sermon

The past week has been a difficult one. In the span of a few days, terrorists killed 17 people in France. The four Jewish citizens at the kosher grocery store were buried in Israel for fear that their graves would be desecrated, yet another fearful sign of Europe’s growing anti-semitism. In Nigeria, two *thousand* people were killed because of hatred, and intolerance, a fact even more bothersome because it’s quite possible that many of you are hearing that for the first time right now. The world is in mourning.

So how do you spell Hannukah?

There actually is a correct way: Chet, nun, vav, kaf, hey. But in English, there’s disagreement. Some prefer to spell it phonetically, starting it with a “ch.” Some, like myself, like the simplicity of a sole “h” to begin the name. But there are so many variations even beyond that; One or two n’s? Do you use a solo “k” or do you need a “ck” combinationt? And how do we end the English nomenclature of our Festival of Lights? With an a? an ah? A friend told me that she learned that you can spell it any way you want so long as the word has 8 letters.

A poor woman had two children, and all of them were starving. One morning, the woman came upon a perfectly round egg. The children squealed…

This has been a difficult week. Last Shabbat, we prayed for the safety of three Israeli teens. On June 12, Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar and…

Tonight, I’m going to talk about Korach. Korach was a first cousin to Moses and Aaron. He challenged their authority, claiming that the priesthood should…