From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life: Recent Episodes
Temple Emanuel in Newton
Bringing weekly Jewish insights into your life. Join Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz, Rabbi Michelle Robinson and Rav-Hazzan Aliza Berger of Temple Emanuel in Newton, MA as they share modern ancient wisdom.
Do you remember those times in your life when you had to move? You moved from one house to another. Or from one city to another. Or you helped your parents move from the home they had lived in for 50 years as they downsized? Young couples deal with moving when they move into their first home together. College kids, and their hapless parents, deal with moving as they move from their home to their dorm room and from their dorm room back home, filling living spaces, basements and attics with college stuff. What a tzimmus.
The good news is that we can purchase a solution to all this headache. I have found a moving company with the best name in the history of moving companies. College Hunks Hauling Junk.
Let me tell you who really needed College Hunks—biblical Israel. Last week we started Bamidbar, which tells of our ancestors’ wanderings in the wilderness. The Israelites lived in 42 different locations. They had to pack and unpack 42 times. That is a lot of moving. And here is a problem: At the heart of the community was the wilderness tabernacle, the Mishkan, which was big and unwieldy and heavy and made of boards and planks and posts and had an altar and a ramp leading up to the altar and dolphin skins and yarns and curtains and priestly garments and all the ritual items like the bread plate and the washing station and the ark of the covenant that contained the ten commandments. All this stuff had to be assembled, disassembled, reassembled, 42 times.
If God had really loved the Jewish people, God would have provided biblical Israel with college HUNKS. Let the Israelites sit back and relax—the College HUNKS have the Israelites covered.
And the answer is, God really did love the Jewish people, because God provided a biblical College HUNKS, a group of Israelites whose job it was to be the sacred schleppers. The Biblical version of College HUNKS were three families of Levites called Gershonites, Merarites, and Kohathites. And God provided moving equipment in the form of six carts designed to carry heavy things, and twelve oxen. The carts containing the boards, planks, posts and other Tabernacle equipment were so very heavy it took two oxen to carry each cart. Therefore six carts, 12 oxen, to carry all this stuff, 42 different times.
How do we carry what is heavy, hard and holy?
Dr. Rochelle Walensky served as the 19th Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021-23), Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School (2012-2021), and Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital (2017-2021). Dr. Walensky is an infectious disease clinician whose research career is guided by a belief that the clinical and economic outcomes of medical decisions can be improved through the explicit articulation of choices, the systematic assembly of evidence, and the careful assessment of comparative costs and benefits. She has focused these beliefs on mathematical model-based research toward the promotion of global access to HIV prevention, screening, and care. Her ground-breaking work and over 300 research publications have motivated changes to US HIV testing and immigration policy; promoted expanded funding for HIV-related research, treatment, and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPfAR); and led to policy revisions toward aggressive HIV screening – especially for the underserved – and earlier treatment in resource-limited international settings. In light of these contributions, Dr. Walensky has been an active member of policy discussions at the WHO, UNAIDS, the DHHS HIV Guidelines Committee, and the NIH Office of AIDS Research.
View the texts HERE
Sivan Kotler-Berkowitz (he/him) is a rising sophomore at UMass Amherst studying Special Education and Psychology. He is passionate about transgender youth advocacy, working with kids with disabilities, and making the world a better place. As an advocate, Sivan shares his story as a thriving transgender teenager to help replace misinformation about transgender youth. Through his advocacy, he has appeared on national television, worked with Nike, met with officials in the U.S. Department of Education, attended events at the White House, and even spoken to the President and Vice President.
One of the best parts of being a rabbi is sitting down with a young couple that has just become engaged and is now beginning the exciting journey of planning their wedding day. That initial conversation always involves the sharing of the proposal story. Almost always there is an element of surprise. One partner does not know it’s coming or coming then. There is usually a photographer hiding in a bush taking pictures or a videographer hiding in a bush capturing the whole thing on video. There is often a room somewhere strewn with roses or flower petals and bottles of champaign. It is not uncommon for the person planning the proposal to have arranged for both sets of parents and siblings to be at a cool restaurant to celebrate.Betrothal energy is unique, and uniquely beautiful. It happens once, and the couple remembers it forever.What do we make then of the end of the Haftarah from Hosea: I will betroth you forever; I will betroth you with righteousness and justice, And with goodness and mercy, And I will betroth you with faithfulness; Then you shall be devoted to the Lord. (2: 21-22)These lines of betrothal are part of our daily morning prayer practice. We say them as we wrap tefillin every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Rinse and repeat for our whole lives.What does it mean that betrothal energy, engagement energy, flower and champagne energy, photographers hiding out in the bushes energy to capture a once in a lifetime moment, is recited every single week day?For our last class, we focus on three life lessons that flow from turning a once in a lifetime deal to an everyday deal.
