Hear Our Voice

We live in a time of ever-extreme polarities.  And with that polarity is a concomitant presumption of “thought purity” just as bit as dangerous as all-out anarchy.  As I shared recently in a sermon, who has ever heard of a healthy, lasting marriage in which each partner must agree with the other on every issue, be on the same page with the other on every issue, especially those that are at best, tangential to their relationship?...Read more...

Memo

To:       Central Student Government Leadership, University of Michigan

From:   Rabbi Scott Hausman-Weiss, Houston, TX

Until three days ago, I had never heard of any of you. I mean, if I had been asked if there is a student government at my son’s university, I’m sure I would’ve said of course. But, as I imagine is the case for most parents of college kids, my focus is most...Read more...

Pharaoh looked down into Goshen and instead of seeing the industriousness and creativity of Joseph’s progeny, he discerned a threat.  With no noted precursor or precedent that might raise suspicion, the Israelites were a risk he wouldn’t abide.  Israel, to his mind, was too successful, growing too quickly. They were different and thus they were “other.” Those who were at first threatened refugees from a blight in the...Read more...

I’ve always loved this not so well-known movie called “Pleasantville,” in which a brother and a sister from the color-filled 1990s accidentally fall through the television set into the black and white 1950s. Their presence in the 1950s infuses a tremendous amount of w'rldliness.  They are in color, while the rest of the world around remains in black and white. However, their “roygbiv” color has a way of “infecting” the...Read more...

OK, so I’m in the Ozarks. I’m on “vacation” this week with Natalie as she and the Woods Project Team scout out a new site.  So it’s kind of like vacation because I’m not working, at least officially, and she is. But it isn’t bad in the least. I’m in the middle of nature, hiking and camping with lovely weather and Wi-Fi. Who could ask for more?

Well I could, because...Passover is around the...Read more...

Many of you have heard about, read about or even studied a famous psychological test called “The Marshmallow Test,” performed at Stanford University in the 1970’s by Walter Mischel.  Simply put, “The Marshmallow Test” studies delayed gratification in children.  A child is brought into a room with a table and a marshmallow sitting on a plate.  The child is told that she is going to be left alone for a few minutes, and...Read more...

Hello friends, I know that most all of us find ourselves in the midst of this weather emergency and I pray that you are remaining safe and warm.  In the absence of my own words at the moment, I offer you these words of prayer and solace. May we go from strength to strength.  

Rabbi Scott 

We Cannot Pray to You

We cannot pray to You, O God,
to banish war,
for You have filled the...Read more...

Do you know why the holiday of Purim is called, “Purim?”  Because pur means “lot,” thus meaning the “casting of lots.”  For this is how Haman determined the day on which the Jews of Persia were to be slaughtered.  Not who should be slaughtered, and not if the Jews should be slaughtered, but when.  And just how, according to the Book of Esther, are the Jewish people saved?  By a Jewish girl, debasing...Read more...

There’s a window pane in one of the doors entering the Capitol Rotunda that remains broken  from the insurrection on January 6th.  Well, not exactly broken perhaps, but riddled with spider cracks fissuring through the pane.  So much pain.  There’s been so much pain and suffering, and I know it didn’t start 4 years ago.  And I pray that we all come to understand that the hateful rhetoric that has become far too...Read more...

On Yom Kippur, we offered this Prayer for our Country.  May our leaders and us hear its call and rise to this moment.

God of holiness, we hear Your message: Justice, Justice you shall pursue. God of freedom, we hear your charge: Proclaim liberty throughout the land. Inspire us through your teachings and commandments to love and uphold our precious democracy. Let every citizen take...Read more...