A prayer for peace

an analysis of the ancient ritual of Yom Kippur found in the Torah: one goat to sacrifice, one goat to send to Azazel

My reflection on my self-identity as "Zionist" and whether I've been using it as a shield to protect myself in my pro-Palestinian activism

A Rosh Hashanah sermon about family building and infertility, reflecting on Hannah's story of childbirth after years of infertility.

An interesting thing about Jewish holidays is that each year they fall on different days in the secular calendar. The Hebrew calendar is based off the moon, with leap months every couple of years to keep holidays around the same time. Rosh Hashanah is always in the fall, Passover is always in the spring, but at times the dates can vary up to a month or so depending on where we are situated within the calendar cycle. This year is the year before a leap year: we will have an ad

We make choices every day. Some choices are mundane, and some have the power to change our lives forever. Like the Israelites who crossed the sea, we have a choice: do we move forward toward liberation, or preserve the status quo?

In this Yom Kippur sermon, Rabbi Tovlev gets deep and vulnerable about his past struggles with depression. He shares that this darkness has given him heightened appreciation of the light. Many of us go through our days focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, not noticing the blessings that surround us. When we pause to look around, we can see the beauty and goodness in our world and our lives. We only have one life to live, but are we truly living?

A Kol Nidre sermon about life and death. On Yom Kippur we ask the question, "Who will live and who will die?" These questions are not merely theoretical. We only have one life to live -- what is truly important in life? When tomorrow isn't guaranteed, we have to ask ourselves today: are we living the life we want?

"Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things." An exploration into kindness and situations when kindness is not nice. We must be people who resist oppression even when we go against the status quo and risk our reputations.

We cannot claim to care about the hostages and then support actions which directly put their lives in danger.

we are all always transitioning, through space, time, identity, transitioning

A poem in response to the US presidential election

Our struggles are not with each other; we must unite in the shared struggle for peace

Different levels of our soul: nefesh, ruach, and neshama; how to keep our neshama pure and bright.

Rosh Hashanah sermon about belief & disbelief in God

A Rosh Hashanah sermon on the power of showing up in community and bearing witness to each other's pain

our memories the memories we have of others are faulty things inconsistent, disjointed, warped by emotion which ones carry on? which are...

"the heart is never so open / as when it is broken / let it break, let it break"

It is not enough to protect trans kids if we are not empowering and honoring trans adults. Much of the transgender rights movement has...

Stories from my own life on diversity which have taught me about ignorance and efforts to move past it.