IKAR Podcasts

Some years, the mourning and reflection of Tisha b’Av can feel performative. This year, it will be deeply personal. Even as we approach the abyss, we must remember the redemptive vision planted deep within our souls.Parashat Devarim, Shabbat Hazon -- 5784

Sermon from 8.3.2024 / Matot-Masei 5784

This week we find ourselves freed from some of the defeatism and despair that was taking root these last weeks and months. And now, with a bit of renewed hope, we have so much work to do. In the parsha we see a model of a collective that includes everyone and centers marginalized and unexpected groups. This moment demands we show up, no matter what that looks like. Find a way in - this fight will take all of us. 

The sense of defeatism, all too present after the events in thiscountry over the last week, is the most dangerous myth threatening our futureright now.  To throw up our hands and surrender to the myth ofinevitability is to relinquish the most precious gift given to humanity: ourcapacity to change the world around us.  We can be scared without beingresigned.  We can be exhausted without being fatalistic.  We can bediscouraged but nonetheless courageous.  

When we roll open the sacred Torah, what we see is monochrome. Pale parchment, dark ink, black, and white. Which are the only colors the human being can see when we are born. If today's parsha had a color, it would be red.Click here to see the painting Hope, by George Frederick Watts, painted in 1886: https://www.wikiart.org/en/george-frederick-watts/hope-1886

We are living in a world that is broken and painful. It is a moment to turn towards the angels within us and around us in order to find our way through.

Our family is broken. Please, God, help us heal.

Every ounce of our energy must advance a vision of peace.  There is no other way to rebuild a society in ruins.  Our God, and God of our ancestors. Our God, and God of our descendants.  Grant us peace. 

A special discussion with author Mickey Bergman about his book, In the Shadows: True Stories of High-Stakes Negotiations to Free Americans Captured Abroad.

A warning, from our dark and pained past: remember, even when confronted by external enemies, it is the extremism in our own Jewish community that poses the most potent threat to our survival. We are at an inflection point: will we again fall prey to the zealots?