A very personal sermon built around an actual recent experience of a long-prayed prayer suddenly being answered.

Sermon from streamed service on 7 December, not In-Person Service. That sermon will be podcast next week. Enjoy, and may it all be for shalom!

God, at times, puts us out on the end of a ledge – and then causes the ledge to evaporate under our feet. As we start to fall, with nothing visible between us and the ground below - at some point in the fall, "The Everlasting Arms" of God show up, and we are rescued. What IS this aspect of God-following?

A stirring look at the utter disruption of a family's entire status quo, leading to greater self-realization, long-unfulfilling goals – and challenges along the way that boggle the imagination.

Since last Saturday morning was Simchat Torah, and no sermon was given in the Shabbat morning service in Manhattan - so we offer Rabbi Bruce Cohen's sermon "in" Congregation Beit Ariel of Cape Town, South Africa - given via video the evening before for Erev Simchat Torah there. We hope you enjoy it! Shalom.

In North Carolina last week, people of both political parties, facing Hurricane Helene's recent damages impeding their ability to get to voting stations, became a shining example of what America can be if her citizens decide to be the non-adversarial, right versions of themselves. Let us feast together on the encouragement coming from a great real-life example of many Scriptural precepts about partly-agreeing/partly-disagreeing members of a community working as a team.

How Yeshua the Messiah's atonement provided by God is not just "'a' way to God," but "'THE' (exclusive, single, only) way" to God ... given there were countless people who lived and died before His arrival in Israel; and there have always been human beings far out of reach of hearing about, or knowing of the faith of Israel.

Handling things of the highest value in ways their value deserves; and avoiding toying with things in life not meant to be toyed with.

Shabbat "Shuvah" is the "Sabbath of 'Return'" after Yom Teruah (aka, "Rosh HaShanah") and before Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement. Returning to God is taught to us by Messiah Yeshua in the form of the parable of "The Prodigal Son." It is a powerful model of how return from irrational separation into relational joy is enabled by rational and spiritual erasure of ill-founded shame.

Creating rightful newness by removing what IS, which has no or lesser merit - and replacing it with what SHOULD BE, having greater merits as to accuracy or truthfulness. Specific example: assaying for merit the system of "trope" - the tradition of singing the Torah scroll's contents –– rather than following the one clear model Scripture gives us (per Isaiah 8:20) of how to run a Torah service. (Nehemiah 8:8).