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RABBI STEPHEN EPSTEIN
רבי שמואל בן-יהושע
A MODERN CONSERVATIVE RABBI
Rabbi at Temple Sholom of Ontario
Serving San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, CA and all of Southern California
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Friday Night's Sermon (1/10/2020): "Vayechi: And he lived and how so shall we"
This week’s Torah portion is “Vayechi”—“And he lived”. As we come to the end of the book of Genesis, the beginning, Jacob is blessing...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Jan 20, 20204 min read


Friday Night Sermon (11/22/2019): "On Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself"
Sermon Dennis Praeger, the conservative commentator, recently made an interesting point about one the most important commandments. “Love...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Nov 23, 20194 min read


Friday Night Sermon (08/16/2019): "Letting them in"
Friday Night Sermon (08/16/2019): "Letting them in" Many of you have probably heard of the latest current events news regarding Israel. ...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Aug 18, 20193 min read


Friday Night Sermon (08/09/2019): "Helping others to prevent violence"
Friday Night Sermon (08/09/2019): "Helping others to prevent violence" In a closed system, if everything is intact, whatever the system...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Aug 11, 20194 min read


Friday Night Sermon (07/26/2019): "Following the crowd"
Sermon: Following the Crowd There’s a joke about rice, and the punchline is: “A billion Chinese can’t be wrong”. The point is that the...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Jul 26, 20193 min read


Friday Night's Sermon (07/19/2019): "The Devil Made Me Do It"
Presentation of Sermon Balak was a good strategist and tactician. He saw that the Israelites had Hashem on their side and thus had what...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Jul 20, 20193 min read


Friday Night Sermon (07/12/2019): "More about Anger"
Presentation of sermon about "More about Anger" “Who is strong? He (she) who controls their passions” so said King Solomon is Proverbs...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Jul 14, 20194 min read


Friday Night Sermon: "Concentration camps vs detention centers" 7/5/2019
Friday Night Sermon: "Concentration camps vs detention centers" 7/5/2019 Usually for sermons, I take the current Torah portion and expand...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Jul 7, 20194 min read


Friday Night's Sermon 6/28/2019: "The Importance of Shabbat"
https://youtu.be/ri9I3B4yQ4U This week’s portion of the Torah is “Shelach L’cha”. Many remember this portion as the incident of the...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Jun 30, 20194 min read


Friday Night's Sermon (6/21/2019): "Performing Right Action to Create Prosperity"
https://youtu.be/hA0Hk_8fntU I have a friend who’s a business coach. A few months ago, she published a series of affirmations over a...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Jun 23, 20194 min read


Friday Night's Sermon (6/14/2019): "Spirituality vs. Religion"
https://youtu.be/zcgr0ieyvcE There has been a decline in attendance and membership in synagogues. To paraphrase Bob Dylan: “And we would...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Jun 16, 20193 min read


Friday Night's Sermon, 5/31/2019: "The Tochachah: A Warning"
https://youtu.be/lOof2RYRpnI This week’s portion is Behukotai and contains the “Tochacha”, or warning. In this discussion, Hashem tells...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Jun 2, 20193 min read


Friday Night Sermon 5/24/19 "Toxic Masculinity"
https://youtu.be/dxzeOgHRBu8 A few months ago, someone mentioned the phrase, “Toxic Masculinity”. It seemed an interesting description...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
May 26, 20194 min read


Friday Night Sermon (5/3/2019): Dealing with Hate
https://youtu.be/bqk0e262TPQ Unfortunately, here we are again, six months to the day, another tragedy. Another shooting in a synagogue. ...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
May 3, 20194 min read


Friday Night Sermon: "The Humanity of Judaism" 4/26/2019
https://youtu.be/oXuGX6HYtF4 This week’s Torah portion for Shabbat is the second Passover/Shabbat portion. Since Pesach is eight days,...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Apr 27, 20193 min read


Sermon: Dealing with Challenges
https://youtu.be/fhr6NrTCxZ0 We all go through our travails in life. Some of the challenges we face seem so daunting as to be unfixable,...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Apr 15, 20192 min read


Sermon, 4/5/19 "Believing in Miracles"
https://youtu.be/CIQLjrBzZ9Q Wild Cherry in the 1970’s proclaimed, “I believe in Miracles…”. Jefferson Starship lament, “If only you...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Apr 7, 20193 min read


Sermon 02 22 19 Gossip
https://youtu.be/1YrUBM839f4 “Oh, Lord, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking falsehood; and to those who slander me, let...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Feb 22, 20194 min read


Friday Night's Sermon (02/08/2019): Why Do We Need Commandments?
https://youtu.be/deB-znCprXY Why do we need commandments? Ever consider that? Why do we need to have a Torah? Why, in fact, is even...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Feb 9, 20193 min read


Friday Night's Sermon 2/1/19: Protecting the Vulnerable
https://youtu.be/XXISIikbKU4 This week’s portion is “Mishpatim”. We now start to get introduced to the other commandments after Moses...

Rabbi Stephen Epstein
Feb 4, 20193 min read
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