily kavannot on the life and legacy of our namesake, Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise, whose birthday we celebrate this Sunday (he was born on March 17, 1874 and [...]
Daily Kavanah – Friday, March 8, 2024
This past week I joined more than 100 other North American rabbis across all denominations for a three day conversation about Zionism. Planning for the conference began more than a year ago, long before [...]
Daily Kavanah – Friday, March 1, 2024
I remember the first time one of my rabbinic school teachers, Rabbi Ben Hollander (z”l), invited me to his home for Shabbat lunch. He opened a bottle of Manischewitz and proceeded to pour wine [...]
Be the Light
Be the Light Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback February 23, 2024 | 14 Adar 1, 5784 Your browser does not support the audio element. Through story during our 6:15 p.m. Shabbat Service on Friday, February 16, [...]
Daily Kavanah – Friday, February 23, 2024
Every synagogue you’ve ever visited has one. They come in different shapes and sizes but the origin of each comes from the opening of this week’s Torah portion: וְאַתָּ֞ה תְּצַוֶּ֣ה ׀ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל וְיִקְח֨וּ אֵלֶ֜יךָ שֶׁ֣מֶן [...]