At this time of year in our Jewish calendar, we are in a season of second chances. We are reading Moshe's retelling of the people's journey through the desert in Deuteronomy, and we are about to enter into the month of Elul, the month of spiritual preparation for the High Holy Days. It is also the moment when Moshe went back up the mountain to get the second set of tablets - the ultimate story of second chances. We are about to start our own month of reflection and repair - let's see what we can do.

Water is not only a building block of life, but also of culture. How we receive water shapes our consciousness and has the potential to remind us of the ultimate truth of our existence: we are always, and inevitably, dependent.

Every ounce of our energy must advance a vision of peace.  There is no other way to rebuild a society in ruins.  Our God, and God of our ancestors. Our God, and God of our descendants.  Grant us peace.  

What can Aaron’s rod teach us about this parashah, her person and our lives?

The sin of the spies sent to assess the Promised Land? These princes couldn't fathom sharing power. That failure of moral imagination cost a whole generation, condemned to wander, landless and vulnerable for four decades before entering the land. Like so many people of privilege after them, the spies preferred that everyone suffer rather than share the abundance equitably and fairly. Let us not make the same miscalculation.

(Trigger Warning: Discussion of teenage suicidal ideation. Save and share this number: 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline for when you need it.) Those feelings of aloneness, or differentness, or social irrelevance are as old as time. In Aaron, something beautiful and eternal was born from the heartache. What about in us? The reminder that together we can beat back the darkness... by honoring the light that dwells within each of us.

So many LGBTQ+ people have been hurt by religious leadership and institutions. We have the power to offer healing.

Led by R' Morris Panitz, Jen Bailey, Alex Couto + Jessica Cabot

The Dynamic Way We Dance Ourselves into Being: Creation Revealed. Revelation Created. Led by Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson.

A special discussion with author Mickey Bergman about his book, In the Shadows: True Stories of High-Stakes Negotiations to Free Americans Captured Abroad.

Vera Blossom, Aimee Bender, Ann Bohrer, and Mel Weisberger in conversation, moderated by Lorne Buchman. How do we experience the dynamic of the creative and the revelatory in our work and how do we parse the difference between the two (if at all)? Can the dynamic itself shed light on how we might “prepare for Revelation”?

The mystics believe that every soul corresponds to a letter in the Torah. And, if a letter is missing, erased, or smudged, we can’t continue reading from the scroll until that letter is restored to its vibrancy. Anti-trans bills, including the two signed this past week, represent a conscious and coordinated attempt to erase trans and non-binary people from our communities and collective story. It’s time to move beyond the rhetoric of support and into life-saving action. 

The word for brain isn't even in the Torah. But a lot of what is in the Torah presumes a functioning brain and even asks us to use it in certain specific ways. In particular, the brain is directly implicated by the whole realm that we call belief or faith. Judaism, like many religions, asks us to believe in certain things. Actually, in Judaism case, it doesn't just ask. It commands. We're commanded to believe in God, to believe there is only one God and to believe that that God is the one who delivered us from Egypt and then gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai. So how are we supposed to force ourselves to force our brains to believe in that stuff? Or you could ask a different question What is going on in our brains when and if we do believe in that stuff? That's what I wanted to know. Today, Rabbi David Kasher talks to neuroscientist and devout Jew, Mayim Bialik about the science of belief and holding both science and belief at once.

Despite the many challenges the Jewish people face today, many believe that our greatest difficulty is our inability to coexist peacefully among ourselves. In our studies, we will focus on the theme of embattled siblings, which pervades the book of Genesis. We will draw a line from these narratives to the Jewish people today, noting, and suggesting possible responses to, the enduring affliction of fractiousness among “siblings.” 

It’s the presence and prospect of death in our midst that makes life so precious. It’s the awareness that there’s a thin line separating it all that summons us back into life. The lungs that breathe with you, the heart that beats for you, the blood that sustains you defines both the beginning and the end of our stories. They belong to each other- just as death belongs to life and grief belongs to love. 

Reparations Now: A Conversation on the CA Reparations Task Force's Findings and Proposals with Member Dr. Shery Grills, Rabbi Aryeh Cohen and Reverend Eddie Anderson.

