The sukkah is a practice of impermanence. Our homes, our bodies, our lives – they are all sukkot. They are temporary. Flimsy. They bend with the wind. They get soaked with rain. We decorate them with the harvest – with our own harvests. All of our best features: qualities, talents, learnings. These adorn the sukkot of our lives. They are beautiful. But even they, like the gourds and apples and palm fronds on a backyard sukkah, eventually compost.
Read moreDrash: Unfinished (Podcast)
On Yom Kippur this year, I was unhappy with the drash (sermon) I had written, and grew more unhappy with it during the service in anticipation of delivering it. Finally when it came time, I couldn't do it. So I scratched it and just spoke from my heart (and some elements of what I'd written ended up coming back in more organically). The question I arrived at: might we be more self-loving and less dispirited if we see the world and ourselves as unfinished, as works-in-progress? (Kinda like this drash.)
But just to appease you, in case you're not happy about extemporaneous, here's a treat. Danny Maseng's gorgeous Elohai N'tzor, sung by Ner Shalom singers, Rachel Friedman, Annemarie Goslow, and my brother-in-law Doron Hovav, accompanied by Lorenzo Valensi on guitar.
Redigging the Wells (Rosh Hashanah 5777) - Podcast
Starting the new year with the first podcast of Itzik's Well. Rosh Hashanah drash, recorded at Congregation Ner Shalom, October 2, 2016. Just hit play to listen to it on your device. Or read the text version by clicking here.