I could tell you about the seasonal vacations of my childhood driving from Los Angeles to the Sierra Nevada mountains and one version sounds like a travel itinerary. Palmdale to Lone Pine to Mammoth Lakes. Flashes of images are evoked with those names, and when I really pause to collect the details, the memories become more than one-dimensional stops along a map of the Mohave desert. I still hold in my mind’s eye moments and places, like the bakery we used to frequent in Bishop, California called Schat’s, where we would stock up on breads and treats. Dad was particularly fond of the walnut banana bread, which he ate with cream cheese. And then there was that soft serve place in Lone Pine with creamy vanilla and chocolate swirl that tasted like pure heaven. We climbed thousands of feet along the Eastern Sierra, and I can still smell the pine, the crisp snow in winter, the sweet and musky smells of wildflowers stubbornly dancing along the road.

Of all the Jewish holidays, Passover is the one more observed and with that, perhaps the holiday most laden with memories. This is captured in the following selected passages from a poem by Rabbi Hara Person from Mishkan HaSeder, entitled Passover Love Song. It’s a poem of love and memory, rendered in exquisite detail:

The seder is a love song written

In the language of silver polish

And dishpan hands

Freshly grated lemon zest…

Ashkenazi haroset

Vegetarian chopped liver

My mother’s real chopped liver

Bonnie’s matzah ball soup

Israeli salad…

Turkey and brisket

Pecan meringues

Chocolate dipped apricots.

Remember.

…Tulips on the mantle

My grandmother’s blue glass plates

Aunt Hannah and Uncle Joe’s silver

Nana’s candlesticks…

Grape stains on the tablecloth

Thin paperback hagaddot

Our mismatched family of friends

Silly half-versions of songs…

Don’t be fooled by the easy domesticity of these words.

This is more than a recipe for nostalgia.

This is an urgent coded message of

Survival

Adaptation

Love.

The details break open our hearts to something bigger, as Person writes in the conclusion of her Passover Love Song—the bursting of our tastebuds with brisket and meringues, the heavy glass plates and grape stains, the silly songs—all the cacophonous specificity carry us into the heart of big emotions and values—loss and memory, tradition and innovation, legacy and love.

I generally have very mixed feelings about social media, but it was a helpful platform for me to ask members of Temple and beyond to share a Passover memory. Here are a few, with gratitude for the offerings of these words:

Sponge cakes cooled upside down on the necks of soda bottles

Wine stains on the tablecloth tell the history of Seders gone by

Debates over the question: Is matzoh with butter better, or matzoh with cream cheese?

My absolute favorite Passover memory is my grandfather making high pitched noises with his hearing aid while everyone’s going around the table reading…he holds a finger to his lips and winks at us kids. The best.

We always had Passover at my mother’s sister’s home in Johnstown, PA. Aunt Millie kept kosher and Uncle Lou would lead the Seder in stages for a group of 20 or more cousins, aunts and uncles crammed into their small apartment.

I offered to host visitors one year and Temple Emanu El sent us an interesting couple from France. It turned out the man’s father was one of the prosecutors at the Eichmann trial, and he told us how much preparation that took.

As a fourth grader…we opened the door for Elijah at our Sunday school Seder and there stood Mr. Stern, my friend Nancy’s father.  Not a Seder has gone by that I don’t think of him as we open the door for Elijah. It still makes me smile.

My very first Passover was at my Brother and Sister in laws. I was 19 and just learning about Judaism. Funny thing, I thought the food was uninspiring and the service long and tedious. But after years of celebrating it, I came to appreciate and love it. It has become my favorite Jewish holiday.

When I completed my conversion during Passover…I remember we debated whether to choose Passover or Shavuot, and in the end, Passover felt right. Looking back, it was exactly the right time, especially since it’s the season of liberation and mirrored what I was stepping into…it felt like my own Miriam moment, which is even reflected in my Hebrew name.

