From Rabbi Jon — my updated list of recommendations of my own Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur words spanning the past ten-plus years that I think stand the test of time:
Hope In An Uncertain World (5777/2016)
What the Chanukkah dreidel can teach us about four kinds of hope.
Who Knows? (5780/2019)
How the story of Esther even more than the Torah can guide us to live in a world of randomness and mortal dangers.
How Good Do I Have to Be? (5777/2016)
With assists from the Green Monster, Pesky’s Pole, Naomi Shemer and Reb Simcha Bunem.
Still Small Voices (5778/2017)
We are a community where many people have prayers they don’t reveal out loud about the difficult things happening in our lives and families. How to be there even when we don’t reveal or don’t know what those prayers are.
Busy (5776/2015)
Why “Busy” has become the answer to “How are you?” and what we can do about it.
Moral Adventure (5776/2015)
Adventure isn’t just for heroes and myths. Our own lives are different when we recognize them as moral adventures, and the people we go through life with as our fellow students and sidekicks.
Finding Purpose and Direction (5773/2012)
Figuring out your purpose, especially in up in the air times, or transitions in life or work.
Lost and Found (5779/2018)
When the pieces of life’s puzzle aren’t gone, but someone else has yours to give you back, or vice versa.
V.O.R. — Vision-Opinion Ratio (5779/2018)
Fewer superficial reactions to public things, more visions — how to find and speak about the things you are truly committed to, and quieting down about the rest.
A Jewish Leap of Faith Into Our Democracy (5783/2022)
How Jewish history and tradition makes us special guardians of American democracy, and why we should embrace that role as we enter the challenging political time ahead.
Holy Impatience (5775/2014)
Some impatience is selfish, unfair expectations. Holy impatience is rooted in love, a concern for someone else who doesn’t have the life or peace they deserve.
Right-ology: How to Be Right Better in the New Year (5783/2022)
Helping Someone Else Change (5771/2010)
No one can change someone else — but sometimes we can support other people in their changes. Starring a mitzvah in Leviticus and some social psychology research.
Long Tables, Shabbat Meals (5772/2011)
Why long tables are better than round, long meals are magical, and Shabbat creates relationships different from friendship but no less powerful.
Community: What the People You Might Not Really Know Add to Your Life (5783/2022)
Community isn’t just the people you know, and why the people you sort-of know or might not realize your connected to are essential to your life.
Back to Better Than Normal (5782/2021)
As we transition from the Covid-19 pandemic, the old normal is certainly not what what we want to go back to.
Being Present in a Digital Age (5774/2013)
How to make people and not devices more central to our daily lives.
Look Up (5780/2019)
In a cynical age, we need to focus more on looking up to people — the everyday people in our lives, the people who need us, the best leaders we know.
Body Talk (5779/2018)
How to show others we really believe they are the image of God.