Rabbi Noah Farkas Sermons

When my kids were younger they had this toy called an etch-a-sketch. It’s got a red square and two white knobs that when turned create lines and pictures.  And with a shake or two the whole picture gets...Read more...

We live in a call-out culture where we lie in wait for each other fall short. We become known only for our imperfections and not for our accomplishments. What if we flipped the script and called each other out for what really matters...the blessings we give to each other.

Back in October 2012 an organization called LIFE (Living Independently Forever) which is a group home for high functioning adults with learning...Read more...

For the past ten years I have lead a physician's talmud study group called Dinner for Docs. We meet about once a quarter, have some wine and eat a nice dinner. Then we engage in Talmud study. It was there that I really got to know Dr. Joe Beezy. He’s sitting right over there. Joe and I became friends over a page of Talmud, so much so that he asked me to perform the marriage of his daughter, Talya,...Read more...

It might seem crazy what I am about to say
Sunshine she's here, you can take a break
I'm a hot air balloon that could go to space
With the air, like I don't care, baby, by the way
(Because I'm happy)
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
(Because I'm happy)
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
(Because I'm happy)
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
(Because I'm...Read more...

This past year the Jewish community lost three great luminaries. A few weeks ago we lost Gene Wilder, who knew how to mix the subtleties of emotional tragedy into a cocktail of comedy, storytelling, and sweetness. Earlier this year we lost Elie Wiesel, the voice of a generation of survivors of the Shoah, who gave the world the phrase "Never Forget," and taught us that "The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference." Just last week we...Read more...

My house is full of kids. With four children - the oldest topping out at age seven - our house is just like summer camp.  It’s always loud, messy, the kids are always eating, and there are splatters of paint everywhere.  One of my kid’s favorite games to play is hide and seek.  Once earlier this summer, my second child, Shaya, he’s five, ran off to find the perfect hiding spot.  He crouched down low behind a...Read more...

About two months ago, an airplane was scheduled to fly from Kuala Lampur enroute to Beijing.  There were about 300 people onboard. The flight took-off at midnight heading southwest. And at some point, for whatever reason, all indications - all the beeping things - all the things that tell the world where that plane is and where it’s supposed to go, how it’s doing, turned off. After several hours, the plane disappeared. It flew off...Read more...

Every Shabbat I walk to synagogue.  Sometimes I walk alone; sometimes I walk with my family.   Now, it’s about a mile from my place to here. I walk down Ventura passing by the stores and under the 405 underpass. Many of you see me walking, some of you, honk at me to say hello! Some others of you even pull over, offering me a ride, and I thank you for that.  But what many of you don’t see, what many of us have forgotten to...Read more...

In 1864, Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, an Englishman with a literary mind was entrusted with the care for an afternoon of the three young daughters of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. That afternoon Reverend Dodgson and his colleague Reverend Duckworth, took the girls on a five-mile river trip. To pass the time Dodgson spun a series of yarns about each of the girls, especially the youngest of the three, named Alice....Read more...

My great grandfather, my Zaddie Morris, may he rest in peace, was a tie maker. He worked in Manhattan and lived in a tenement on the Lower East Side. He would come home every night to his wife Esther and their five sons, and soak his hands in rose oil to keep them soft and smooth, so he wouldn’t scratch the Italian silk of his craft. Every Friday morning, he and my Bubbie Esther would wake up their boys from the single bed they shared many...Read more...

About seventy years ago a couple by the name of Paul and Marie Lamfrom fled Nazi Germany with their daughters, Hildegrade, Eva, and Gert. They fled Hitler and sailed to America first to San Francisco and then up to Portland Oregon where they purchased a small distribution business. As any good Jewish businessman knows, when you're the middle man, you get squeezed at both ends. And that's what happened to Paul and Marie. Their suppliers began...Read more...

The Jewish Week - December 22, 2009

As Rabbi Steven Wernick presided over his first United Synagogue Conservative Judaism biennial, held earlier this month, there was a sense of an unprecedented opportunity to discuss the history and future of Conservative Judaism.  

As a young rabbi who believes in the idea of religious movements, I note that Conservative Judaism is a grass-roots coalition that has lost two of its...Read more...

June 2, 2009 by Rabbi Noah Zvi Farkas

90 years ago, a German sociologist named Max Weber published a lecture of critical importance entitled, Politik als Beruf, or Politics as a Vocation. In which, Weber articulated an ethos of politics and civil activism based on the integration of two seeming incommensurable values. On the one hand, for those who choose public life, there exists the value of unbridled idealism that composes and...Read more...

Imagine with me, if you will, a small village in Ghana, West Africa. In this village, with no electricity or running water, there’s a primary school, sitting in shambles. Now, despite the decrepit look of the building, the school fills daily with sounds of young children running to and from their lessons. On the side of this school is a mural, painted with stylized images of African workers carrying concrete in pans placed atop their heads...Read more...