Independence and Responsibility: A 4th of July Message from Rabbi Kamesar

Independence and Responsibility: A 4th of July Message from Rabbi Kamesar by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar     I write this on the cusp of the 4th of July, the date commemorating the establishment of the United States of America through the ratification by the Continental Congress of the Declaration of Independence, a mere three blocks […]

Balancing Compassion and Critique: A Yom Kippur Perspective on Israel

by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar     Dear Friends, I’m sometimes reminded of the adage about Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, that it has the capacity to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. That is, some of us go through life and are so hard on ourselves; day in, day out we find ourselves […]

Making Sense of the World

by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar What follows is the D’var Torah I delivered this past Shabbat on how theology can sometimes help us make sense of the world: Are you there, God? It’s me, Nathan Kamesar. One of the questions I ask week after week, and really moment after moment is, where is God in this? […]

The Hidden God

by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar The other night I was reading my four and a half year old daughter Lila a bedtime story. We have a routine that she gets to watch two music videos and read three stories before bed (I spoil her, I know). So we’re on our fifth and final piece of content […]

Listening at Sinai

by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar     Last week’s Torah portion was Parashat Yitro, the portion in which the Israelites receive the revelation of Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. Here at Society Hill Synagogue we spoke last Saturday morning about what the nature of that revelation was—what did the people hear as they stood there at […]