Rabbi Joshua Hoffman Sermons

Holding on and Letting Go: Yom Kippur 2016/5777  

Rabbi Joshua Hoffman

Summertime in our family has been filled with the tunes from the Broadway musical, Hamilton.  Plays and replays have etched the lyrics of the show into my mind, sometimes waking me up even before the first cup of coffee or stepping onto the exercise machine. “Look around, look around! How lucky we are to be alive right now!” These...Read more...

Je Suis Juif - I am Jewish
Rabbi Joshua Hoffman
Valley Beth Shalom, Encino, CA

A Jewish man is disgusted with his faith, decides to leave the Jewish world behind, and join a monastery.  He...Read more...

Rosh Hashana 2004 – 5765 by Rabbi Joshua Hoffman

On a warm summer evening, groups of boys throughout this country are led through twisted mazes of trees and brush away from the camping areas they traveled miles far from home to reach. Upon arriving to the site, the flames of a centrally located bonfire wisp to and fro as they are fanned by the gentle breeze. Small groups form around the fire, and the Boy Scout elders begin to charge...Read more...

Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur 5767 – 2006 by Rabbi Joshua Hoffman

Here is something real. This is a piece of a Katyusha Rocket launched on Northern Israel by Hizbullah. It may appear small to you, but the sharp edges of this coarse material conceived by man and fashioned by machine can maim and kill. Like its shape and size seem so insignificant to you now, its existence is almost surreal. This little scrap easily grasped in my hand...Read more...

Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur 5767 – 2006 by Rabbi Joshua Hoffman

A farmer's barn catches fire. The county fire department was called to put out the fire. Due to the dry heat and the surrounding grassy area, the fire was more than the county fire department could handle. Someone suggested that a nearby volunteer bunch be called. Despite some doubt that the volunteer outfit would be of any assistance, the call was made.

The...Read more...

Yom Kippur - 2009, 5770 by Rabbi Joshua Hoffman

Al Chet Sh’Chatanu L’fanecha – We say it. We beat our chest. It is an odd ritual - beating our chests. It ranks up there with using fresh scallions to playfully beat fellow Seder participants to relive the pains of enslavement in Egypt on Pesah. There’s even the lesser known but equally peculiar beating of the willow branches on the lulav toward the end of Sukkot. It’s a...Read more...

Yom Kippur 5769 – 2008 by Rabbi Joshua Hoffman

When I stumbled upon the notable pollster, John Zogby, and his new book, The Way We Will Be, I was offered a glimpse into the minds that find so much significance in our casual musings. In this reflection of one man’s work with opinion polls, the author draws some thoughtful and certainly optimistic conclusions about American social behavior in the years to come. Pollsters like Zogby...Read more...

Rosh Hashana – 5768 by Rabbi Joshua Hoffman

A few weeks ago a very reputable survey source, MTV and the Associated Press, released the results of an extensive 7 month study on what makes young people happy. They asked questions ranging from, "How important is it to be happy with life?" to asking them to express their feelings about money, their heroes, and their stress. From the 100 questions they asked, what did they conclude? 26...Read more...

July 4th was a different kind of Independence Day this year. It was on July 4th that scientists from the CERN Laboratory beneath the mountains in France and Switzerland proved the existence of a subatomic particle called the Higgs Boson, named after Peter Higgs. In the 1990’s one physicist working on the nearly half-century quest, Leon Lederman, coined this elusive element, the “God Particle.” It was casually given this term because the...Read more...

In times of uncertainty, truth and confidence are found in a moral balance, if only we will listen.

Wanda Diaz Merced is an accomplished astrophysicist. Several years ago, though, she lost her sight due to an extended illness. Challenged by the rigors of her field, one that primarily uses sight to interpret the data collected from the vast universe, she and her team devised a method of translating information into sound, called...Read more...

Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur 5764 – 2003 by Rabbi Joshua Hoffman

We must make our sanctuary, our community a place for dreaming, a place where children's visions can be actualized.

The scene opens, and we look upon a typical day in the life of a young teenager. A girl named Tracy walks down the halls saying hello to friends and is keenly aware of the other students walking around her. She notices the clothes her classmates are...Read more...

"God was upset with David." It's a biblical story that unexpectedly turns for the worse. God sends His prophet, Nathan, to speak to the King of Israel. The message is unusually delivered by a parable:

Once, there were two men in the same city, one very rich, and one very poor. The rich man had flocks and herds, but the poor man had only one little ewe lamb which he had bought with what little money he had. The poor man tended to it...Read more...