sermon — Rabbi Adam Lavitt — Sermons & Writing

What the Image Holds

Moses sets aside words. He doesn’t pray to God, or lecture the people, or explain what he is doing and what it means. Words would get in the way. They’ve been used to complain, blame, justify, take sides. Perhaps they would offer a sense of certainty, but it would be temporary, a promise he couldn’t keep.

An image can hold what words cannot. The serpent can be read as making visible not only the literal pain of the snake bites, but the deeper emotional and spiritual suffering that had been accumulating in the wilderness: the longing, the fear, the uncertainty. In a moment of both personal and communal crisis, the image meets the people inside their own experience of suffering and then draws them toward something shared – something larger than their individual pain.

article, sermonAdam LavittJune 22, 2026imagination, Healing, witness

A Bridge Made of Words

Each year, as Tisha B’Av approaches — our day of collective mourning — we carry both ancient sorrow and the ruptures of our own time. Through the poetry of Eicha and the remembrance of generations of suffering, we open to heartbreak both personal and historic. But just before we fully inhabit our grief, we hear Moses in parashat Devarim — beginning a long farewell, speaking across a river he will never cross. His body remains behind, but his voice reaches forward, echoing in the fragile immediacy of human speech to meet our moment…

sermonAdam LavittAugust 1, 2025Tisha B’Av, Moses, Torah, Jewish spirituality, Grief, Leadership, Memory, Midrash, Healing, Transition, Hope

Parashat Shemot: Animated by Holy Becoming

This week, in parashat Shemot, we encounter Moshe at a juncture in his life when he must choose between continuing to trod a well worn path, or take the risk to turn aside, led by wonder, towards something beyond himself. As he asks himself what is before him, what may have at first seemed a scraggly shrub reveals itself as a being on fire with life, animated by holy becoming - a force that calls itself Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh (Exodus 3:14).

sermonAdam LavittJanuary 12, 2023Sinai, wonder, creativity

Our Eternal Bond (Shabbat Nasso)

Our holy objects represent how we are bound to each other, and to something vaster than any one of us: when we don a tallis, its fringes remind us of the invisible ways we are joined together; the mezuzot on our doorposts symbolize God’s steady presence when we come home, and when we leave.

sermonAdam LavittJune 12, 2022goodbye, interconnection, memory

Building a Sanctuary of our Godly Actions (Shabbat Bechukotai)

The Israelites once depended on having a particular structure through which to meet the Holy One. Losing this familiar rhythm was hard, and left some people uncertain and anxious about how they could reconnect with each other and their guiding values. But on the other side of this loss…people began to find God any place or time they chose to act in godly ways.

sermonAdam LavittMay 27, 2022transition, goodbye, sanctuary, compassion

Opening Our Hearts to the Fullness of God's Image (Shabbat Emor)

A few weeks ago, my fellow chaplains and I learned with author and chaplain, Rabbi Elliot Kukla, about something called “ableism.” He defined ableism as a form of discrimination based on impairment. On reading this week’s Torah portion, our conversation lead me to ask myself, if the priests are supposed to model the highest aspirations of the Israelite community, wouldn’t [the] set of prohibitions [here] instead lead to an intolerant society, one that leaves behind, or sees as less holy those who don’t meet this exclusive set of physical standards?

sermonAdam LavittMay 14, 2022disability justice, ableism, inclusion, diversity, equity

Count Each Day so Each Day Counts (Shabbat Acharei Mot)

Counting these 49 days may sound simple, but in my experience, it’s one of the most difficult rituals to actually complete. As I count, I notice how much I want to speed through challenging moments or hold onto pleasant ones. The 49 days of the Omer, unlike other periods in our lives, cannot be rushed or drawn out: we count 49 days. Then we stop. That is the practice.

sermonAdam LavittApril 29, 2022Omer, patience, mindfulness

Retelling our Story (Shabbat HaChodesh)

The war in Ukraine is hitting many of us harder than other global conflicts; the Pale is deep in the Jewish psyche. As I look at pictures of my relatives, I’m compelled to imagine how challenging their lives must have been: people were poor, life often interrupted by anti-Semitic violence. But this region also became known as the birthplace of some of the greatest Jewish creativity of all time.

sermonAdam LavittApril 2, 2022hope, memory, family stories

Being Strong, Being Strengthened (Shabbat Pekudei)

These days, we have no ephod, no mishkan; no priests making offerings of animal or grain. Instead, each of us serves as Priest, making offerings of heart, through our prayers, rituals, and good deeds. Through our sacred service we carry our entire people, those who are here, as well as those far away, or no longer here into the life of our community.

sermonAdam LavittMarch 5, 2022memory, mourning, ritual, prayer

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