Rabbi Cy StanwayShir Shalom – GainesvilleJuly 11, 2025 There is an old saying that what makes God laugh is seeing our plans for the future or, as John Lennon once said, ‘Life is what happens while you are making other plans.’  It might be more accurate to say, rather, that what makes God really laugh…

No More Hiding… GAINESVILLE – JULY 4 2025 When I was at camp many years ago, one of the standard exercises we used to do was the now familiar ‘are you a Jewish American or an American Jew’? Disregarding the fact that I was Canadian, it was an interesting exercise. Of course, to this day,…

Dvar for June 25 Korach The Torah portion this week is one of the most confusing in the entire Torah.  Its words are clear and the narrative is straightforward.  So what’s the problem? First, let’s go over the text a bit. Korach is a priest and, as a priest, is already in a privileged position in the…

As you may know, I try to find Jewish content and Jewish meaning in everything.  There always seems to be a Jewish moment in even the most secular of things.  I have found Jewish moments in baseball.  After all, what is the whole point of baseball except finding your way back home?  And isn’t that…

Yom Kippur Morning 2023 Rabbi Cy Stanway I want to share a true story[1] with you:  In 1975, in Cologne, Germany, there was an ambitious high school student who loved jazz music when no one else around here seemed to have any interest. And so at 16 she basically became a concert promoter, and she got…

Erev Yom Kippur Erev Yom Kippur 2023Rabbi Cy Stanway I love playing around with words and expressions. There is always insight to be gleaned by dwelling on a word or a phrase and creating a midrash on the fly. For instance, in Hebrew the word for king is, of course, Melech.  The word for clown is lemach.…

Whither Free Israel?Rosh Hashanna Morning 2023Rabbi Cy Stanway Many years ago, I had the most embarrassing moment of my life, and believe me, this was the most embarrassing.  And it had nothing to do with me! My whole family was coming back from Yom Kippur services. Now, keep in mind that my synagogue at the time…

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…