Skill fade to Snow White (Shabbat Vayakheil 22.03.2025)
You can listen to Rabbi Eleanor's sermon here or read it below.
Yesterday Disney released its live action version of Snow White, starring Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen who needs to know that she is the fairest of them all. Remaking an eighty-year-old film has proved somewhat...Read more...
Shabbat Ki Tissa 5785- A calf or a mishkan?
You can listen to Rabbi Deborah's sermon here or read it below.
As a teacher, my students often take my breath away. It’s one of my favourite things about learning with others, and especially about learning with young people. I adore the totally brilliant and revealing questions that children especially, not only, but especially ask. There’s a naivete...Read more...
Shabbat Zachor 5785
Shabbat Zachor 5785
If you were the kind of person who read popular social science books in the '90s or '00s, chances are you read one of these two books:
No Logo by Naomi Klein, a foundational exploration of the role that big brands like Nike and Pepsi play in our world—a book that sparked at least two summers’ worth of programming at RSY summer camps.
And The...Read more...
New Rules/Two Pockets (Shabbat Mishpatim 22.02.2025)
You can listen to Rabbi Eleanor's sermon here or read it below.
Back in the early thirteenth century, the infamously bad King John was having...Read more...
Shabbat Vaera 5785
You can listen to Rabbi Deborah's sermon here or read it below.
There’s a Vicar of Dibley end of credits scene that particularly amuses me. Geraldine (the vicar), and Alice (her congregant, confidant, and friend) are discussing football. Geraldine makes a comment along the lines of ‘how good is it that we won the match’, and Alice says to her, ‘oh, i didn't realise you played...Read more...
Shabbat Vayeishev 5785- Ahad Ha'am's Competitive Imitation (how I learnt to love Chanukah PJs)
You can listen to Rabbi Deborah's sermon here or read it below.
In the middle of a conversation in our atrium bemoaning Asda’s choice of colours for this year’s Chanukah pyjamas- white for those of you wondering, utterly impractical for jammy fingers- one of the people I was talking to...Read more...
Vayishlach 5785
Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?
Glinda 'the good' witch
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
Loathing
Unadulterated loathing
For your face
Your voice
Your clothing
Let's just say, I loathe it all!
Every little trait, however...Read more...
Finding our way (Shabbat Vayeitzei 07.12.2024)
You can listen to Rabbi Eleanor's sermon here or read it below.
The sequel just landed; eight years ago, Disney released the original Moana film, set in the dim and...Read more...
Neilah 5785
I spoke earlier today about cognitive dissonance and how we all use it to mange our lives. What I didn’t have time to share with you is the most dramatic example of cognitive dissonance I know. And I ant to use it to say just a few words to lead into our concluding service, Neilah.
There’s a photo taken in Eagle Creek, Oregon in...Read more...
Kol Nidrei 5785
I want to start with a simple proposition. (Nothing is ever simple but you will get what I mean). Can we ever know how someone else experiences the world. We can know a person for a lifetime yet we can’t know what the felt experience is of someone else. We can listen as they describe it, we can be empathetic, we can imagine other people’s experiences sitting...Read more...
Yizkor/Neila 5785
You can listen to Rabbi Deborah's sermon here or read it below.
We’re nearly there, we’re in a new year, we’re working our way towards the end of a day of introspection, of deep commitment to change. We’ve been honest, maybe even painfully so, about how hard things feel, how much we need the new, the hopeful, the different.
My colleague...Read more...
Kol Nidre 5785
You can listen to Cantor Zöe's sermon here or read it below.
“I Sing of Hope, and Don’t Know...Read more...
2nd Day Rosh Hashanah Morning 5785
You can listen to Rabbi Robyn's sermon here or read it below.
This morning, all of us, along with the inhabitants of the camp of Sarah and Abraham, will watch Hagar and her baby son, Ishmael, be banished into the wilderness. We become bystanders to their pain. We will...Read more...
1st Day Rosh Hashanah Morning 5785
You can listen to Rabbi Deborah's sermon here or read it below.
On my first day of university classes I woke up late, skipped breakfast, grabbed a book and rushed out of my hall of residence alongside a steady stream of fellow students heading in to start the term.
As we reached the corner of the road, everyone turned right to...Read more...
