Rabbi Robert Scheinberg's page

Note:  this is an unedited version of the sermon I delivered on Yom Kippur eve 2016 / 5777.  I am so grateful to my friends and colleagues Rabbis Abby Sosland, Beth Naditch, and Andi Merow -- and the writings of Rabbis Shoshana Friedman and Jonathan Sacks -- for influencing this sermon. One of my favorite stories about Yom Kippur is the story I heard from Rabbi David Woznica, who is now a rabbi in the Los Angeles area.  He is fond of telling the story of how, when he was a child, his parents -- mistakenly -- informed him that the tradition was to strike one’s heart during the Al Chet - the Yom Kippur confessional prayers - only for the sins that one had actually performed.  Throughout his childhood and adolescence, every Yom Kippur, he would read the list of sins in the Mahzor, the High Holy Day prayerbook, and make a judgment for each one whether he was guilty of it that year, or not.  “We have sinned against you by speaking recklessly” - yeah, I did that ...

(Note:  this is an unedited version of the sermon I delivered on the second day of Rosh HaShanah 2016 / 5777.  Links, references, footnotes, etc will be added later. ) This is my vote for one of the most surprising quotations of this Jewish year.  Some of you may recognize it. He was a person of captivating brilliance and wit, with a rare talent to make even the most sober [colleague] laugh. [He was a person of] …. ‘energetic fervor,’ ‘astringent intellect,’ ….‘acumen,’ and ‘affability,’...  It was my great good fortune to have known him as working colleague and treasured friend. These are some of the words with which Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg eulogized the man she referred to as her ‘best buddy,’ Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, after his death this past winter. Yes, the friendship between Scalia and Ginsburg - also known as Nino and Notorious RBG- has to be one of the most unlikely friendships in history.  Ginsburg has been ...

(Note:  this is an unedited version of the sermon I delivered on the first day of Rosh HaShanah 2016 / 5777.  Links, references, footnotes, etc will be added later.  Many thanks to the USH Choir for learning to sing the song so beautifully at the start and end of the sermon!) Let me tell you what I wish I’d known When I was young and dreamed of glory You have no control Who lives who dies who tells your story I know that we can win I know that greatness lies in you But remember from here on in History has its eyes on you You have just witnessed the most self-indulgent thing a rabbi could possibly do during a high holiday service.  Some of you recognized that our choir just sang a little snippet from the musical Hamilton - And I, of course, appropriated for myself the role of George Washington. (This, by the way, is where we can distinguish the people who are new to this synagogue from the ones who have been here before.  The people wh...