Our own composition of memories for Passover varies over time, as year to year the seasons of life bring new insights, losses, joys. Some of us don’t have Passover memories over generations or years extending back; some of us mark the holiday with family through sending pictures across miles and oceans; some of us create very abridged versions because we have squirming toddlers or, this year, a little grape juice and matzah in the hospital room is our sacred observance.

Flavors and smells, visual images and textures, all of them add to the shape of our memories, which can, in turn, evoke a range of emotions. It’s not only the sweetness of times past—Passover is also about remembering the bitter, the narrow places, the oppression, the sufferings of the world. Commenting on Talmudic wisdom about remembering that slavery and freedom, darkness and light are always intertwined together like the flavors or salt and sweetness in the Passover meal, Michael Strassfeld writes:

To remember is not enough; rather, one should work to help bring about a time when all are free.”

How can our memories inspire action and commitment? As Rabbi Stern so powerfully asked two Shabbatot ago, “what will we do with the freedom we already have to let someone else’s pain into our hearts?” As we ask such probing questions, I invite you to join us on April 12^th, just as Passover concludes. Our community will convene a gathering we are calling Yom Tzedek, a day to learn, to connect, to act. Building on our 154-year history of making the world a better place, in partnership with Women of Reform Judaism, people of all ages and stages will participate in hands-on projects with partner organizations like Family Gateway and Now Forward; we will hear from Temple clergy and our member, Dallas Morning News journalist Robert Wilonsky; we will explore issues like immigration and religion in public schools through the lens of Jewish values; we will learn about current campaigns to uphold a just Israeli society. The day, as has always been our practice, isn’t an echo chamber to hear a single voice or opinion about the world. Yom Tzedek is one, essential, faithful response to a sense of overwhelm, with a focus on what we can do right here in our own backyard.

Memories live in the details. And freedom lives in the compassion and the commitment we practice as a faithful, diverse community. May we discover, through our memory and our action, the timeless wisdom from our ancestors’ desert journeys. As we make our way, may the voices and experiences of the past inspire our present work, to create a more whole and just future.

*sermon offered Shabbat of Pesach 5786

Interpretive translation of Psalm 1, dedicated to Eric L.Herzog (composed on Hevraya winter retreat 2026)

Soul rooted are those who have not become like stones in the field,

Nor stood fixed on a mound of earth,

Nor sit star-spangled and tangled in magical ropes.

Curious ones listen and know there are lands unseen,

there is a murmur day and night that calls Lech lecha (Go forth…)

and we bow as branches, webbed like brain synapses,

lightening flashes sending signs

to rest among subtle, soft seed pods and unfurling tender knocks

to our hardened hearts.

Winds rage, sirens blast, with fear pouncing in the wake.

Lost at the crossroads, eyelids heavy with grief,

we take hold and we are held.

Lechi lach whispers in the gentleness,

kicks up dust clouds and altars of light as we make our way,

returning home once again.

Busy bus fumes and factory plumes

wilt golden orchards,

as glass shards glint in the blinding sun,

While ancient melodies

hum stillness into

the scorched hills of poppy,

now carpeted in green.

Can a weave of ruddy

grit stitch new garments

of living hope?

We mend and darn and hem

with tears and wonder.

Winded and breathless,

Hineini.

(Parashat Vayechi sermon at Temple Emanu-El 1/2/26)

I finally caved and agreed it was time to install a TV in the living room. Now our family, or our pre-teens and their friends, can curl up on the couches and watch movies.

My resistance was rooted in a sense of overwhelm with the variety of screens that can occupy space and time—iPads and phones, TVs and Kindles. But I came to realize it isn’t about adding or subtracting screens per say—rather, it’s how we set limits and mindfully use the ones we have. It’s a practice, and one many feel challenged by in the modern age.

