When I get asked on how/why I chose to become a rabbi, I always cite a formative experience that I had in the summer between my junior and senior year in high school. I participated in a program sponsored by USY, the Conservative Movement’s youth movement, called Eastern European Pilgrimage. I went in the summer […]
I’ve never crowd-sourced a High Holyday sermon. In fact, one of my quirks is that I like to keep my High Holyday sermons pretty close to my vest. But I made a slight exception this summer. Here is what happened. An idea took root in my head that seemed like an ideal topic for a […]
Jews ascribe a lot of value to meritocracy and competence, sometimes, obsessively. It might be for that reason that I so look forward to Sukkot. It gives me a chance to revel in my incompetence. I built my first sukkah when our three children were young. It would not have happened without the help of […]
To me, the wisdom that a Biblical text can impart always resides between the words in the scroll and the life and times of the reader. For that reason, I was struck this week by the juxtaposition of Parshat Bo, which sets the stage for the story of the Exodus from Egypt, the master-story of […]
Much “ink” has been spilled in recent years over the dangers posed to both Jewish and American values by a particularly ugly version of the American political right wing. But the right wing has not cornered the market on intolerance and bigotry. This article appeared in the Times of Israel on October 22, 2021. Evidence the position […]
I like funerals. Don’t get me wrong. I know that funerals represent loss. I feel deep empathy for the mourners. And death can also be tragic, especially when disease or tragedy cuts short a life precipitously. But even though the loss of a loved one leaves an emotional hole in one’s soul that may never […]
The decision made by Simon Biles, America’s premier gymnast, not to compete at the Tokyo Olympics in most of the events that she trained for, set off a firestorm of commentary. We are a country that lionizes our athletes. The better the athlete is, the greater the pressure exerted on them to compete and to […]
This week we begin reading the fourth book of the Torah, Bemidbar, “in the wilderness”. I’d like to reflect a bit on the theme of wilderness and what it might mean to us today. I’d like to drash it, literally, play with the meaning of the word “wilderness”, in three ways. This was the Bemidbar/Shavuot dvar […]
sid.schwarz Articles American Jewish Yearbook, anti-semitism;, Charles Liebman, chosen people concept, ethnocentrism, excommunication, gentiles, intolerance, Jewish supremacy, Jonathan Sacks, Mordecai Kaplan, Passover Haggadah, racism, religion and social tranformation, The Dignity of Difference, Torah blessings, white privilege, white supremacy
Several years ago, I was leading services at my congregation in the month of February and we dedicated the shabbat to Black History Month. In addition to my dvar torah, which was on the theme of “Racism in America”, we sponsored an afternoon of learning that featured a panel of three people of color, breakout […]
sid.schwarz Articles American civic division, American Jewish life, American tribalism, crisis of faith, Donald Trump, erosion of American democracy, healing the American divide, Israel
I’m an old-fashioned news hound. I can’t start my day without reading the newspaper. The Washington Post is my paper of choice. And I read the hard copy that gets thrown on my lawn every morning around 5am. But then, as I start my workday, I work in a professional bubble of my own creation. […]