Read + Listen / השראה
Parashat Lech Lecha / Nov 8
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Blowing Kisses at Pharaoh
And so, this shabbat
Rather than being furious that people, through this election, are still writing love notes to Pharaoh
Pantomiming, “I’ll call you,”
While God waits, incredulous holding the sea apart, looking at her watch, tapping her feet —
Parashat Ki Tavo / Sep 20
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Ready or Not
Perhaps now we can start to understand why it is our hands are mentioned
We can understand why the priest has to take the basket from our hands
It is because we cannot offer it all by ourselves
That is, to offer it ourselves is simply too much to ask of us
To grow something like that and then let it go without any help
Parashat Ki Tetzei / Sep 14
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Now You See Me, Now You Don't
“Sometimes what needs to be revealed begins with the not-finding.”
With the moon that sets
Or even, is hidden in the sky
Because the not-finding reminds us of our longing
That as much as we love the light of the moon, we desire more than the moon
Parashat Shoftim / Sep 6
Rabbi Noa Kushner
עַ֤יִן בְּעַ֙יִן֙ / Eye to Eye
If I accept that this giant swath of the Israeli population,
Many of whom are grieving personal family members and friends,
Including the hostages and hundreds of soldiers who have been slain,
If I accept, as Netanyahu suggests, that this giant swath of the Israeli population are all Hamas sympathizers —
And the only other choice I am offered is continuing to fight Hamas, which requires life after life after life
More war and force
Accepting this kind of cheap truth, cheap choice
Would be as preposterous as choosing between one of my two eyes
Any way I choose will blind
Parashat Ekev / Aug 23
Rabbi Noa Kushner
We Are Marked
The mark, the reminder in the Torah is that we left Egypt once and so we will leave it again
That even this plague will end
That even this slavery will end
That even these oppressions will end
Because we will work to end them
Parashat Devarim / Aug 9
Rabbi Noa Kushner
What Took Us So Long
It's not that we are back here again
It's that we're standing in the spot where our parents made their biggest mistakes
Where our parents were presented with what seemed inconceivable at the time — and good
But they could not overcome their own lack of חזון / vision
They just couldn’t see it
Parashat Bechukotai / May 31
Rabbi Noa Kushner
The rock on the mouth of the well
We cannot move this kind of stone with blame
We cannot move it with force
We cannot move it with power alone, it does not matter how powerful we become
We cannot even move this kind of stone with demonstrating our victimhood, by accruing power based in real pain
If anything, the more we fight it, the more fixed it gets, the more set in its place
Parashat Aharei Mot / May 3
Rabbi Noa Kushner
וַיִּתְרֹֽצְצ֤וּ הַבָּנִים֙ בְּקִרְבָּ֔הּ / The twins were struggling in her womb: Israel and Palestine there and here
?אִם־כֵּ֔ן לָ֥מָּה זֶּ֖ה אָנֹ֑כִנֹ֑וּ / Why are we here?
I want to suggest that we have now really tried the answer of self-protection and violence
And as much as I have stood by Israel in her need for self-defense and will
I want to suggest this moment requires another kind of answer
Another kind of way to get from here to there
And in order to find this new answer
we will need more discipline than we have exhibited in this country
Parashat Metzora / Shabbat HaGadol / April 19
Rabbi Noa Kushner
How to prepare to be free
People have been confiding in me that they're afraid to have Passover seder
They're afraid of destroying friendships and family over the arguments see
Because in recent years we have all taken on a polarized, untrusting mentality
We’ve become afraid to say what we think lest we are cancelled by our own friends
This is truly where we are
And this mentality is hard to break
Maybe, they tell me, better to not have seder this year
Parashat Shmini / April 5
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Those of Us Left Behind
Who was Moses fooling anyway?
Wasn’t he also shattered by the deaths of these young men, his brother’s children?
Couldn’t he have just sat with his older brother, quietly, for a little while?
Parashat Tzav / March 30
Rabbi Noa Kushner
?מִ֣י זֹ֗את עֹלָה֙ מִן־הַמִּדְבָּ֔ר / Who is she that arises from the desert?
Maybe it is the prayer that cannot be classified
We don’t know what it is for
It doesn’t fit neatly into a category
Maybe it is an unwieldy prayer for things to just get better
Maybe it is a prayer born from confusion or fear about our world
Maybe it is prayer concerned for those we love
And even for those in distant, far away places, empathy and love for those we don’t know, will never know
Maybe it is prayer born out of exhaustion, a prayer not fully formed, a prayer without all the proper words
Parashat Pekudei / March 16
Rabbi José Rolando Matalon
The Mishkan as a new Creation: Restoring a home for God and for humans in the world
Visiting Scholar
We're overjoyed to welcome some of the most engaging, powerful teachers in the US and Israel. Many are long-time Kitchen favorites, some newer to us but all known for their ability to connect Torah to our lives right now. We'll spend a whole shabbat with these thinkers, like a retreat without having to pack. Listen to our past visiting scholars’ drashot here.
