The Voices of Emanu El Podcast

What happens when a wish is overheard by a demon?
In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Josh Fixler shares three tales from Jewish folklore, traveling from Israel to Germany and Kurdistan. A wandering soul calls from a tree, an exhausted scribe receives unexpected help, and a midwife answers a mysterious summons. With humor and suspense, Rabbi Fixler brings these stories to life for a different kind of Halloween celebration.
Content note: Includes a dark tale with an implied gruesome ending.

Your vote cannot fix everything. But that doesn’t mean it can’t change anything. In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Josh Fixler draws a line from Abraham’s journey in Lech L’cha to a responsibility we share today: moving from good intentions to meaningful action. Through Torah, Jewish wisdom, and Congregation Emanu El’s nonpartisan voter-engagement efforts, he explores voting as an act of faith in a future we may not complete, but can help build.

What does it mean to love our neighbors—and help shape our country’s future—as people of faith?
Recorded on Yom Kippur at Congregation Emanu El, this episode of The Voices of Emanu El brings Rabbi Oren Hayon into conversation with Bishop Tracey Breashears Schultz of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod and Imam Abdullah Antepli, president of the Rothko Chapel. As America marks 250 years of independence, they explore the promises and challenges of American life through Jewish, Christian, and Muslim perspectives.
With candor, warmth, and humor, the panel considers religious freedom, antisemitism and Islamophobia, the dangers of exclusion, and the responsibility to confront prejudice within our own communities. Together, they ask how faith can move us beyond fear and division toward justice, compassion, and a more loving, connected America.

Doing what’s asked of us can be enough. Sometimes, though, the moment calls for more. Drawing on Parashat Noach and the contrast between Noah and Abraham, Rabbi Pam Silk explores how we discern the difference in this episode of The Voices of Emanu El. Rabbi Silk offers a thoughtful invitation to balance compassion for ourselves with responsibility to others—and to measure our efforts against our own best selves.

The world was singing long before we arrived. What might we hear if we slowed down enough to listen?
In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Oren Hayon connects the familiar sounds of a Houston evening with the reconstructed songs of insects that lived 165 million years ago. Through Parashat B'reishit and the Book of Job, he explores a quietly radical idea: the world’s goodness doesn’t depend on our noticing it—or posting, measuring, or approving it.
Listen for a fresh perspective on creation, the gift of Shabbat, and our place in a chorus that was already underway before we joined it.

On Simchat Torah, Holocaust Museum Houston CEO Gary Weisserman explored what it means to finish the Torah—and immediately begin again. In Time, Torah, and Return: Simchat Torah and Jewish Time, he reflects on the Jewish understanding of time as layered: We return to the same texts, holidays, and stories, but never as the exact same people.
Drawing on Jewish ritual, history, memory, and the powerful transition from Moses’ death at the end of Devarim to the opening words of B’reishit, Gary considers how Jewish continuity depends not on simple repetition, but on inheritance, interpretation, and transmission. In a season when Simchat Torah holds both celebration and painful memory, this teaching offers a moving reminder: Our individual time is short, but the story continues.

In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Josh Fixler explores V’shinantam L’vanecha, the sacred responsibility of transmitting faith, memory, values, and Jewish identity from one generation to the next. Through the lens of memory, mourning, and legacy—including a remembrance of his grandmother, Audrey Friedman Marcus, whose work had a profound impact on Jewish education—Rabbi Fixler invites us, in this Yizkor sermon, to consider what we inherit from those we remember and what we choose to pass forward.

For Sukkot, in this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Josh Fixler shares teachings and reflections from fellow rabbis whose High Holy Day sermons spoke to this moment. Together, their words offer a blessing for communities of interdependence, service, awe, hope, imagination, and openheartedness.
Explore the difference between pachad, the fear that triggers fight or flight, and yirah, the awe-filled perspective that helps us move forward with wisdom. Rabbi Fixler invites us to remain courageous in our convictions, curious about one another’s sacred stories, and hopeful about the future we can help create.
Sermon links:
Rabbi Evan Traylor, Congregation Beth Elohim, Brooklyn, NY | Rosh Hashanah Day 2, September 13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMEV3KfD_sg
Rabbi Allie Klein, Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel, South Orange NJ | Rosh Hashanah Morning, September 12  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkKt92KECz0&t=1559s 
Rabbi Rachel Timoner, Congregation Beth Elohim, Brooklyn, NY | Rosh Hashanah Morning, September 12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl_u_yRAAEs
Rabbi Emily Hyatt & Rabbi Elizabeth Sacks, Temple Emanuel, Denver, CO | Rosh HaShanah Morning, September 12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMP_0kkr2YQ&t=1s 
Rabbi Eliana Fischel, "The Light Beyond The Noise," Washington Hebrew Congregation, Washington, DC| Rosh Hashanah Morning , September 12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euTo84K3g8o&t=1252s
Rabbi Sarah DePaolo, Congregation Shir-Ha-Ma'a lot, Irvine, CA. | Kol Nidrei Sermon, September 20, unpublished
Rabbi Healy Slakman, "Don't Blink," Temple Micah, Washington, DC | Yom Kippur Morning, September 21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jStuWBY4wIg
Rabbi Kelly Whitehead, "Imagining the World To Come," Temple Micah, Washington, DC | Erev Rosh Hashanah, September 11  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKyDVG2I1lk
Rabbi Alissa Platcow, "Trusty Tallit Still Unfinished," Westchester Reform Temple, Scarsdale, NY | Erev Rosh Hashanah, September 11, 2026 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhGvNTq72sU&t=265s
Rabbi Joel Mosbacher, "Fear and Covenant," Temple Shaaray Tefila, New York, NY | Yom Kippur Morning, September 21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6nqm8nzN5I

Rabbi Oren Hayon’s Yom Kippur Yizkor sermon is a tender reflection on loss, remembrance, and the people who leave an irreplaceable mark on our lives.
In episode of The Voices of Emanu El, through memories of Rabbi Roy Walter and teachings from Jewish tradition, Rabbi Hayon explores how grief “rearranges the furniture of the heart”—and how those we mourn remain present in the wisdom, love, and light they helped awaken within us.

In this episode of The Voices of Emanu El, Rabbi Pam Silk confronts the pace and distractions of modern life.
Using Our Town as a starting point, Rabbi Silk considers how hurried living, constant connectivity, and the pursuit of efficiency can keep us from being fully present with the people we love. She turns to Jewish wisdom—including Shabbat, teshuvah, tefilah, and tzedakah—to offer a countercultural practice of pause, presence, and purposeful attention.
A sermon about reclaiming time, restoring margin, and choosing connection over constant motion.