Erev 1st Day Rosh Hashanah 5785
You can listen to Rabbi Howard's sermon here or read it below
So here we are. Crossing the threshold. Into the New Year. The old year is behind us – though it isn’t really....Read more...
Selichot 5784
You can listen to Rabbi Eleanor's sermon here or read it below
Seeding the Future – 28 September 2024
Already this evening we have begun to use page after page of words, and we will use many more pages over the coming weeks as we celebrate, commemorate, and celebrate again together; yet Jewish tradition also directs us to some simpler ways to start the...Read more...
Shabbat Shabbat Ki Tavo
You can listen to Rabbi Eleanor's sermon here or read it below
Time To Understand
We share a home town, so local pride makes it natural that I have a slight soft spot for Gustav Holst, a musician and composer who was born 150 years ago today. You needn’t be a big classical music fan to have heard of Holst’s orchestral suite called The...Read more...
Speaking to the Architect (Shabbat Shoftim) – 7 September 2024
Once Elul rolls around, the mere mention of honey or apples is enough to catch my ear, so it’s no surprise that I’ve found myself listening recently to a song called ‘The Architect,’ by Kacey Musgraves. It begins with a meditation on natural beauty, through the perfection of an apple, but it’s the second verse that confirmed this as part of my High Holy Day...Read more...
Shabbat Chazon (D’varim)
You can listen to Rabbi Eleanor's sermon here or read it below
Even if...Read more...
Shabbat Acharei Mot 5784
You can listen to Rabbi Tony's sermon here or read it below
Not, of course, for you but for the person sitting next to you: lachrymose means tear-filled, consisting only of tragedy. I’m going to begin this morning’s sermon in a lachrymose place in our...Read more...
Shabbat Parah 5784
You can listen to Rabbi Miriam's sermon here or read it below
My son Ben is a few weeks younger than Daniel and what I realise...Read more...
Shabbat Ki Tissa 5784
You can listen to Rabbi Miriam's sermon here or read it below.
Anecdotally, or at least according to the jokes people tell rabbis, it’s during the sermon that people fall asleep at shul but kids like Libby know it’s not in services that her parents sleep at the synagogue, but actually when hosting the winter shelter when this space becomes a...Read more...
Shabbat T'tzavveh 5784
You can listen to Rabbi Miriam's sermon here or read it below.
There are many aspects of my job which I completely love but a particular one is something many of you will have experienced about me but most wouldn’t know to be a thing. As the rabbi of a community of 1000 households I take an inordinate amount of pride in members doing extraordinary...Read more...
Shabbat Bo 5784
You can listen to Rabbi Miriam's sermon here or read it below.
It took a drama for me to get on board as well. I’d vaguely heard about the Post Office scandal. I’d read something about it years ago and knew it clearly wasn’t all that it seemed, but not knowing anyone personally affected, not knowing anyone who ran a Post Office at all and not...Read more...
Shabbat Va-y'chi 5784
You can listen to Rabbi Howard's sermon here or read it below.
There are some Biblical verses – well, many if truth be told - that lie dull and lifeless on the page for us modern readers. They no longer speak to us – if they ever did. That’s probably our limitation, not theirs. But over time we...Read more...
Shabbat Mikketz 5784
You can listen to Rabbi Miriam's sermon here or read it below.
I have spent the week lighting candles. When I say that, I don’t just mean it’s Chanukah and therefore each night I quietly lit the chanukiah, I mean that again and again and again each day I was telling the story of Chanukah or teaching a little message as I did so when...Read more...
Shabbat Hanukkah 5784
Numbers 7: 87-9
You can listen to Rabbi Tony's sermon here or read it below
As you’ll discover in about three and a half minutes, this second Torah reading for Shabbat Hanukkah is short but particularly obscure. Which is why Jo Ozin...Read more...
Shabbat Va'yishlach 5784
You can listen to Rabbi Miriam's sermon here or read it below.
Iryna is the Ukrainian lady who lives with her husband and 3 children in the family home my father-in-law vacated to give them a new chance in life when war broke out in Ukraine. They are doing brilliantly...Read more...
Shabbat Va-yeitzei 5784
You can listen to Rabbi Miriam's sermon here or read it below.
I usually write my sermon some time during the week. I know what I want to reflect on,...Read more...