For millennia, we’ve tried to understand how Aaron, Moshe’s brother, remained silent, even acquiescent after suffering unimaginable loss. Some say his heart turned to stone—he simply could no longer feel. Prophetic grief, in contrast, is born at the intersection of heartache and fury, and rages against reality. When experienced by not only by individuals but by the collective, bursts of prophetic rage and grief—while imperfect political movements—have the power to overturn world orders. Some reflections on my recent trip to Israel and the meaning and potential of this protest movement.

Three times a year, the Torah instructs, we’re meant to drop everything and set off on a collective journey to a sacred destination. While these pilgrimages have disappeared from our practice, it’s worth wondering why the Torah selects this religious behavior as the primary way to capture and reanimate the core values of these holidays. Pilgrimage, it turns out, is the ideal way to tell the story of Passover. 

In Pirkei Avot, we read that "A free person is one who studies Torah." How can the study of Torah help us understand and appreciate what it means to be free?

A warning, from our dark and pained past: remember, even when confronted by external enemies, it is the extremism in our own Jewish community that poses the most potent threat to our survival. We are at an inflection point: will we again fall prey to the zealots?

Rabbi Kasher’s farewell sermon, a pre-Passover reflection on the role of mitzvot in Jewish life. 

Right now we find ourselves approaching Passover where we are reminded of our oppression and slavery in Egypt and our eventual path toward freedom. This year it's coinciding with proposed new national policies to turn away more asylum seekers are our borders. How can we reconcile what is happening now with our own central narrative as a people who left everything to seek freedom? What lessons can we learn about how to use our voices to fight for more justice?

Spring is springing and the month of Nissan is coming! What will your renewal and regeneration look like this year?

How our artists—then and now—transform even the deepest suffering into worlds suffused with beauty. Celebrating Betzalel, Robert Russel, and the artist within us all.

Astrologer Chani Nicholas joins Rabbi Kasher to discuss astrology in the Torah and one of the greatest Jewish thinkers who just happened to be an astrologer himself. They discuss Ibn Ezra, the intersection of Judaism and astrology, the implications astrology has for concepts like fate and freewill, and so much more.

After a week of violence, we must hear the torah of the streets of Tel Aviv. Brief reflections on the heartache and the hope.

Purim summons us to joy, but how do we access that joy when our hearts hurt from the shameful display of excessive violence this past week in Huwara? Our tradition pleads with us to linger in grief before we get to Purim, to mark a solemn day of fasting and course correction. For, the only road to real joy travels first through grief.    

Parashat Terumah 5783 Entering Adar with hearts heavy from hate, our tradition reminds us of the messages embedded from the past, and their subversive claims on our future.

Source Sheet https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/568347?lang=bi Full class: https://youtu.be/xCIiAkZDSGQ

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from February 23, 2023

This is a recording of Rabbi David Kasher's Parsha class from February 16, 2023

Throughout the Book of Exodus, one Hebrew word- in its many forms- pops up again and again, pointing to the core message of this master story.  Life can feel unbearably heavy, but you are never alone. With each other’s help, we can transform an overpowering weight into a way forward.

Parashat B'shallah - 02.04.2023 Israel is barreling toward an unrecognizable future. Let us not sleep through the revolution.

Any one of the plagues could have been the one that changed everything. But each time, just as the threat receded, so too did Pharaoh’s will to change. We, too, are addicted to the allure of the status quo. And the shootings and the police killings persist. We must be stubborn in our pursuit of progress. Unyielding. May the memories of those whose lives were taken by violence this week stir us to work toward a more just and loving world. 

Reflections on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s use of the Hebrew Scriptures.

In honor of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s 50th yahrtzeit, we revisit the central claims of his theology, exploring how wonder and a personal relationship with God can reorient our approach to a meaningful life.  Wonder reminds us that we are recipients of a gift, summoning us to the ultimate question: what are we to do with this gift?

A tribute to some of the many moments with this beautiful community that have changed me over the past 16 years.

Much of the time it feels like we're on a different path than what we hoped for or asked for or dreamed. What can Joseph and Betzalel teach us about the gifts of two very divergent paths? What do we learn from a path that is both short and long?

The candles in our window don’t just remind us of the miracles our ancestors experienced… they invite the world into our story. See us! we say. See our trial and our triumph, our struggle and our survival. Our story becomes real when it is held with care. And that may be the real gift, one we can give each other every day.