Rabbis give sermons all the time, and our homiletics classes prepare us for this weekly activity.  But it’s not all the time that rabbis deliver sermons in front of a room full of rabbis, cantors, and Jewish educators, and no amount of preparation makes us fully ready for such a powerful occasion. Every HUC-JIR rabbinical student has the privilege to address his or her campus community in what we call a Senior Sermon.  This is an opportunity for students to demonstrate their rhetorical skill, to teach Torah, and to share their passions with their classmates and teachers.  For many, it is considered a pinnacle experience of rabbinical school. I delivered my senior sermon during parashat Bereishit, in October 2012 in…