The Voices of Emanu El Podcast

“The Trees That Miss the Mammoths”: A Passover Yizkor Drash

In this special Passover Yizkor episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Oren Hayon shares a powerful drash that begins with an unlikely teacher: the Osage orange tree. Once spread across a continent by woolly mammoths and giant sloths, the tree now survives in a narrowed habitat, still bearing the shape of a relationship that has been lost.
Rabbi Hayon weaves this natural history into a meditation on Jewish memory at Pesach and the tender work of Yizkor. He speaks to mourners who find themselves “out with lanterns looking for ourselves,” holding onto small artifacts of those they love—a familiar phrase, a morning coffee order, a quietly inherited value. Through this “spiritual archaeology,” we discover that our grief not only looks backward, but clarifies who we are still becoming and the hopeful fruit our lives can still bear.

Memory with Coordinates: Seder, Zionism, and Jewish Courage

In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Pam Silk invites us to see the seder as “memory with coordinates”—a story that does not just free us from oppression, but brings us toward a concrete sense of peoplehood, land, and destiny. She reflects on how the seder’s symbols and choreography slowly transform obligation into connection and awkwardness into a proud, rooted Jewish identity.
Rabbi Silk grapples with anti-zionist efforts to universalize the Exodus story while erasing its ending. She asks what it means to keep the language of liberation while cutting out the part that locates us in Israel, Zionism, and Jewish peoplehood.
Framed as a call to Jewish courage, this teaching urges us to inhabit our particular story fully—rituals, language, attachments and all—without retreating from the wider world. Instead, Rabbi Silk challenges us to stand firmly as Jews, trusting that a fully embraced, coordinates‑bound memory can still be a powerful source of ethical vision and hope.

Shabbat HaGadol: Jewish Memory, Passover, and a Future of Hope

On Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat before Passover, Rabbi Oren Hayon explores Jewish memory, identity, and hope. Beginning with a Syrian Passover custom in which a child carries a knotted bundle of matzah and answers, “Who are you and what are you carrying? Where have you come from and where are you going?”, he invites us to ask those same questions of our own Jewish lives.
Rabbi Hayon reflects on the stories, fears, and treasures we carry—our ancestors’ journeys, the founding of Congregation Emanu El in 1944, and the enduring courage to keep singing through exile and uncertainty. As he marks his 10th anniversary as senior rabbi of Emanu El, he reminds us that this kehillah kedoshah knows who we are, where we’ve come from, and that wherever we are going, the best is yet to come.

Remembering Dr. Andrea Weiss: Lifting Up a Life of Torah

In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Josh Fixler offers a heartfelt reflection on the life and legacy of his and Cantor Rollin Simmons' teacher, Rabbi Dr. Andrea Weiss, co-editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary. He recalls her commitment to a multivocal Torah, her embodiment of chesed (loving kindness), and the way her scholarship opened doors for women and men alike to see themselves in our sacred texts.
Rabbi Fixler also shares the story of the “American Values and Religious Voices” project and how Rabbi Weiss turned to the Bible for moral clarity in times of national uncertainty. The episode features her own teaching on Exodus 15 and the transformation of bitter waters into sweet, along with the Psalms that sustained her through illness.
May her memory continue to be a blessing and an enduring source of courage, justice, and compassion.

Fortress or Mishkan? Safety, Sacredness, and Belonging

After a near-tragedy at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, on March 12, Rabbi Josh Fixler reflects on what it means to be Jewish in 2026, in a world where bollards, cameras, and security officers have become part of walking into shul. From the line “they tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat” to the teachings of David Hartman’s “Auschwitz or Sinai,” he asks: What story will define us now?​
Drawing on the Torah portion Vayak’heil-Pekudei and the image of the Mishkan, a portable sanctuary where God dwells among the people, Rabbi Fixler reflects on the need to build communities that are not only secure on the outside, but warm, welcoming, and spiritually alive on the inside. He reminds us that every person’s presence and gifts are needed to create true sacred belonging.​
This episode of The Voices of Emanu El speaks to anyone who feels the tension between Jewish vulnerability and Jewish purpose, and who longs for a Judaism grounded in hope, responsibility, and joy.

Carrying Faith In Our Pockets

In this week's episode, Rabbi Oren Hayon takes us to Belmonte, a small town in northeastern Portugal where crypto-Jews carried tiny pocket mezuzot rather than risk a public sign of Jewish life during the Inquisition. From there, he moves to the Israelites at Mount Sinai and the story of the golden calf and to our own age of war, anxiety, and uncertainty, inviting us to ask what we’re carrying that weighs us down—and what small reminders of faith and courage we can tuck into our pockets instead.

Indigenous Identity, Jewish Peoplehood, and the Language of Rights

In this powerful episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Josh Fixler sits down with indigenous rights advocate Lani Anpo for a wide‑ranging conversation about her life as a multi‑tribal Native American Jew and the urgent questions of peoplehood, land, and identity in our complicated moment.​
Lani explores how the language of indigeneity is being used and misused in public discourse about Jews, Israel, Palestinians, immigration, and Native communities, and why it matters to ground these conversations in history rather than slogans.​
She shares her own journey of reconnection — from childhood in Texas and deep ties to Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Lakota heritage, to discovering her Jewish ancestry and embracing a fully Native and fully Jewish self, even while wrestling with imposter syndrome.​
Together, Lani and Rabbi Fixler reflect on what it really means to belong to a tribe, how Jews might understand themselves as an indigenous people of Judea, and how all of us can show up as responsible, hopeful members of our communities in a time of rising antisemitism, disinformation, and overlapping crises.​
This episode is part of the Emanu El Endowment Speaker Series, made possible by the Nathan Berg Lecture Series Fund, the Caplovitz Lectureship Fund, the Eleanor & Frank Freed Fund, and the Helen & Harry Reichek Fund.

Jewish Magic: From Urim & Tumim to Modern Miracles

Guest Rabbi Annie Belford traces Jewish magical practices through history—like protective incantation bowls, mezuzah incantations criticized by Maimonides, and birth rituals—and reimagining magic as the profound wonder of friendships across generations and simple acts of being. 

Bubby’s Kitchen: Telling Our Stories, Keeping Our Courage

In this special episode of Voices of Emanu El, Cantor Rollin Simmons sits down with her longtime friend, Cantor Shira Ginsburg, to talk about Bubby’s Kitchen—Shira’s acclaimed one-woman musical born from her family’s Holocaust partisan story and a fifth-year cantorial school recital that refused to stay “just” a project. Together they explore how growing up in her grandparents’ home, hearing their stories around the table, and later reclaiming those memories on stage shaped Shira’s artistry and sense of purpose.
They discuss transforming liturgy and Yiddish song into original theater, and the universal way audiences see their own grandparents and family stories reflected in this very Jewish story. 

From Mishkan to Ballot Box: Parashat Trumah and the Sacred Work of Voting

In this episode, Rabbi Josh Fixler asks a timeless question: How do you build a sacred community? Beginning at Mount Sinai with the Israelites’ freewill gifts for the Mishkan, he draws a powerful line to the shared project of American democracy and to the importance of voting and showing up.
You’ll hear:
Torah and commentators on why voluntary gifts transform people and communities
A clear, accessible explanation of turnout in Texas and why primaries and runoffs matter so much
How just 3% of Texans have been deciding 95% of Texas House seats—and what that means for us
This conversation invites each of us to see voting as one of the gifts we bring in pursuit of a more just, holy, and hopeful future.