Parashat Noach 5778 One can learn a lot about his surroundings from the graffiti he encounters. When I was living in Jerusalem as a rabbinical student, eagerly and earnestly learning to speak modern Hebrew, I remember walking down Emek Refayim one day and seeing the words “Welcome Americans. Speak Hebrew,” stenciled with spray paint across the side of a trash can. It was written in English. One can successfully live in Jerusalem today, and never learn to speak Hebrew. Not so

By Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch Delivered Rosh Hashanah 5777 In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was tohu vavohu – unformed, random, turbulent, out of control, tumultuous – chaotic. In the beginning the earth was chaos. Chaos into order. A key theme that runs through our biblical story, through our texts and liturgy, in our lives today. We seek to impose structure and rules, to see patterns and purpose in a murky vacuum. Chaos represents uncertainty