The Wilderness Was Always The Point
The expectation of a stable, secure world as a precondition for real life, for serious community, or for spiritual depth, is, in the Torah's own terms, a category error. Safety as a precondition is not available. What is available is vulnerability, and a community that knows what to do with it. The question facing us today is not when the wandering ends. The wandering is the condition. The question is what we are building within it: how we carry the Mishkan forward, for whom we pitch it, and whether what we are raising now will give shelter to people not yet here.
Probabilities Don't Hug You Back: A Neilah Sermon for a World Without Guarantees
This Neilah sermon begins with a story from the town of Chelm, where a drought has caused a crisis of faith, and the people demand proof that God is listening. Into this debate steps Jossele, who argues that while he can't be certain about God, he knows that a life of kindness, forgiveness, and charity is a good life in itself. This sets the stage for the final, honest hour of Yom Kippur, when we must choose how to live without guarantees. The sermon is a call to live with "doubt in the head, faithfulness in the hands" , holding our values high even when the future is unknown and letting our hearts lead us through the gates.
The Pain of Being Unseen: A Rosh Hashanah Message of Hope and Recognition
