Welcome to our Torah Thoughts page, which contains some sermons and divrei torah (short commentaries) by Rabbi Neil Amswych and by Rabbi Jenny Goldfried Amswych.

Please keep an eye on this page for new thoughts, and please feel free to send us your own commentaries - we would love to put them up on this page. 

Sermons 

2009

Shabbat Chol HaMoed Pesach 5769 (2009): Loving God

Forgiving the Past - Kol Nidre 2009

Teshuvah of the Past, Present and Future -  Yom Kippur Shacharit 2009

BRS of the Past, Present and Future - Yom Kippur Ne'ilah 2009

2008

Vayyigash 5768 (2008): Hearing God's Call

Shemot 5768 (2008): God Is

Beshallach 5768 (2008): Hearing God

Jewish Responses to the Credit Crunch (September 2008)

The End and the Beginning of the Self (Erev Rosh Hashanah 2008)

The End and the Beginning of Behaviour (Rosh Hashanah 2008)

The End and the Beginning of Community (Rosh Hashanah 2008)

The End and the Beginning of the World (Shabbat Shuvah 2008)

The End and the Beginning of Teshuvah (Kol Nidre 2008)

The End and the Beginning of Our Relationship with God (Yom Kippur Shacharit 2008)

The End and the Beginning of Judaism (Yom Kippur Ne'ilah 2008) 

The End and the Beginning - A Summary Sheet

The End and the Beginning of Endings and Beginnings (Simchat Torah 2008)

2007

Torah and Liturgy, Fixed and Fluid (January 5767 (2007))

Tu BiShevat Sermon (February 5767 (2007))

Asking Questions of Ourselves (Erev Rosh Hashanah 5768 (2007))

Asking Questions of Our Society (Rosh Hashanah morning 5768 (2007))

Asking Questions of Our Children (Rosh Hashanah 2nd day 5768 (2007))

Asking Questions of our Rabbis (Shabbat Shuvah 5768 (2007)) 

Asking Questions of God (Kol Nidre 5768 (2007))

Asking Questions of Judaism (Yom Kippur Shacharit 5768 (2007))

Asking Questions of our Community (Ne'ilah 5768 (2007))

2006

Returning to Tradition (Yom Kippur 5767 (2006))

Divrei Torah

Emor

"What is particularly interesting about this parashah is the energy the classical rabbinic commentators devoted to interpreting it even though there was seemingly no practical application for them from the text. ..." Read more...

Tetzaveh

"We no longer have a high priest to act as a conduit between the congregation and God.  The Torah may be the closest thing we have to this kind of conduit....." Read more...

Terumah

"What exactly are these cherubim? They sound suspiciously similar to graven images, whose fashioning is forbidden in the Ten Commandments that lie in the Ark right under their feet!" Read more...

Mishpatim

"Unlike the secular legal traditions of other societies, the laws of the Torah are cited not as the products of a human wisdom and experience but as a reflection of divine principles built into the world. Thus the dignity of a human being is as much a permanent part of God's Creation as the law of gravity."  Read more...

B'shallach

"B'shallach is a parashah jam-packed with imagery, ideas, situations and structures that all cry out for investigation, expounding and commentary.  Even the first verse alone is so rich as to provide ample opportunity for exploration." Read more...

Bo

"Contemporary commentators look at the plagues and ask ‘to what can we compare this in today’s world?’  What are the plagues that we face today?  This question has many levels to it...." Read more. . .

Va'era

"Why is it that God has two different names (in fact, throughout the bible, there are even more names for God)?  Why the distinction here between how God introduced Gods-self to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as opposed to Moses?  And what is the difference between El Shaddai and YHVH?  The text itself does not give any answers to these questions, but rabbis and scholars have provided a plethora of views."     Read more...

Shemot

"There are not many women named in the Torah.  There are references to various women, such as Noah’s wife, but they are not often given names.  Later commentaries and midrashim sometimes assign names to these women (Naamah, in the case of Noah’s wife), but within the canon of the Torah itself, women are much more frequently assigned roles and titles than names...."     Read more...

Vayechi

Vayera 

Chayye Sarah

Toledot

Vayetzei

Vayishlach

Vayeshev

Vayiggash