
“When the Dust Speaks: A Reflection for Pride Month”
The dust of the sanctuary says: You belong here too.
Proudly Jewish - Proudly Progressive
Proudly Jewish - Proudly Progressive
The dust of the sanctuary says: You belong here too.
We know the wilderness well in our tradition. It's the place where Israel wandered, lost and disoriented. A place of testing and trial, but also of revelation. Sinai happened in the wilderness, not in the comfort of a promised land. Elijah found God not in the fire or the storm, but in the still small voice, alone, broken, and afraid in the desert.
So, what does it mean for someone today to find themselves in such a wilderness?
The Sabbath and Shmita teach us that the land is not merely our resource, but our partner in God's covenant—a caregiver that Resh Lakish likens to a devoted handmaiden raising the king's children. When we honour the earth's need for rest, we rediscover our own worth beyond productivity, learning to breathe not as owners, but as kin in a world yearning to be whole.
In Parashat Emor, we find one of the Torah’s more difficult passages — a section that limits which kohanim, which priests, can serve at the altar. A priest with a visible difference — blind, lame, injured, or with a disfigurement — is instructed not to offer the sacred sacrifices.
To modern ears, this can feel jarring. It brushes up against our values of equality, inclusion, and dignity. But maybe we can approach this not as a closed door but as a doorway into deeper conversation.
In this Pesach sermon, Rabbi Adrian M. Schell reflects on a deeply personal and poignant Seder night in Berlin, where a table of rabbinical students, each carrying their own stories and silences, unknowingly held the broken pieces of our collective…
Shabbat Ki Tissa brings us face to face with a rare figure in our tradition—Bezalel, an artist whose name itself means “in the shadow of God.” Bezalel’s job was special: crafting the Tabernacle, creating beauty as an act of holiness.…
A couple of years ago, a friend of ours planted a small garden on her balcony. It was nothing fancy—just a few herbs, a tomato plant, and some strawberries. But when that first tomato ripened, it was like magic. She…
Chaverim Shalom, This Shabbat is a time of endings and new beginnings: It is the last Shabbat of 5780, opening the gateway to Rosh HaShanah We are bidding farewell to the past, and moving forward into something new. Like the…
See it again, my sermon from last Shabbat on why Progressive/Reform Judaism is AUTHENTIC Judaism.