Posts by Cyril

Rabbi Cy Stanway There was a fascinating article I found during the pandemic that has stayed with me. I want to share part of it with you. If I asked you, ‘when did civilization start?’ you might say something like, ‘when people moved into cities’ or ‘when clay pots were created’ or, maybe, ‘when humans…

New Words: Old Problems Yom Kippur Morning 2022 Rabbi Cy Stanway Let’s start this morning with a little quiz. What do these words have in common? Long hauler Hard pass Body shame Overshare Shrinkflation The only connection these words to have one another and to a couple of hundred more since last year is that…

Rosh Hashanna 2022 I am going to start my Rosh Hashanna sermon talking about something I don’t usually think about: tornadoes.  But we’ll get there in a moment.  Before we get into tornadoes, let’s take a look at a very interesting experiment that was done in South Africa between 1956 and 1962.   436 South African…

Yom Kippur Morning 2022 Of all the days in the Jewish year, you would think that Yom Kippur is the one where we put on display all the examples of repentance and forgiveness, teshuva and heshbon ha-nefesh.  I mean, what better way to illustrate to us all not the just whys of repentance, but also…

YOM KIPPUR In the Middle Ages throughout Europe, over-zealous priests in the Catholic Church were so afraid of Jewish thought that, betwefacen 1232 and 1319, they would gather up every Jewish book they could find and burn it. This way, they figured, Jews couldn’t be Jewish without their books, and they would ultimately disappear.  It…

From the Book of Lamentations in memory of those killed by another round of gun violence in Uvalde: Bitterly she weeps in the night, Her cheek wet with tears. Uvalde bitterly weeps in the night Her cheeks wet with tears. We hear them, between gasps of pain and incomprehension the same words spoken by the…

It’s often said that life can change in the blink of an eye. Anyone who has ever experienced a sudden death, or any kind of life-changing surprise would agree, of course. Life can change in the blink of an eye.  That is why I am glad my eyes didn’t blink when Stella’s phone dinged as…

While Standing (Six Feet Apart) on One Foot Erev Pesach – April 8, 2020 Why is this night different than any other night? When we ask that simple question, the answer this year can be either, ‘Where do I begin?’ or ‘Oy!  Where have you been?!’  No one, and I mean no one, is ever…

March 11, 2021 – One year after…. This is the first anniversary of the declaration that COVID was a pandemic.  I should correct myself: COVID is still a pandemic.  Anniversaries are a good time to reflect.  So let’s reflect and see how much has changed.  But I don’t want to reflect on how much has…

When a maniac gets a gun, a maniac does maniacal things.  The murderer of Asian women in Atlanta ought to strike terror in everyone of our hearts, for sure.  From what we understand, a man buys a 9mm pistol in the morning and kills 8 people by the afternoon.  He may have had a sex…