Rabbi Matthew Zerwekh's Rosh Hashanah morning sermon: "In support of the Zealous Moderate"

“It means there's no room to be wrong, ever, or to compromise. If it's God's will, why would I compromise God's will, even if it's for peace? My peace isn't for right now, during this struggle, it's for a future me. That thinking leads to where we find ourselves today, a world beginning to be defined by groups who are so entrenched against one another so deeply and with such certainty that scores of people are willing to take lives, others and their own, in service of it.”

Rabbi Aaron Starr “Hurt People Help People”

“But I think we here in America need a second kind of safe room, too. A safe room for the Jewish soul. I want our children to practice a Judaism strong enough to shelter them when the world becomes frightening and robust enough to guide them when the world becomes complicated. I want them to have a Jewish community loving enough to hold them in joy and in sorrow. A community that embraces its own faster than it judges its own.”

Rabbi Yoni Dahlen: The Tshuvah of Zionism

“Time and time again throughout our history, when the world has been at its darkest, Zionism has meant to the Jewish people one thing. Hope. Hope. That's it. That's the definition. Not colonialism, not supremacy, not the liberation or objectification of any other people. It has been the lighthouse guiding our people's way through 2500 years of wandering and uncertain and unpredictable world. It's not some malevolent conspiracy. It's home. It's just home. And it still is.”

Rabbi Paul Yedwab: Heroes & Miracles

“And suddenly, the bulb in the eternal light blew out, and we were in darkness. Dad, the eternal light went out. It's never supposed to go out. What's going to happen? Don't worry, my father soothed. What makes the light eternal is not that the oil never runs out or that the bulb will never fail. What makes the eternal light eternal is that there will always be Jewish people to relight it.”

Rabbi Jennifer Kaluzny: Bringing the Torahs home 

“Why do we risk our lives to save and preserve parchment and wood? Consider the theoretical question we have all asked ourselves. If your home was on fire, what would you save? People and pictures, life and stories. As Jews, that is what we value most. Our Torah is both. We are both. We are one and the same.”

Rabbi Arianna Gordon: Future Filled with Hope & Progress

“Last week, after the storm, after those tornado sirens, I walked outside and I saw branches and puddles everywhere. But in the midst of that mess and the power outages and the down trees, there was a beautiful rainbow, reminding me that the storm wasn't the only thing that was there. New beginnings don't erase what came before. We can be excited and still remember what was hard. We can be happy and still miss what we had before.”

Rabbi Daniel Schwartz (at 1:09:42)

“In a world where it's not easy to be a Jew, being there for fellow members of the Jewish community is even more important. Antisemitism tries to isolate us. Fear tells us to retreat. Anxiety tells us to protect only ourselves. But Judaism teaches us the opposite. We are responsible for one another.”

Rabbi Michael Moskowitz (at 1:34:24)

“Today the world is born. It's what Rosh Hashanah is about. Not looking back at the finished story but picking up the unfinished one and asking what are you going to do with our part in it. It demands look within, be reflective, and then choose to act. Because whatever's happening in the world, we are not merely its consequence. We have the opportunity to shape whatever comes next.”

Rabbi Alana Alpert: “When the Mountain Looks Steep”

“I lift my eyes to those who came before me, towards the people whose choices made the world I inhabit. And I hear Isaac again. Where are we going? What's happening? What kind of worlds have you brought me into? All of us live inside choices made before we arrived. Some of them protected us. Some of them wounded us. Most are more complicated than that. And fear is one of the things we inherit. And fear changes the landscape we think we're looking at. It makes the hill look steeper. It makes the stranger look more dangerous. It can make an inherited choice feel like the only possible choice.”

Rabbi Harris Erev Rosh (at 58:00)

“That day, my mom taught me about something, something about what to do with fear. She didn't tell me there was nothing to be afraid of. She didn't tell me that terrible things weren't happening. She didn't minimize it. She just showed me that fear does not get to decide who our neighbors are. She showed me that we when we are frightened, we can still show up for other people. She showed me what it means to be a human being.”

Rabbi Harris Rosh Morning (at 1:43:30)

“Judaism does not simply say believe whatever you want. Judaism gives us a tradition to wrestle with. We inherit the texts, the stories, the arguments, the rituals, the mitzvot, and we definitely don't have to agree with everything our tradition has ever said. That's part of the tradition. But we do have to be willing to engage with it because ambiguity in Judaism isn't supposed to mean that nothing matters. It means that we are humble enough to know that we may not possess the whole truth. This is why I have come to think of ambiguity not as a problem in Judaism but as one of our greatest gifts. It is not a bug in the system. It is the design of the system.“

Rabbi Aaron Bergman

“We cannot be so obsessed with anti-semitism that we forget about how truly blessed we are to be part of the Jewish people. We should never hide who we are. We should be proud that we are still here after so many challenges. We aren't a perfect people, but most of us try every day to make things better for us and for the world. The key to the Jewish future and a more beautiful present is in using our imagination and creativity to bring Jewish joy into the world. It is to create a vision of our future that we want to have. We should be picturing the future that we want and we should be working at it with hope and optimism, not just with fear and dread. We must not be prisoners of our wounds. We must not be prisoners of the hate of others.”

Rabbi Blair Nosanwich

“We as Jews have actually believed that we connect with and impact the universal through the particular. That's at the core of our belief. And the same is true for how we know and interact with each other. The olam is not what's on a screen. It is not beyond anything that we relate to right in front of our faces. The olam exists in time and not space. The olam is the present. It is what is right in front of you.”