“Divine Wrath” And Our Relationship To It
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar This past week we read Parashat Pinchas—the Torah portion known as Pinchas, so named after a religious zealot who carries out a violent act of vigilante justice on a fellow Israelite and his Midianite partner in order to stave off a plague that had come about as a result of God’s wrath, which […]
Reflections on Meaningfulness of Torah Discussions. Oh. And Anger.
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar As we have done ever since the pandemic started, we’re going to continue to send out snapshots, or synopses, of what we discussed at Torah Study this past Shabbat. We do this for a few reasons: 1) It’s a continuation of millennia of Jewish tradition. If one examines the Talmud, perhaps the foundational […]
A (re)Introduction
By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Today has been my first day as Rabbi of Society Hill Synagogue. In some ways, I never planned on this path, and in some ways, I have been preparing for it my entire life. I never planned on it in the sense that, in college, I majored in economics; after college […]
Numbness as a Barrier — and invitation — to holiness
Kol Nidre Sermon 5778 By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Let’s play a game. I’m not promising you it’s going to be a very fun game. It is Yom Kippur, after all –the moment we’re implored to afflict ourselves, to make atonement for a year’s, a lifetime’s worth of regrets, those moments in our lives that pushed […]
Teshuvah and Nostalgia: The Journey Through Time
Kol Nidre Sermon 5779 By Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Here we are at Kol Nidre. Perhaps the most sacred time of the Jewish year. A time when our worldly cares are set aside; when we are supposed to be locked in to this moment; when the primary concept on our mind should be atonement; when even […]