Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch Of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue

In his Rosh Hashanah sermon, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch spoke about anti-Semitism from both sides of the aisle, slamming the right for excusing hate speech and the left for hypocrisy on Israel, and criticizing the Reform movement for its complacency.

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch tackles questions of free will and morality in this crucial period leading up to the High Holy Days. “This season is about taking responsibility. Judaism insists that you can control your life – and urges us to build guardrails so...

Welcoming officers from the Israel National Defense College for a special Kabbalat Shabbat service and dinner, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch spoke about the modern-day miracle of Israel and recounted how the Israelites' march to the Promised Land was...

After the recent loss of his mother, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch reflects on life’s ephemeral beauty – and the central importance of mothers in our lives.

After a shooting attack on a California synagogue and an anti-Semitic cartoon published in The New York Times left American Jews reeling, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch addressed anti-Semitism coming from both the right and left: “Jews do something that no...

“In every generation, every Jew should feel as if they were personally redeemed from Egypt,” Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch quotes from the Haggadah. “The Haftarah reading for the second day of Passover mentions Natan-Melech once, in passing. This very week...

Speaking about the recent college admissions, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch says: "The impulse to cheat is always present in our lives – especially in a society like ours that so rewards accomplishment. Jewish tradition teaches that we need to avoid even...

"Right-wing anti-Semitism inclines towards violence. The anti-Semitism of the left is camouflaged by the rhetoric of human rights, anti-colonialism, liberalism, and white privilege. It tends to be expressed nowadays through hatred of Israel. And...

In this week’s parasha, Moses became so enraged that he took the tablets – described by the Torah as being carved by the very finger of God – and shattered them into pieces. In this era of anger, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch cautions, the enraged are often...

Despite the characteristic rapid social changes of our times, we know what kind of behavior is right and what's wrong, says Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, who discusses the ongoing controversy in Virginia's state government and the great sage, Elazar...

As mounting accusations of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel advocacy roil the national Women’s March movement, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch announced that Stephen Wise Free Synagogue will disassociate from Women’s March Inc., and that it will join the 2019...

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch discusses the painful reconciliation of Jacob’s sons in the Book of Genesis, and how we should seek to release unresolved anger in our lives. “I meet so many people who cannot forgive and cannot forget the offense of one who was...

“I know that many of us are afraid. We gather today in memory, in solidarity, but also in defiance. To be a Jew is, itself, an act of defiance. We will not cower. Be proud to be a Jew: you are connected to something special and precious – Am Yisrael...

“Sitting there in the Cabinet Room, waiting for the leader of the reconstituted Jewish state, I felt the mysterious, ineluctable flow of time.” Rabbi Hirsch reflected on his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the...

"Nowadays, we can't really be sure whether a hurricane is just another storm, or if, somehow, the climate itself is changing – putting into question our very way of life. In the Torah, the key point is not that the world was flooded, but...

“For all living beings the body’s needs are to continue to exist, but, for human beings, the mind needs harmony.” Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch asks difficult questions to justify religion's relevance in our modern times.

On Yom Kippur, in the absence of an official response from the Reform movement to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon’s recent criticism of Judaism as “divisive” and Jewish intramarriage as “a ghetto of two,” Rabbi Hirsch summarizes where the...

On Kol Nidre, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch reflected on his 30 years as a rabbi and how we come to develop wisdom and faith: “The world is bigger than any one of us. This realization that so much of what I do cannot be brought under my full control is the...

“Judaism survived because a privileged and comfortable adult – Pharaoh’s daughter – had compassion on a Jewish refugee child." Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch references the story of Moses and reminds us of the principles of our founding fathers in response...

“The very connectedness and shrinking of the world - that was supposed to bind us in a common thread of humanity – has isolated us.” Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch responds to an unprecedented mental health crisis in our country.