Rabbi Noah Farkas Sermons

It might seem crazy what I am about to say

Sunshine she's here, you can take a break

I'm a hot air balloon that could go to space

With the air, like I don't care,...Read more...

This past year the Jewish community lost three great luminaries. A few weeks ago we lost Gene Wilder, who knew how to mix the subtleties of emotional tragedy into a cocktail of comedy, storytelling, and sweetness. Earlier this year we lost Elie Wiesel, the voice...Read more...

There is an old parable of a rabbi that reached the end of his life. He was sitting at home and his students came to visit him on the Sabbath as they did every week.  Now he was frail and ill, and his talmidim asked him to reflect on his career in the hopes...Read more...

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About two months ago, an airplane was scheduled to fly from Kuala Lampur enroute to Beijing.  There were about 300 people onboard. The flight took-off at midnight heading southwest. And at some point, for whatever...Read more...

"Hidden in Love: A Sermon on Mental Health"

For the past ten years I have lead a physician's talmud study group called Dinner for Docs. We meet about once a quarter, have some wine and eat a nice dinner. Then we engage in Talmud study. It was there that I really got to know Dr. Joe Beezy. He’s sitting right over there. Joe and I became friends over a...Read more...

Yom Kippur 2009 – 5770 by Rabbi Noah Zvi Farkas

It's a wonder that Jews from all over the world find their way to synagogue tonight. We all came here tonight because of many motivations. I know you all didn't come here just for me, as much as any rabbi might think that to be the case. We came because we remember our parents and grandparents coming to shul when we were children. We came because some unconscious part of us that says,...Read more...

ROSH HASHANA 2010 – 5771 by Rabbi Noah Zvi Farkas

About seventy years ago a couple by the name of Paul and Marie Lamfrom fled Nazi Germany with their daughters, Hildegrade, Eva, and Gert. They fled Hitler and sailed to America first to San Francisco and then up to Portland Oregon where they purchased a small distribution business. As any good Jewish businessman knows, when you're the middle man, you get squeezed at both ends. And...Read more...

June 2, 2009 by Rabbi Noah Zvi Farkas

90 years ago, a German sociologist named Max Weber published a lecture of critical importance entitled, Politik als Beruf, or Politics as a Vocation. In which, Weber articulated an ethos of politics and civil activism based on the integration of two seeming incommensurable values. On the one hand, for those who choose public life, there exists the value of unbridled idealism that composes and...Read more...

High Holidays 2008 – 5769 by Rabbi Noah Zvi Farkas

Imagine with me, if you will, a small village in Ghana, West Africa. In this village, with no electricity or running water, there’s a primary school, sitting in shambles. Now, despite the decrepit look of the building, the school fills daily with sounds of young children running to and from their lessons. On the side of this school is a mural, painted with stylized images of...Read more...

My fondest memory of our Rosh Hashanah table is from even before we sat down to eat. As I was growing up, one of my chores on the Jewish New Year was to help set the table. Every year, as my mother would leave the plate of apples and honey on the...Read more...

I’ll never forget the day I proposed to Sarah. I’d been planning it for weeks. We went on a long road and hiking trip with friends across the West. I bought a cheap plastic ring that was orange in the shape of a small flower for 50 cents, so I wouldn’t...Read more...

Every Shabbat I walk to synagogue.  Sometimes I walk alone; sometimes I walk with my family.   Now, it’s about a mile from my place to here. I walk down Ventura passing by the stores and under the 405 underpass. Many of you see me walking, some of...Read more...