#it is an improvement over the reform temple with the prayer for the military defense of israel though so i might still go back.

[unopenablebox]

it's possible that im just experiencing distorting nostalgia for the religious experiences of my childhood. but unfortunately i kind of suspect that the reason i respected and was moved by the sermons of rabbi [redacted for being an astonishingly googleable rabbi even though the rest of my post still makes it easy to google him and also im not even sure knowing this makes me more doxxable] is because he is an extraordinarily insightful, empathetic person who had the moral clarity and courage to vocally denounce the treatment of palestinians from the bimah for years until he eventually got thrown out and had to start his own congregation/work for the quakers instead. and it's possible that any rabbi who still runs anything resembling a mainstream congregation is also going to be, at best, kind of milquetoast/simply not interesting, or at least not obviously possessed of moral and ethical insights that i don't already have from things like "being able to read" and "already having thought about judaism before"

unfortunately i can't just go to the new congregation that rabbi formed bc it's 1. not in a city i live in 2. more of an activist group in kind of a vague congregation shape that mostly made me feel like i'm a disgusting western ashkenazi supremacist for wanting religious practice to involve melodies i know and can sing instead of a rotation of international sephardic melodies accompanied by hand drum