Tag: Drasha
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Welcome Is Not Enough
There’s a difference between opening a door and sharing the room.This week’s Torah portion — with its “mixed multitude” and the bold question Lamah nigara? (“Why should we be excluded?”) — has something urgent to say about Pride Month and trans inclusion in Jewish life.Rabbi Adrian Schell argues that queer and trans Jews aren’t a…
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The Holiness of Doing Nothing
Parashat Behar opens with one of the Torah’s most radical ideas. Every seventh year, the land of Israel must observe a shmita [sabbatical year]. No sowing, no pruning, no harvesting. The fields are simply left alone. Not because the land is broken, but because rest is not a reward for good work. Rest is a commandment.
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We Will Not Hide
Again! I found myself staring at the news alerts yesterday, feeling that familiar, heavy tightening in my chest. Another attack. This time, a knife on the streets of Golders Green. The shock is instinctive, but if I am brutally honest with myself, the surprise is fading. And that fading surprise is perhaps the most terrifying…
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Memory as a Sacred Obligation
The silence left behind by the stopped hostage clock is not the joyous quiet of a struggle won, but the heavy stillness of a cycle closed. In Parashat Beshallach, we read that Moses took the bones of Joseph with him out of Egypt. Even in a life or death escape, the leader of our people…
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God is Not a Monster
How do we find a meaningful Jewish response to the Sydney terror attack? In this week’s sermon on Parashat Mikeitz, Rabbi Adrian (Wimbledon Synagogue) challenges the idea that tragedy is part of a divine script. If we claim that everything happens for a reason, we risk portraying a “Puppeteer God” who is cruel. Instead, we…
