Parashat Shemot / January 5
Rabbi Noa Kushner
שִׁבְתִּ֣י בְּבֵית־יְ֭הוָה / To Live in the House of God

Pharoah’s Egypt and all its modern imitators try to insist that to help another person, to help ourselves, to have faith standing by a river, to ask for help from an unlikely source — any of these are fools' errands, 
Better to stay in our lanes, say the Pharaohs of the world
Don’t risk, don’t trust, don’t save anyone, least of all yourself 

But our Torah insists otherwise  

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Miketz / December 15
Rabbi Noa Kushner
לְעֵת מְצֹא / In the Time of Finding

The rabbis say this phrase means a person who has not given up hope
In other words, someone who prays לְעֵת מְצֹא
“In a time when God can be found”
Means a person who did not stop hoping for something 
until they truly knew, without a doubt, the end of the story 

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Vayeshev / December 8
Hanukkah 5784
Rabbi Noa Kushner
וְעֵ֥ץ הַזַּ֖יִת לֹ֣א נָשָׂ֑א / Nothing on the Tree

In our moment where war
Is not abstract but frighteningly real
We can see how easily — no matter your position on the war —
We can see how easily religion and holiness and even something like our understanding of a miracle
can get mixed into what’s happening on the battlefield.

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Toldot / November 17
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Prayers that Overturn the World

So while we knew there were problems in Israel
— It wasn’t as if we did not talk about or visit Israel before —
Now וַיִּתְרֹֽצְצ֤וּ
These problems run around inside us, like the twins fighting in the womb
And with the charges — both legitimate and unfounded — mounting
It feels like something is about to break

We, too, like Rebekkah
Might want to cry out to God
To pray
To say, “אִם־כֵּ֔ן לָ֥מָּה זֶּ֖ה אָנֹ֑כִי”
If it is always going to be this way,
If it is going to end this way
Why am I here? Why are we here?”

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Vayera / November 4
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Now We Start From Here

What I'm saying is that sometimes something happens
A dream
An idea
A person
An experience
God
And we are never the same

Whatever or whoever it was that we encountered, sends shock waves through our lives
And now our lives have a new starting point
A new origin
We used to start from “there”
Now we start from “here.”
And so we have to make up or find words that don’t exist for us yet
A new vocabulary
You see, this is what happened to Abraham

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Vayera / November 3
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Listen in her voice
שְׁמַ֣ע בְּקֹלָ֑הּ

If you have a feeling of wanting to hide being jewish or your deep connection to the jewish community, if you feel intimidated or confused or conflicted in fundamental ways

– And I want to be clear here, I am not saying you cannot question or doubt the actions of Israel or the government or the war or, while we’re on the subject, anything in the torah or go, get to know me (!) –

Yes, question!
But it is personally important to me –
I want you to know and feel a sense of honor and pride and glory and sweetness from being jewish,
from being intimately connected
to doing jewish things, to being a part of this jewish community on this jewish shabbat

I want you to know that you are royalty in this room and outside in the world
I want your jewish living, living, living lives to be the crowns on your heads
And I think Israel is a shining stone in that crown, one you should get to know — I mean really know — but
we can argue and discuss that, god willing, over many years

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Noach / October 20
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Signs and Wonders

I cannot tell you who you don’t see, I don’t know your blind spots Maybe you see it all, maybe you see everyone

I cannot tell you who you don’t seeI can only tell you what
I think the Torah says this week
Which is that we’re connected
And our job, at least according to this week’s parasha, is, like Noach, to see who is not seen

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Beresheet / October 13
Rabbi Noa Kushner
The First Night

This week the unthinkable, 
the impossible 
became possible

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Shoftim / August 18
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Egypt is not on the way to T’shuvah

When we reached the shores of the sea
(Knowing our Jewish community as you do you may or may not be surprised)
We did not act as one unified coalition, rather
There were four factions
Four responses to that fraught moment

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Eikev / August 4
Rabbi Noa Kushner
He Changed His Mind at 91: The Blessing

Now he simply wanted to undo what he had done, one public signature at a time.

He was still teaching that great Torah, that what we do matters. That it is never too late.

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Devarim / July 21
Rabbi Noa Kushner
These are the Words

All the words you were missing for all those generations in Egypt came rushing back to you — 
The descriptions and dreams and associations and conversations and unfinished sentences
A torrent of ideas and emotions all came pouring out, and your mouths began to heal 

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Nasso / June 2
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Close Your Eyes and Receive It

Sometimes the filter can be the conduit 
Counter-intuitively, strengthening our connection
A divine game of hide and seek  
“Before you even call, I will answer,” says God 

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat B’midbari/ May 20
Rabbi Noa Kushner
What Are You Waiting For?

We walk as close to those we love as we possibly can, we carry them, and then there is a line we cannot cross

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat B’midbari/ May 19
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Rules For The Wilderness

There are 4 Rules of the Wilderness:

1. You Can’t Leave Until You Journey

2. You Cannot Name the Station Until You're Done With It

3. Sometimes Backwards is Forwards

4. Every Station is Essential

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Behar-Bechukotai / May 13
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Can You Hear Me Now? : Walking in the Garden

Maybe Eve and Adam were hearing the sound of the pitter patter of little divine feet,

Or God’s high heels as they crunched down delicately and purposefully on the fine gravel paths of Eden

Or maybe as it says in Shir HaShirim Rabbah they heard the sound of God jumping from heaven to earth and back up again.

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Kedoshim / April 29
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Take Care Of My Garden

Maybe these commands are there to teach us, precisely, that there are some things we don’t know
Why have a command for something so painfully, really embarrassingly obvious?
To teach us that being holy doesn’t always make sense

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Shmini / April 14
Rabbi Noa Kushner
”Where’s Your Prophecy Now?”: Jerusalem, Democracy and Us

Do we in America even have the courage to stand, not leaving the shore for a second
To keep our eyes on what’s happening
To hold fast to a prophecy, the highest prize, even when all evidence is pointing to the contrary?
Do we have the strength to tell the truth about the severity of the situation?

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Vayekhel–Pekudei / Mar 17
Rabbi Noa Kushner
No Such Thing as ’Too Much’

Once we escape the tyranny of measuring everything
The over extension of the metaphors of the marketplace to measure everything in our lives
We remember
There's no such thing as extra, there is no more “too much”

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Ki Tisa / Mar 11
Rabbi Noa Kushner
No More Starting Over

As the kids say
Find someone who loves you the way Moses loved God 
Find someone, or I don’t know, find a tradition, a community who loves that way 
Where destruction is not an option
Where starting all over is no longer on the table

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash

Parashat Terumah / Feb 25
Rabbi Noa Kushner
The Most Dangerous of All

And actually, if I am being completely honest,
I don’t want to just access holiness with regularity or even predictability
I want to own it
What if it never returns again?
See, and here we are, you don’t have to admit it but I will:
I want to control it, even if I know I can’t
I want to bind holiness and keep it safe where I can always have it
A little golden cage for the divine bird

→ Click here to read + listen to the full drash