Park Avenue Synagogue Podcast

Sermon - Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove: Wipe Your Tears - May 8, 2021

How do we come back from this past year’s tough times? Do we despair or do we respond with optimism that we can transcend our difficulties to craft a positive future? As Jews have done since the prophet Jeremiah, we can show resilience and choose the positive.

Dialogue - Jennifer Stern Granowitz and Erin Beser: How We Talk About Race – May 5, 2021

Why is talking about race within the Jewish community important? Jennifer Stern Granowitz and Erin Beser speak with Benny Witkovsky, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at UW-Madison, for some background on how to talk about race in white Jewish learning spaces. Talking about this will inherently make people feel uncomfortable – so let’s get uncomfortable.

Discussion and Reflection Questions

1. What is your experience and understanding of race?

2. Do you think it is important to speak about race in the Jewish community? Why or why not?

3. Where do you see a potential opportunity to incorporate a discussion about race with your students?

4. How can we use our Jewish identities to deepen our understanding of race and racial injustice in America today?

5. A question from Benny Witkovksy: What do we do with our history? How do we use it to bring us to action today?

Resources: Anti-Racism Resources Part 1 for Families (pasyn.org)

Sermon - Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove: The Grammar Of Jewish Living - May 1, 2021

Does it matter if we are precise in our observance of mitzvot (commandments)? While always a balance between exactitude and right intention, Jewish living calls on us to be attentive to the sacred grammar of doing mitzvot.

Sermon - Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove: To Life! – April 17, 2021

How do we bring a person who has been isolated because of a dreadful disease back into community? How do we all reintegrate as a community after a year of isolation and disruption?

Dialogue - Jennifer Stern Granowitz and Erin Beser: How We Talk About Death and Dying – April 14, 2021

In this episode, Jen Stern Granowitz and Erin Beser speak about the Jewish views on death and dying with Rabbi Melanie Levav, founder and director of the Shomer Collective, a new Jewish organization focused on improving end-of-life experiences. Listen for some concrete language on how to talk about death with young children, older learners or even what we as adults need to understand about Jewish views on death and dying. In what turned out to be an uplifting and spiritually fulfilling conversation, Rabbi Levav discusses how this work gives us the opportunity to live lives of greater meaning and connection by recognizing our own mortality. Trigger warnings include talk of death, dying, cancer, the Holocaust, and how to speak about these topics with very young children.

 

Discussion and Reflection Questions

1. What are your own views on death and dying?

2. What were the conversations that you had about death and dying when you were younger in your family, at school, and in your community? If you could change or reframe those conversations, would you and how?

3. 3. A question from Rabbi Levav (attributed to the poet Mary Oliver): What will you do with your own wild and precious life?

 

Resources

• Sesame Street's grief toolkit
• PJ Library article: "How to Talk About Death and Dying"
• Tablet's list of kids books about death
• NPR article: "Be Honest And Concrete: Tips For Talking To Kids About Death"
• HealthyChildren.org article: "How Children Understand Death & What You Should Say"

For more information about services and programs at Park Avenue Synagogue, visit our website at https://pasyn.org.

Diaglogue - Jennifer Stern Granowitz and Ellen Alt: How We Talk About Art Part II – April 7, 2021

Episode 7 is a part two of “How We Talk About Art.” Jen Stern Granowitz speaks with PAS Artist-in-Residence Ellen Alt about creative ways to integrate art into teaching about Israel. Check out the show notes for this episode for visuals of the different projects.

Sermon - Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove: As Difficult As Splitting The Sea -April 6, 2021

Can a miracle be difficult for God? Follow Rabbi Cosgrove into a sea of stories and interpretations as we discover how building a relationship is like making a miracle.

Dialogue - Jennifer Stern Granowitz, Erin Beser and Rabbi Geoff Mitelman: How We Talk About Science - March 24, 2021

In this episode, Jen Stern Granowitz and Erin Beser speak with Rabbi Geoff Mitelman, the Founding Director of Sinai and Synapses. The organization bridges the religious and scientific worlds, offering people a worldview that is scientifically grounded and spiritually uplifting. Rabbi Mitelman shares advice on how to talk with your learners about the Torah and God while also validating their understanding of science and history.

Discussion and Reflection Questions

1. How do you authentically connect with the Torah and God? To use Rabbi Mitelman’s words, how do you bridge the religious and scientific worlds?
2. How have you or would you respond to a student who does not want to engage in learning about our Biblical stories because “this didn’t even really happen”?
3. When teaching about Passover specifically, how have you or would you help your students connect to the holiday if they are struggling to connect with something that “didn’t even really happen”?
4. A question from Rabbi Mitelman: Where do I find meaning even if something is not necessarily factually true?

Sermon - Rabbi Ethan Witkovsky: Sinners, Singers and Second Chances – March 20, 2021

We all make missteps. Sometimes we need to receive a second chance, and sometimes we need to offer one. Rabbi Witkovsky discusses the sacrificial system of Va-yikra as the Torah’s way of codifying the importance of second chances, a message we all need today.

Sermon - Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove: Kavod Shabbat In Covid - March 13, 2021

May we break Shabbat in order to keep Shabbat? The tension between working to make Shabbat and resting to have Shabbat is as old as Shabbat itself. Looking back over our pandemic year, Rabbi Cosgrove questions how our use of technology will affect how we keep Shabbat in the future.