I admit, there is a new feature I love, which perhaps many of you have enjoyed for some time. Instead of looking at a blank black rectangular TV on the wall, you can select art. Collections from the Tate Museum, MoMA, Monet and Van Gogh have graced our living room wall. We had fall colors for Thanksgiving, spinning dreidels for Hanukkah, and a series of images in honor of the secular New Year.

This week the TV screen transformed into sparks of color and pizazz on rotation. Flutes brimmed with bubbling champagne, Radio City music hall glimmered with Manhattan winter lights, fireworks punctuated a Los Angeles sky with palm trees bowing to the splendor, doves brought tidings of peace, and crowds danced under disco balls in a frenzied array of moves.

The images told a story about the ways we might mark this yearly event across the globe. Some images were more contemplative and subdued in nature, others were glamorous and electric.

Regardless of how we celebrate, the turning of 2025 to 2026 can bring forth opportunities for reflection:

What has changed, in painful and in good ways?

Who am I now, who are we?

What inspires meaning and a sense of purpose?

How can we cultivate healing and repair?

During Rosh Hashanah we speak about the opening of gates for reflection on our soul’s journey and the ways we connect to others and to God. The Book of Life is before us –what will be written and what will we write? While December 31^st at midnight is a far cry from Rosh Hashanah, with the majesty and spiritual depth our sacred practice can inspire, this is a season of transition in the greater culture of which we are a part. Plus, we’ve never believed that the work of change happens in finite periods of time, only during the fall. In other words, teshuva, the work of finding our way back to the core of who we are and who we seek to become, is a continual, lifelong practice.

New Years, the secular and the sacred, can feel like the closure of a chapter or a book and the beginning of a new one. And it just so happens, we start off 2026 with an alignment between our secular calendar and our Torah reading cycle! This Shabbat we read Parashat Vayechi, the last Torah portion in the Book of Genesis, so we really are ending one book and beginning a new one.

Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, zichrono livracha, offered a beautiful recap of Vayechi, pointing to the central theme of the power we draw from family. Genesis ends with three significant events—

Jacob blesses Ephraim and Menashe,

Jacob blesses his twelve sons, and finally, following Jacob’s death,

Joseph and his brothers find a sense of fragile peace after years of conflict and tension.

The whole book of Genesis is punctuated by the challenges of sustaining a family—there are stories about infertility and jealousy, lies, banishment and even violence against family members. Given all this, as Rabbi Sacks noted:

“The mere fact that Jacob is able to gather his sons together is unprecedented, and important. In the next chapter – the first of Exodus – the Israelites are, for the first time, described as a people. It is hard to see how they could live together as a people if they could not live together as a family…

…Genesis is not a hymn to the virtue of families. It is a candid, honest, fully worked-through account of what it is to confront some of the main problems within families, even the best…

Rabbi Sacks concluded with these words:…I believe that family is the birthplace of freedom. Caring for one another, we learn to care for the common good.” https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/vayechi/

Family can take different forms, not only our blood relatives. For some of us, our family systems are far from safe or healthy. That is why there are so many stories in the Torah and through our tradition about friendships that become family, a community and a neighborhood can be too. In all these systems, we ideally practice care and conversation, listening and sharing. And in all these systems, we inevitably make mistakes. Yet, the last chapters of Genesis remind us—wherever we are, whatever web of connections we are part of, there are ever-new ways to cultivate strength and to strengthen one another.

The pages of the story keep turning…Genesis ends and Exodus begins but it is really a continual unfolding, with challenges and hopes, doubt and faith in ourselves and each other as cyclical elements through all of Torah, through all time, rather than a linear march through events. Perhaps that’s why, when arriving at the end of each of the five books of Moses we say the following words: Chazak, chazak v’nitchazek. Be strong, be strong, and may we be strengthened.

A year ago, I remember a friend, who is really like a sister, offered a blessing for 2025: May it be a more gentle year for you. After a cancer diagnosis and the sudden loss of my dad, I responded with a rousing AMEN. And then a week later, my childhood home burned in the Palisades fire. Needless to say, we exchanged a different blessing this year—more along the lines of Chazak, chazak v’nitchazek. Be strong, be strong, and may we be strengthened.

