Rabbi Julie Kozlow's Yom Kippur Sermon 5782/2021- Sealed
For the last nine days, since Rosh Hashanah we have been wishing each other a happy new year. It’s a beautiful island of time where we begin and end each encounter with one other, with a wish for happiness for the year to come.
And though this impulse to speak words of caring for each other inspires my heart and gives me hope in the world, I am, this year, never the less, tripping over my words, happy new year, it somehow seems lacking.
It’s the adjective happy that is giving me cause to pause. Happy IS good, but is it the measure of a meaningful year? READ MORE.
Rabbi Julie Kozlow's Kol Nidre Sermon 5782/2021- The Pause
Year after year, we rabbis, spend countless hours poring through our cherished books, through our files of wisdom keepsakes, in search of inspiration for our high holiday sermons. As spiritual guides the words we offer have the chance to reach your hearts and minds and souls as gifts during these sacred days. We feel the pressure as the Yamime Norim, these high holy days, settle in, for we have, as is so rarely the case, the whole family around the table……READ MORE.
Rabbi Julie Kozlow's Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5782/2021- The Value of Your Values
Since last Rosh Hashanah we have spun 365 circles and once around the sun. Day after day, the earth returning its center, coming back to itself. Day after day as we are called ourselves to make teshuvah, by constantly turning back home to the center of our existence, to the mystery of GOD and the truth of our lives.
Take a deep breath and follow its dance, don’t let go.
This is not a time to miss the steps that stretch your life into eternity
The shofar calls us from the deepest sleep
There is so much more to be, to feel, to breath, to measure, to give thanks, to adjust, to live...
Rabbi Julie Kozlow's Erev Rosh Hashanah Sermon 5782/2021- The Great Divide
The sun sets tonight and in her descent our souls rise… and with them, all the most important questions of life!
It was a very surreal room, it didn’t feel like anything he had ever known. Somehow the light was different, the shadows seemed to fall backwards, a perpetual dusk. He knew that he had just died but more than that, he couldn’t say. He asked the receptionist, where am I please? but all she would say was Sir, please take a number and find a seat. We will call you when it’s your turn....
Jan. 8, 2021 - After the Assault on the Capitol
Reb Nachman taught,
The whole world is a very narrow bridge….
The point, of our crossing, he teaches, is NOT to be afraid.
So, what does it mean to be crossing a dangerous, narrow bridge?
Do you believe in something else? Do you believe that life is just a mass of circumstance, atoms and cells clashing, evolutions roll of the meaningless dice? Luck and privilege, power and status? Winner takes all?
The bridge is an alternate view to this. The bridge is the spiritual path that we are all on, whether we know it or not. READ MORE
Shabbat Jan. 1, 2021 - Looking Back on the Year of Covid
Everywhere I look I see people setting the year 2020 up as the year from the twilight zone and everyone’s goal is to be able to move beyond it and never look back, yet your Rabbi has a different perspective and I want to share that with you.
What I have found this last year is that my sermonizing, my teachings, my heartfelt and hard-fought acquired wisdom that I so passionately want to share with my congregation has changed little in the face of Covid, perhaps the only difference is that I can speak it a little louder without having to endure whispers of idealism heard from the sidelines. READ MORE
Shabbat Sukkot October 9, 2020/5751
Look up!
So there we were, wandering in the desert, heading towards a new place, we assumed it was geographical, and indeed it was but God was ordering for us a more expansive destination, one that had both elements of life entwined, the physical with the spiritual. Yes, we were heading for the Land of Israel, the land of milk and honey, but more, we were heading for a new way to understand how to live our lives in a deeper and more expanded world sense.
And so you see this Sukkah, it is calling to you to do the same. READ MORE