Everything, Everywhere, All on Yom Kippur / Yom Kippur Morning 5784

“I’m here to tell you: every rejection, every disappointment, has led you here, to this moment. Don’t let anything distract you from it.” These are the words which welcome Evelyn, the character played by Michelle Yeoh in the film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once into her new responsibility. In the film, which swept this past …

Barbie, Chat GPT, and Being Human / Kol Nidrei 5784

She didn’t have to choose that Birkenstock. She could have kept her high heels on – maybe her feet would have gone back to normal, eventually. She could have stayed in her perfect, pink, world, with her perfect dreamhouse, blissfully innocent. But in this summer’s blockbuster, Barbie chose the other shoe. She chose to venture …

In the Name of Judaism, We Will Protect Democracy / Rosh Hashanah 5784

In February, I finally had the opportunity to return to Israel for the first time since before the pandemic. It had been the longest stretch of time I’ve gone without visiting Israel since I made my first trip there, and I felt so blessed to be back.  On the second day of my trip, I …

Forgive and Forget? – Rosh Hashanah Evening 5780

Rabbi Beth Kalisch, Beth David Reform Congregation 1 Tishrei 5780 / September 29, 2019 The letters started slowly, but soon, Chris Quinn, the online editor for Cleveland.com, the online home of the newspaper the Cleveland Plain Dealer, started noticing that he was getting more and more of them. “The article below [from your website] appears at …