Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz

This High Holiday cycle, I chose the theme ' V'heyeh B'rachah - Be a Blessing ' based on the blessing God gave Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. The theme ' V'heyeh B'rachah - Be a Blessing ' was incorporated musically throughout the High Holidays by Linda Wertz and myself. Linda Wertz and I 'retro-engineered' the melody of 'El Na Refa Na La' composed by Daphna Rosenberg and Nave Agmon from Israeli worship band ' Nava Tehila' , and fit (some) of the words of Gen. 12 to the tune. You can listen/watch the video of us playing/singing the song here . My sermon series focused on the first three versus of Genesis chapter 12 where Abraham (then still Abram) is charged with his mission: וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-אַבְרָם, לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ. וְאֶעֶשְׂךָ, לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל, וַאֲבָרֶכְךָ, וַאֲגַדְּלָה שְׁמֶךָ; וֶהְיֵה, בְּרָכָה. וַאֲבָרְכָה, מְבָרְכֶיךָ, וּמְקַלֶּלְךָ...

Rosh haShanah Sermon #2  Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz Not All Who Wander Are Lost ‘ Vayomer Adonai el Avram lech lecha m’artz’cha umimolad’t’cha umibeit avicha el ha’aretz asher ar’echa… veheyeh b’racha ’. ‘And the Eternal said to Avram, go from yourself, from your homeland, the place of your birth, and your father’s house to a land that I will show you… and you shall be a blessing.’ Last night, I spoke about this beginning of blessing, of how we are framing the High Holidays around this verse from the Torah and explore it. We are going to read that verse and sit with it, savor it, live with it and make it our own. What does it mean to go ‘from yourself, from your homeland, the place of your birth and your father’s house?’ Surely, the Torah could have sufficed in saying ‘ lech m’artz’cha el ha’aretz asher ar’echa ’ – ‘go from your land to the land that I will show you.’ We normally assume that the Torah’s language is efficient and focused, so if the Torah uses a m...

Rosh haShanah Sermon #1 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz The Beginning of Blessing Tonight is Rosh haShanah, ‘ HaYom Harat Olam ’ – the Birthday of the World. Let us start with Creation. The Rabbis of the Talmud believed that the Cosmos was built up from the Hebrew alphabet, like a poetic, yet unscientific rendition of Democritus’ atomic theory. Each Hebrew letter codes for an aspect of Creation, weaving the primordial Torah into all Being.  According to this Midrash, the letters all lined up, starting with the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the Tav. Each letter was given its positive attribute and its opposite, until it was the turn of the letter Bet – the second letter of the aleph-bet.  It was decreed that the Bet stood for ‘ b’rachah’ , blessing. On account of the Bet’s unique status as a source of blessing, the Aleph was called to wait its turn and decided to go silent. The Aleph’s humility would later be rewarded by its inclusion at the utterance of th...

Rosh haShanah sermon Agudas Achim 2017 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz We are Called to Surrender Perhaps you will have a similar childhood memory to mine: I have a memory of standing at the edge of a cliff. My family was on holiday and we were exploring some beautiful rugged coastline. Having always been been a strong swimmer, I saw people leap off the cliff into the sea below and I felt compelled to do the same. My bare feet inched closer to the edge, toes grappling the rough, irregular rock. I peered down below where the waves lapped hungrily. How deep was the plunge: 10 yards? 20? Perhaps 15? There was the distinct feeling of both excitement and discomfort. It wasn’t fear exactly – I wasn’t heroic or foolish, I knew I would be OK. It was something else; consciously overriding my internal mechanisms of self-preservation. I wanted to experience this; the brief weightlessness of the drop, the deep immersion into the waters and the sense of giving myself over to something far ...

Rosh haShanah Sermon Agudas Achim 2017/5778 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz The Jew You Want To Be What kind of a Jew do I want to be? Let the question roll of your tongue and linger in your mouth. Let it slide down your gullet and burrow itself into your heart, your kishkes – your gut – and your neshamah – your soul. Take the question home with you and let it dwell among your friends and family, among the Jews you share this space with and the non-Jews we share our lives and world with. What kind of a Jew am I today? What kind of a Jew do I hope to be? It’s a strange business, this business of being Jewish. We are not just a religion; we are something else, something more, something thicker and more ancient. We are a People, a tribe, a culture, a religious civilization, a covenantal community. We are bound together by historical fate, shaped by destiny, heritage and choice. We defy the normative taxonomy of religious groups. Our identity can be f...