Parashat Kedoshim / April 29
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Take Care Of My Garden

Maybe these commands are there to teach us, precisely, that there are some things we don’t know
Why have a command for something so painfully, really embarrassingly obvious?
To teach us that being holy doesn’t always make sense

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Parashat Shmini / April 14
Rabbi Noa Kushner
”Where’s Your Prophecy Now?”: Jerusalem, Democracy and Us

Do we in America even have the courage to stand, not leaving the shore for a second
To keep our eyes on what’s happening
To hold fast to a prophecy, the highest prize, even when all evidence is pointing to the contrary?
Do we have the strength to tell the truth about the severity of the situation?

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Parashat Vayekhel–Pekudei / Mar 17
Rabbi Noa Kushner
No Such Thing as ’Too Much’

Once we escape the tyranny of measuring everything
The over extension of the metaphors of the marketplace to measure everything in our lives
We remember
There's no such thing as extra, there is no more “too much”

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Parashat Ki Tisa / Mar 11
Rabbi Noa Kushner
No More Starting Over

As the kids say
Find someone who loves you the way Moses loved God 
Find someone, or I don’t know, find a tradition, a community who loves that way 
Where destruction is not an option
Where starting all over is no longer on the table

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Parashat Terumah / Feb 25
Rabbi Noa Kushner
The Most Dangerous of All

And actually, if I am being completely honest,
I don’t want to just access holiness with regularity or even predictability
I want to own it
What if it never returns again?
See, and here we are, you don’t have to admit it but I will:
I want to control it, even if I know I can’t
I want to bind holiness and keep it safe where I can always have it
A little golden cage for the divine bird

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Parashat Vaera / Jan 21
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Don’t Wait for Angels to Sing

It is not only Moses who's standing around and listening, we're standing.
And the calls are nonstop, the evidence is mounting,
Pharoah is not getting any weaker by our absence, and God is losing patience.

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Parashat Vaera / Jan 20
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win

You see, Moses is not being sent to Pharaoh — Pharaoh is a lost cause — everyone knows that
Moses is not being sent to Pharaoh
Pharaoh is being sent to Moses

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Hanukkah & Parashat Vayeshev / Dec 16
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Ineffective Altruism

But never mind that, the angel was right, is right
There is something divine in those dreams of Joseph’s
Don’t doubt yourself, Joseph
Don’t doubt all that was and is in those dreams
Don’t doubt your ability to complete your missions in life

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Parashat Vayishlach / Dec 10
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Room For All

Jacob was standing close by and could hear it all
Esau’s pain at not receiving his intended blessing, true, but also 
Esau’s determined insistence that he be blessed nevertheless
That there is always another blessing
That there is room for us all 

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Parashat Vayetze / Dec 2
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Praying in the dark

What is the kind of prayer we can only pray as ourselves, and not if we are pretending to be someone else?

What is the kind of prayer we pray when we are stopped, unable to run towards the next destination?

What is the kind of prayer we most need in the dark?

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Parashat Chayyei Sarah / Nov 18
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Is Anyone Home?

And this kind of epic repetition, death and life, and death and life again is so fundamental, it is so enormous we don’t even see it
Even when it is framing one torah portion
Even when, especially when, it is framing our lives

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