It has been almost exactly one year since my father died. During the year before he died, he spoke less and less. Our time together was filled with longer silences, and fewer full sentences. Eventually he could produce no sentences at all, only fragments, and one word responses to questions. Often when I asked him [...]
Rabbi Steve Cohen Friday, January 9, 2015 An excerpt from Rabbi Cohen's sermon "Amidst all of the articles and comments I read yesterday and today, one comment in particular left me thinking. It just appeared on a long thread of comments, saying “I believe that nothing is sacred; or rather, that nothing sacred is made [...]
Rabbi Stone's Sermon: THE GOD PARTICLE Aug. 3, 2012 "In addition to feeding the homeless, they were working to create job training programs throughout the city. While tutoring kids in low-income communities, they were also creating thoughtful relationships with their senators to work on educational reform. And all the while, they were doing it within [...]
Rabbi Suzy Stone's Yizkor Service 5773 September 26, 2012 "That was the day that my heart stopped beating in the same way. After almost 50 visits with this one patient, I could not understand how God could have let such a wonderful child endure such pain and suffering. The God I knew‐‐ one of goodness, [...]
Rabbi Stone's sermon from Aug. 17, 2012 Rightness or Righteousness? "For better or for worse—in the Jewish community we don’t use the word “sin” in such an easygoing manner. It is for better —because I would argue that we have enough Jewish guilt—we don’t need to be slinging the word sin around to make ourselves [...]
Rabbi Suzy Stone's sermon from Sept. 19, 2012 An excerpt: "When I first arrived at CBB many people asked me — ‘how are you with names?’ I would answer: “Good...I think!?” But now, having encountered at least 1,000 new people in the last two months, I need to amend my answer and say, “I am [...]
An excerpt from Rabbi Stephen Cohen's sermon Yom Kippur 2014: "Like all ritual, the Yom Kippur performance with the goat was sacred theater. A symbolic drama. The liberation from sin came from the confession. It’s still true. Telling the truth about something we have done wrong may be excruciating. But it sets us free. In [...]
Rabbi Steve Cohen's Rosh Hashanah 2014 sermon: "Israelis are nothing if not direct and utterly real, but sadly most organized tours tend to turn Israel into a Jewish Disneyland. It’s easier, much easier, to drive folks from archeological site to museum, then to some awesome natural beauty and finally to go shopping for souvenirs, than [...]