Our guest teacher this week is Rabbi José Rolando Matalon of B’nai Jeshrun and founding co-director of Piyut North America, a partnership between B’nai Jeshurun and Hazmanah Le-Piyut in Israel, which is dedicated to the dissemination of liturgical music from Jewish communities around the world.
Parashat Pekudei / March 15
Rabbi José Rolando Matalon
The innermost place in the Mishkan is the empty space in the human heart
Visiting Scholar
We're overjoyed to welcome some of the most engaging, powerful teachers in the US and Israel. Many are long-time Kitchen favorites, some newer to us but all known for their ability to connect Torah to our lives right now. We'll spend a whole shabbat with these thinkers, like a retreat without having to pack. Listen to our past visiting scholars’ drashot here.
Our guest teacher this week is Rabbi José Rolando Matalon of B’nai Jeshrun and founding co-director of Piyut North America, a partnership between B’nai Jeshurun and Hazmanah Le-Piyut in Israel, which is dedicated to the dissemination of liturgical music from Jewish communities around the world.
Parashat Ki Tisa / March 1
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Notes on Jerusalem
He said, "Peace has to come with honor and dignity — and not humiliation"
Parashat Terumah / February 16
Rabbi Michael Lezak
Visiting Scholar
We're overjoyed to welcome some of the most engaging, powerful teachers in the US and Israel. Many are long-time Kitchen favorites, some newer to us but all known for their ability to connect Torah to our lives right now. We'll spend a whole shabbat with these thinkers, like a retreat without having to pack. Listen to our past visiting scholars’ drashot here.
Our guest teacher this week is Rabbi Michael Lezak, staff rabbi at the Glide Center for Social Justice in San Francisco. Listen to his drash on Parashat Terumah below.
Parashat Yitro / February 3
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Divine Recognition
One family told me that on Kol Nidrei when we were in lockdown —
They got dressed up in white and feeling a bit self-conscious, It was all so strange, they turned on their computers and stood near their window to pray
But as they neared their window, onto a porchThey heard something across the park where they lived — they heard Kol Nidrei And they looked out and across the park…
Parashat Bo / January 19
Rabbi David Kasher – Visiting Scholar
Midnight in מִצְרָ֑יִם / Egypt: God’s Relationship to Time
We're overjoyed to welcome some of the most engaging, powerful teachers in the US and Israel. Many are long-time Kitchen favorites, some newer to us but all known for their ability to connect Torah to our lives right now. We'll spend a whole shabbat with these thinkers, like a retreat without having to pack. Listen to our past visiting scholars’ drashot here.
Our guest teacher this past shabbat was Hadar’s Rabbi David Kasher.
Parashat Shemot / January 5
Rabbi Noa Kushner
שִׁבְתִּ֣י בְּבֵית־יְ֭הוָה / To Live in the House of God
Pharoah’s Egypt and all its modern imitators try to insist that to help another person, to help ourselves, to have faith standing by a river, to ask for help from an unlikely source — any of these are fools' errands,
Better to stay in our lanes, say the Pharaohs of the world
Don’t risk, don’t trust, don’t save anyone, least of all yourself
But our Torah insists otherwise
Parashat Miketz / December 15
Rabbi Noa Kushner
לְעֵת מְצֹא / In the Time of Finding
The rabbis say this phrase means a person who has not given up hope
In other words, someone who prays לְעֵת מְצֹא
“In a time when God can be found”
Means a person who did not stop hoping for something
until they truly knew, without a doubt, the end of the story
Parashat Vayeshev / December 8
Hanukkah 5784
Rabbi Noa Kushner
וְעֵ֥ץ הַזַּ֖יִת לֹ֣א נָשָׂ֑א / Nothing on the Tree
In our moment where war
Is not abstract but frighteningly real
We can see how easily — no matter your position on the war —
We can see how easily religion and holiness and even something like our understanding of a miracle
can get mixed into what’s happening on the battlefield.
Parashat Vayishlach / December 1
Dr. Dan Glass – Kitchen Member
Vayishlach and a Journey to Israel
Kitchen-ite and Brandeis’ Head of School, Dr. Dan Glass, joined us for shabbat to share his reflections from his trip to Israel. Having just touched down in the US earlier in the day, Dan wove together teachings of Parashat Vayishlach and the many meaningful encounters he had while there.
