Rabbi Marc Rudolph’s Sermons

Forgiving our Worst SelvesHad I been a rabbi in the Middle Ages, charged with the task of choosing a prayer that would open the services of the holiest day of…

Our Promised LandYitzchak Epstein was the first to understand the challenge. Back in 1907, Epstein, a writer, linguist and pioneer in the instruction of Modern Hebrew, published an essay entitled…

Finding Spirituality in the Most “Unlikely” Places I used to wear my yarmulke on airplanes but I stopped a few years ago. Wearing my yarmulke would guarantee meeting some very…

Take Off Our ShoesLeon Wieseltier, the literary editor of the New Republic, wrote a book a number of years ago called Kaddish. It is a meditation on the year that…

Something momentous has happened in Naperville, and I want to share that with you this evening.  I have been attending a class called “Total Body Fitness” twice a week for…

The Hidden and RevealedThis week, every time I turn on the television or open a newspaper, or read online,  I hear  about  – the   crisis in the National Football League.…

Some of the people I admire most are working class people. There is the waitress who serves you with a smile after standing on her feet for eight hours; the…

Our parasha this week instructs the Israelites not to offer sacrifices in any place that they may see, but only at the places that G-d may indicate. Earlier in the…

Some Thoughts on the Deaths of Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall This week we lost two great American actors: Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall. Fellow Americans and people from all…

The Answer to our PrayersYesterday morning our adult study group read the first chapter of the Book of Lamentations – the scroll that we read on Tisha B’Av. The first…