In this week's parasha "Nitzavim" we are told what is being presented and done is not only for those standing here today - but for those not yet here. The task of "un-dumbing" the faith --- removing bad ideas masquerading as Biblical precepts – has been a major focus of our Rabbi for the past forty years. On this last Shabbat before Yom Teruah, he presents it as a clarion call to service beyond self.

"Bark and Water" was the motto Koreans adopted during the 1950s Korean War to express their level of commitment, the amount of deprivation they were willing to endure in order to preserve their Homeland from foreign invasion. What things in Biblical faith create such a level of commitment? We explore easily bypassed bedrock truths and values that play key roles in creating appropriate levels of commitment.

What motivates The Creator to teach humans? We explore that from Parasha Ki Tetzeh's instructions to warriors in love with their captives - and many other passages, as well as our "nature and nurture" driving our choice-making.

[Note: This recording is clean of the drop-outs in the Live Video Broadcast] On the parasha, "Shoftim" ("Judges") - the need for "judges" and "officers" in The Promised Land. The Abrahamic Nation was being led to a real place in the real world - not "heaven on earth." Judges and officers would be needed because we would be a nation of humans, needing laws, experts on those laws, and enforcers of those laws – in "The Promised Land." How this truth applies to faith-communities like our own in the present era as well.

Exactly 29 years ago today, this synagogue was born in a living room on 70th Street in Manhattan's Upper East Side. As leave Covid-19 lockdown and embark on holding renewed public services in addition to online live-streaming ... what might Scripture and history teach us of how to look and move forward? We say "Kadima" (Forward!) often: this sermon is about how to live forward into a long-term calling.

Pairing the Torah portion's portrait of a life of ongoing listening/obeying (to God) with Yeshua of Nazareth's startling words, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to accomplish His work" - we explore the "nourishment" that comes to and from a life obeying God's will in contrast to merely living with "religion" of some kind in one's life. Yeshua the Messiah taught us that "the narrow path" is the ONLY path that actually leads to eternal life. Why spend one moment on any other path? Shabbat shalom!

[We are still working on our audio quality in our new 3-camera set up. We hope to have it perfected soon. Thank you for your patience.] This Shabbat, we leave the solemn focus of last week's "Tisha B'Av" behind, and pivot to comforting contemplations. Hence, the sermon to title, "And Now For Something Completely Different ..." – we dwell upon "the finished work" of Messiah's atonement through the Haftarah of Shabbat "Nachamu" – the amazing idea, "Your warfare over, your iniquity has been "nirtzah" factored into your path forward – and God has paid in full your debt of justice" (the idiomatic meaning of "keef-lai-eem" in Isaiah 40). Shalom!

What would move the Creator to tear down His own Temple? The Torah, Prophets, and The Jewish Sages' commentaries in the Talmud (TB Yoma 9b8) engage with this question head-on, in order that we, their successors, might not fall into the same patterns that led God to act as He did on the 9th of Av --- in regard to both the 1st and 2nd Temples, which feel on the same calendar date.

Given in our 1st public service since the CV19 lockdown began in March 2022. The Torah portion, "Maasai" - "The journeys of the children of Israel" was especially poignant as our doors in a new location and time! (NOTE: this sermon was slide-based, so you may want to watch the Video recording here or on YouTube or Facebook, and be able to follow along a little better). Shalom and Shavuah tov!

Since our Rabbi was absent and unable to give a sermon this past Shabbat (23 July), we offer this “blast from the past” for your listening pleasure and edification.

Exactly thirty years ago this month, at the MJAA International “Messiah” Conference in July 1992, our Rabbi Bruce Cohen was asked to give a class sharing his aggressive first-hand research on the long-concealed, recently-released “Dead Sea Scrolls” fragments, the photo-facsimiles of which had just been published by Biblical Archaelology Review from the Bechtel Family Library, edited by Dr. Robert Eisenmann into a 2-Volume “scholars edition” of which Rabbi Bruce was one of the first possessors in the entire world. Rabbi Bruce had vigorously researched those newly-released treasures, event to chasing down Dr. Eisenmann by phone at his home in California to confirm the specific sense of the most hotly debated “Messiah-related” texts. The information Rabbi Bruce uncovered using his comparative literature education and expertise to dissect and verify is STILL revolutionary, three decades later. In this digitalized copy of a cassette tape made at that 1992 conference, you get to hear this news as it was breaking on the Two-Testament believing world. As the old radio show said it, “And you are there.” And we hope being there for this moment is an extraordinary and inspiring experience. Shalom!