Parashat Toldot / November 17
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Prayers that Overturn the World
So while we knew there were problems in Israel
— It wasn’t as if we did not talk about or visit Israel before —
Now וַיִּתְרֹֽצְצ֤וּ
These problems run around inside us, like the twins fighting in the womb
And with the charges — both legitimate and unfounded — mounting
It feels like something is about to break
We, too, like Rebekkah
Might want to cry out to God
To pray
To say, “אִם־כֵּ֔ן לָ֥מָּה זֶּ֖ה אָנֹ֑כִי”
If it is always going to be this way,
If it is going to end this way
Why am I here? Why are we here?”
Parashat Vayera / November 4
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Now We Start From Here
What I'm saying is that sometimes something happens
A dream
An idea
A person
An experience
God
And we are never the same
Whatever or whoever it was that we encountered, sends shock waves through our lives
And now our lives have a new starting point
A new origin
We used to start from “there”
Now we start from “here.”
And so we have to make up or find words that don’t exist for us yet
A new vocabulary
You see, this is what happened to Abraham
Parashat Vayera / November 3
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Listen in her voice
שְׁמַ֣ע בְּקֹלָ֑הּ
If you have a feeling of wanting to hide being jewish or your deep connection to the jewish community, if you feel intimidated or confused or conflicted in fundamental ways
– And I want to be clear here, I am not saying you cannot question or doubt the actions of Israel or the government or the war or, while we’re on the subject, anything in the torah or go, get to know me (!) –
Yes, question!
But it is personally important to me –
I want you to know and feel a sense of honor and pride and glory and sweetness from being jewish,
from being intimately connected
to doing jewish things, to being a part of this jewish community on this jewish shabbat
I want you to know that you are royalty in this room and outside in the world
I want your jewish living, living, living lives to be the crowns on your heads
And I think Israel is a shining stone in that crown, one you should get to know — I mean really know — but
we can argue and discuss that, god willing, over many years
Parashat Noach / October 20
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Signs and Wonders
I cannot tell you who you don’t see, I don’t know your blind spots Maybe you see it all, maybe you see everyone
I cannot tell you who you don’t seeI can only tell you what
I think the Torah says this week
Which is that we’re connected
And our job, at least according to this week’s parasha, is, like Noach, to see who is not seen
Parashat Beresheet / October 14
Rabbi David Kasher — Visiting Scholar
We're overjoyed to welcome some of the most engaging, powerful teachers in the US and Israel. Many are long time Kitchen favorites, some newer to us but all known for their ability to connect Torah to our lives right now. We'll spend a whole shabbat with these thinkers, like a retreat without having to pack. Check out our past scholars & teachings here.
Parashat Beresheet / October 13
Rabbi Noa Kushner
The First Night
This week the unthinkable,
the impossible
became possible
Parashat Shoftim / August 18
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Egypt is not on the way to T’shuvah
When we reached the shores of the sea
(Knowing our Jewish community as you do you may or may not be surprised)
We did not act as one unified coalition, rather
There were four factions
Four responses to that fraught moment
Parashat Eikev / August 4
Rabbi Noa Kushner
He Changed His Mind at 91: The Blessing
Now he simply wanted to undo what he had done, one public signature at a time.
He was still teaching that great Torah, that what we do matters. That it is never too late.
Parashat Devarim / July 21
Rabbi Noa Kushner
These are the Words
All the words you were missing for all those generations in Egypt came rushing back to you —
The descriptions and dreams and associations and conversations and unfinished sentences
A torrent of ideas and emotions all came pouring out, and your mouths began to heal
Shabbat Drashot
High Holiday Drashot
Yom Kippur 5785
Rabbi Michael Lezak
Retaining the Scent of Heaven
Rafi called us. He said, ‘I know you are passing the rolling fields on your way to Beersheva. Please tell Michael about ‘Adom Darom’ the festival in February where thousands of people make pilgrimage to our kibbutz and the surrounding area to see expansive acreage of blooming Kalaniot / red anemones, the Israeli national flower. Tell Michael that the kalaniot will bloom again…and so will we
Kol Nidrei 5785
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Four Entered the Orchard, One Returned in Peace: The פַּרְדֵּס of 10.7
In fact, it seems to me
All four of these rabbis, and their perspectives
Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Elisha ben Abuyah, and Akiva
are within each of us
And so, if we want to find our way through this severe chapter in Jewish history,
this particular orchard, what I am calling the פַּרְדֵּס of 10.7
We will need to go with them, to see their versions of the פַּרְדֵּס just as they see it
To go and, in the end, like Akiva, try to return whole
→ Click here to read & listen to the full drash
Rosh Hashanah 5785
Rabbi Noa Kushner
אֵ֥ל רַח֖וּם וְחַנּ֑וּן / God of Mercy: Being Jewish in San Francisco, 2024
One thing, however, got very clear
There was no denying our involvement in the Jewish project
or even our involvement in Jewish history
because, like it or not, we were and we are, unmistakably, a part of it
Music
High Holiday Melodies
A series of prayers all about mercy and forgiveness recorded Hazzan Asher Shasho Levy.