So as the seasons turn, and at the dawn of 2026, let us hold close these words from our Jewish new year (Machzor Mishkan HaNefesh).

Once two Sages were walking very early in the valley

And they saw the light of the morning star.

Said one to the other,

‘This is how the redemption will be.

The dawn breaks with a single ray of light

And bit by bit the sky is illumined,

Until morning comes and the darkness is gone.

So the redemption will occur little by little,

Growing steadily and gradually

Until the world is full of light.’

Do not wait for a miracle

Or the sudden transformation of the world.

Bring the day closer, step by step,

With every act of courage, of kindness,

Of healing and repair.

Do not be discouraged by the darkness.

Lift up every spark you can

And watch the horizon

For the coming of dawn.

Look closely!

It has already begun.

For whatever comes, and whatever we create, may it be that we walk with connection to something greater than us, and that through our caring presence, and through our courage, we strengthen one another with sparks of joy and healing that can light up the night sky.

The Place Where We Are Right, Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are right

flowers will never grow in the spring.

The place where we are right is hard and trampled like a yard.

But doubts and loves

dig up the world like a mole, a plow.

And a whisper will be heard in the place where the ruined house once stood.

We are in the narrow place, as the days turn from Tammuz to Av. The first day of Av (Rosh Chodesh Av)* begins tomorrow night, and yet, it has felt like Av for ages now.

The moon ebbs and flows, as a mother’s womb, and I wonder, does the moon weep with us, women of desert and stone? We are in the narrow place of war and my heart aches. For the families of hostages. For young soldiers setting out across trampled yards and ruins, and the circles of people who love them.

For the children. Like the angels weeping for the Egyptian army drowning in the Sea of Reeds, the lives lost for our freedom, how can we not weep for the children on both sides of borders and cultures? We mustn’t trample our compassion into yards of pavement and dust. We mustn’t plow our whole, faithful selves into sharp edges. Listen to the whisper of children, longing for peace.

*As the month of Av begins, please join me in donating to an organization I’ve held in high regard for decades, NIF: https://www.nif.org/nifs-campaign-to-address-humanitarian-needs-in-gaza/

This upcoming Torah portion, Pinchas, beckons with hints and wisdom that stirs my heart. After their father dies, the daughters of Zelophechad were unable to inherit their father’s land because land could only be passed down to sons. Thankfully, after the daughters raised their objections to Moses, and Moses consulted with God, the law changed, establishing a new approach to inheritance. God said to Moses, “The plea of Zelophechad’s daughters is just: you should give them a hereditary holding among their father’s kinsmen; transfer their father’s share to them.” (Numbers 27:6).  The daughters found themselves in a terribly narrow place, one created by grief, and the community’s unjust policy added further injury to their loss. But the people paused, acknowledged the daughters before them, and together, established greater ethical standards in the apportioning process of land.

I imagine those daughters. I imagine them holding each other and calling out to God before approaching Moses. Amidst their grief they are resolute, and want to plant roots in the earth, to speak in common voice, to remain part of a collective, to challenge their people to evolve towards compassion and care, justice and healing. Can we hear them and see them? Can we rise each day for the daughters, for the sons, whose lives illumine the darkness?

Layers of grief at every turn. Fires and flood waters, children swept away by war and river. I’ve felt grief that feels both foreign and familiar–beyond what seems possible and simmering embers from the recent losses of home–in my body, in my family, in the Palisades flames, and so much more. We are part of many tribes, often with connections that go unseen, and some that emerge out of the greatest tragedies.

Ana Adonai harofei lish’vurei leiv um’chabeish l’atzvotam –Healer of the Broken Hearted and Binder of their Wounds, are you there? It’s us, we are the daughters of desert and hope. Give us strength as we make our way.