In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Pam Silk weaves the spectacle of the Kentucky Derby into the timeless teachings of the double Torah portion B’har B’chukotai. From trainer Sherry DeVoe’s history‑making victory and the story of brothers Jose and Irad Ortiz, to the Torah’s radical vision of Shmita and Jubilee, she explores what it means to believe that no win or loss is ever final and that true holiness lies in creating structures where everyone has a chance to run their best race. Along the way, Rabbi Silk lifts up the commandment of v’hechezakta bo — “strengthen your neighbor” — challenging us to dismantle barriers, expand access, and engage in tikkun olam as a sacred, ongoing communal practice.

In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Oren Hayon reflects on Parashat Emor and the doubled command to “speak” and to “say.” What looks like redundancy in the Torah becomes a profound teaching about how wisdom must be shared with adults and passed along to children.

Rabbi Hayon lifts up the idea that almost all of us are Jewish teachers — parents, grandparents, educators, clergy, camp counselors, and caring adults — whenever we choose to show kids why Jewish life matters to us. He weaves in the teaching of Pesach Sheni, the “second Passover,” to remind us that it is never too late to begin living our Judaism in a way our children can see and learn from.

Through stories, Torah, and heartfelt challenge, Rabbi Hayon invites us to notice how our words, priorities, and presence reveal what we value most to the kids who are always watching.

In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Oren Hayon tells the Jewish story of Isfahan, an ancient community in Iran whose roots stretch back 2,500 years and whose legend begins with exiles carrying soil and water from Jerusalem.

From that evocative image, he invites us to consider the “eternal artifacts” each of us carries — memories, values, and commitments that guide us through a fractured world and help us rebuild after loss.

Rabbi Hayon reflects on how Jewish history lives in the tension between destruction and renewal, and how our choices today shape the future our children will inherit.

In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Josh Fixler dives into one of Tanakh’s strangest stories: the death of Uzza as he reaches out to steady the ark of the covenant. Framed like a Benoit Blanc-style mystery, moving from Parashat Sh’mini to the haftarah in Second Samuel, he asks not “whodunnit” but “whydunnit”—and ultimately admitting that some suffering defies explanation.

Rabbi Fixler then turns to David’s ecstatic dancing, Michal’s rebuke, the denied dream of building the Temple, and modern echoes in the aftermath of October 7th. Along the way, he draws on Saul Bellow, Yehuda Amichai, and survivors who insist “od nirkod shuv – we will dance again,” painting a picture of a Judaism that refuses to give up its dancing shoes even in the shadow of tragedy.

In this special Passover Yizkor episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Oren Hayon shares a powerful drash that begins with an unlikely teacher: the Osage orange tree. Once spread across a continent by woolly mammoths and giant sloths, the tree now survives in a narrowed habitat, still bearing the shape of a relationship that has been lost.

Rabbi Hayon weaves this natural history into a meditation on Jewish memory at Pesach and the tender work of Yizkor. He speaks to mourners who find themselves “out with lanterns looking for ourselves,” holding onto small artifacts of those they love—a familiar phrase, a morning coffee order, a quietly inherited value. Through this “spiritual archaeology,” we discover that our grief not only looks backward, but clarifies who we are still becoming and the hopeful fruit our lives can still bear.

In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Pam Silk invites us to see the seder as “memory with coordinates”—a story that does not just free us from oppression, but brings us toward a concrete sense of peoplehood, land, and destiny. She reflects on how the seder’s symbols and choreography slowly transform obligation into connection and awkwardness into a proud, rooted Jewish identity.

Rabbi Silk grapples with anti-zionist efforts to universalize the Exodus story while erasing its ending. She asks what it means to keep the language of liberation while cutting out the part that locates us in Israel, Zionism, and Jewish peoplehood.

Framed as a call to Jewish courage, this teaching urges us to inhabit our particular story fully—rituals, language, attachments and all—without retreating from the wider world. Instead, Rabbi Silk challenges us to stand firmly as Jews, trusting that a fully embraced, coordinates‑bound memory can still be a powerful source of ethical vision and hope.

On Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat before Passover, Rabbi Oren Hayon explores Jewish memory, identity, and hope. Beginning with a Syrian Passover custom in which a child carries a knotted bundle of matzah and answers, “Who are you and what are you carrying? Where have you come from and where are you going?”, he invites us to ask those same questions of our own Jewish lives.

Rabbi Hayon reflects on the stories, fears, and treasures we carry—our ancestors’ journeys, the founding of Congregation Emanu El in 1944, and the enduring courage to keep singing through exile and uncertainty. As he marks his 10th anniversary as senior rabbi of Emanu El, he reminds us that this kehillah kedoshah knows who we are, where we’ve come from, and that wherever we are going, the best is yet to come.

In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Josh Fixler offers a heartfelt reflection on the life and legacy of his and Cantor Rollin Simmons' teacher, Rabbi Dr. Andrea Weiss, co-editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary. He recalls her commitment to a multivocal Torah, her embodiment of chesed (loving kindness), and the way her scholarship opened doors for women and men alike to see themselves in our sacred texts.

Rabbi Fixler also shares the story of the “American Values and Religious Voices” project and how Rabbi Weiss turned to the Bible for moral clarity in times of national uncertainty. The episode features her own teaching on Exodus 15 and the transformation of bitter waters into sweet, along with the Psalms that sustained her through illness.

May her memory continue to be a blessing and an enduring source of courage, justice, and compassion.