Yom Kippur 5774: High Holiday Word Play

What do you call an average-looking grassland? Plain plain. How would you describe an unsightly collection of 144 items: Gross gross. A super cool insect? Fly fly.

English homonyms are great. And I love a good pun just as much as the next nebbishy rabbinical student, but playing with English words…that’s small potatoes. Now, this may just be the reality of four-more years of school plus a lifetime in the rabbinate talking…but Hebrew Homonyms…that’s where it’s at.

Rosh HaShanah 5774: Sefer Zichronot

I delivered this sermon at University of Rochester Hillel:

I don’t know about all of you, but in the last few weeks, I have acquired a lot of books. Books for classes, reference books, library books, notebooks, planners. It is a miracle that there is a square inch of space to move in my room. But, this is how we start things. We collect and we open books. New classes? Textbooks. Bar Mitzvah? Prayer books, books of Jewish Wisdom, a stack of Torahs. Starting a new job? Workplace handbooks and instruction manuals from past employees. Time for the New Year? Rosh Hashanah is a holiday with plenty of books to dive into.