Rabbi Rachel Bearman

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A New Midrash for Ki tisa

THE ISRAELITES: The whispers have been flying for days. They buzz and bite like the flies that tormented the Egyptians. Moses has been...

Miriam: More Water Than Woman

I’ve been waiting to die for weeks. Each day, as we travel through the desert, I put one foot in front of the other, toes slipping in...

In the beginning...

In the beginning, for unknowable amounts of time, Divinity existed in a world that was unformed and mysterious. They were not lonely....

A reflection on this moment of transition

A Sermon for the last Shabbat of 2020

Earlier this week, I read a piece in the New York Times called, “How We Survive the Winter.” The article was published the day before the...

A Midrash For Vayishlach

The prayer of the unnamed, unloved, and unwritten. We are the wives of Jacob. We are the unnamed, the unloved, and the unwritten. We are...

A New Midrash for Bereshit

I was the snake. The fruit was not temptation; it was opportunity. The sin would have been to stay in ignorance, to remain in the garden...

A Sermon for Yom Kippur 2020

For months and months, I’ve been excitedly considering what I should talk about in my first High Holy Day sermon at my new congregation....

Following Channah's Example: A Prayer for Rosh Hashanah

The Haftarah portion for Rosh Hashanah comes from the first two chapters of 1 Samuel, and it tells the story of two, very unhappy women....

My Response to the 2020 Mulan Remake

**** Spoilers for the 2020 Mulan (and also I guess for the 1998 Mulan… which you should have seen by now.)*** Whelp… I watched the remake...

Korach Was Right

“They combined against Moses and Aaron and said to them, ‘You have gone too far! For all the community are holy, all of them, and the...

A Quilt for the Future

This weekend, I set up the sewing machine that I bought after it was announced that we should all be wearing masks when we’re in public....

Wrap Me Up: A Prayer For Those Who Are Overwhelmed

Ezrat Nafsheinu- Soul sustainer, I'm tempted to go get my tallis, sit with my legs tucked up underneath me, and wrap myself in fabric and...

A Prayer for Light on Hanukkah Filled With Shadows

Sarai in the Palace (A Midrash for Lech Lecha)

In Genesis 12:1, God calls to Abram, telling him to leave his homeland and to go to a land that God will show him. Abram and Sarai follow...

Yom Kippur 2019 / 5780

A couple years ago, while I was visiting my family in Memphis, I spent an afternoon doing what everyone does on vacation… digitizing old...

Kol Nidre 2019 / 5780

I was taught, and I believe, that the Torah is not the history of the world but is instead the Jewish people’s way of telling our own...

Rosh Hashanah 5780

Narratives that coalesce around a single person who is the only one who can perform a critical task are ever present and ever popular. I...

Erev Rosh Hashanah 5780

Figuring out what I wanted to speak about tonight was a very lengthy and difficult process. I started and abandoned several sermons until...

A Midrash for Rosh Hashanah, Day Two

Genesis 21:3 And Abraham called his son, the one born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, by the name Isaac (Yitzchak, “He-Will-Laugh”). 9...

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