If Kol Nidre is really an Aramaic legal formula, why do we keep singing it?
Category: sermon
When the World Seems Hopeless
How to find hope when the world feels hopeless.
A Mantra for When Life is Full of Stress
How to respond when life out there is so full of stress that we often want to pull back, circle the wagons, and just take care of ourselves.
Sermon: That Time My Wife Was Spit on… In Jerusalem… By a Jew
Sermon: That Time My wife was spit on... in Jerusalem... by a Jew. AKA: Rejecting Tribalism, Embracing Discomfort
God Damn You, God! Taking God to Task in a Messed Up World
What’s with the raging wildfires and destructive flooding, the mass shootings and mindless meanness all around? How many more need to die to motivate Your mercy, to finally get You to act on our behalf? What the heck is going on with You, God?
Rabbi, Do You Have a Faith That Gets You Through?
How I found faith that got me through these tumultuous years.
Kindergarten Wisdom for an Adult World
May we be written for a good year in the Book of Life! And perhaps that will happen if we go back to basics. If we go back to kindergarten and be our best selves.
Letter to Your Future Self: Hold onto those Silver Linings
Write a letter or a make a video to your future self who will exist five or six months from now. Remind yourself about the silver linings you want to continue to embrace. Maybe, just maybe, you will listen to yourself.
We Have been Here Before: Spiritual Wisdom for Enduring Covid-19
I feel this sense of deja vu as we began to cancel plans and hunker down. Yes, the coronavirus-compelled communal self-quarantine descending upon our county, state and country felt vaguely familiar. Here's how we get through then and will now.
Fires, Shootings, Unfenced Roofs, and Uncovered Pits: Lessons from Torah in the Face of Increasing Danger
A year after the Borderline shooting and the SoCal fires, we reflect on the first person experiences, and explore Torah's insistence that we take action in the face of danger, including mass shootings and changes in climate.
Don’t Wait: Lessons from My Father-in-Law Murray November
Don't Wait: Lessons from my father-in-law Murray Novembert. (Yom Kippur sermon)
When the Rabbi Feels Trauma: Lessons from the SoCal Fires
Facing the trauma after the fires. If it can happen to the rabbi, it can happen to you too...
To Be a Jew Today
To be a Jew today
Rabbi Paul Kipnes offers a definition for today's world.
Lifting the Veil of Silence about Mental Illness
It is time for us to lift the veil of silence around mental illness, talking about it and our mental health journeys. Especially in the Jewish community.
Confessions from the Edge of a Cliff: My Teen Mental Health Journey
Teen Dani, an 11th grader, shared her mental health journey (through depression) to an overflowing synagogue on Yom Kippur.