We could all use a booster shot of hope. Where do we find it?Tomorrow we are going to examine two very different models for finding hope in dark circumstances: Rabbi Akiva in the Talmud, Makot 24 A and B, and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his epic Morality, published shortly before he passed away in 2020.Rabbi Akiva’s approach to hope seems to be about a new lens: Look at reality differently.Rabbi Sacks’s approach to hope seems to be about a new action plan: Act differently.What is the relationship of these two approaches to each other, and to us now?
What, if anything, lasts forever? What is impervious to the ravages of time? What can we do today that will still be talked about a hundred years from now?
I have been thinking about these questions since May 13, which is the day that a great writer named Alice Munro died. Alice Munro won the Noble Prize in Literature in 2013. She was an absolute master of the short story genre. I had never read her work before her death, so I started reading a collection with the title Too Much Happiness, published in 2009. As you might imagine, the title Too Much Happiness is ironic. The characters in this collection do not have too much happiness.
One story is about a recently widowed woman named Nita. She had been married to a man twenty years older named Rich. They expected she would be the first to pass, because she was fighting cancer, and because he had gotten a recent clean bill of health from his doctor. But soon after the doctor’s appointment, he passed suddenly and unexpectedly while on the way to the hardware store.
It dawns on Nita that her life has changed not temporarily, but permanently. Rich is not coming back. The patterns they used to enjoy will not happen again. Who she used to be, a wife to Rich, she is no longer. And she faces this new reality with her own health challenges. She used to be a voracious reader. When Rich died, at first she thought I’ll just read. So she would sit with her books in her comfy chair. They kept her company. She liked the feel of them. But she realized she could not read them anymore. Her medical treatments had diminished her attention span. What she used to be able to do, she can do no longer. Is happiness when circumstances change permanently still possible?
Munro’s story captures a dilemma that many of us find ourselves in. The world is changing. Our world is changing. And we wonder is it changing temporarily. Or is it changing permanently? It is not always easy, or even possible, to know for sure. Think back to the worst of Covid. In the darkest days of the pandemic, we wondered whether we would we ever be able to gather in big, robust, happy gatherings without worry again. Now we know the answer is yes. But we didn’t necessarily know it at the time. There is a recency bias. The moment we are in is so powerful. Remember how we all felt in the early days of the pandemic.
Now we have a different set of questions. What will be with Israel? What will be with the American Jewish community? Is our golden age over, or will the spike of anti-Semitism pass like Covid 19 passed? Will our relationship with our alma mater ever be loving and uncomplicated again?
Kohelet famously teaches us that there is a time for everything under the sun. Does that extend to both moderation and extremism? Is there a time for moderation? Is there a time for extremism? What do our sources have to say about how we might think about the different appeals of moderation and extremism? We will consider two sources.The first is a famous love story between Rabbi Akiva and his wife Rachel. It feels like an extreme story. They fall in love, get married, and then spend two periods of 12 years apart from each other so that he can learn Torah and be a great scholar. She wants this, encourages it.The second is a teaching from Maimonides about how we should eschew extremism. Shoot for the mean. The greatest rabbi in the Talmud, Rabbi Akiva, seems to live a life that is at variance with the wisdom of our greatest medieval sage, Maimonides.How do we understand this creative tension, and what does it mean to us today?
Dr. Michael Oren served in the IDF as a Lone Soldier in the paratroopers and then as an IDF Spokesman. He was Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2013, where he was instrumental in fortifying the US-Israel alliance and in obtaining U.S. defense aid, especially for the Iron Dome system. After his time in Washington, Oren served as a Member of Knesset and Deputy Minister of Diplomacy in the Prime Minister’s Office. He spearheaded efforts to strengthen Israel-Diaspora relations, to develop the Golan Heights, and to fight BDS. He has authored several New York Times bestsellers including Six Days of War, Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israel Divide and Power, Faith, and Fantasy and is the founder of Israel Advocacy Group. Ambassador Oren’s latest writing can be found on his Substack, Clarity.
Madness.
We all feel the madness of our time. How can it be that at the Newton Public library, groups of Newton citizens shout at each other, locked in mutual hate? How can it be that students at Columbia have to hear encampments where they can hear from their bedrooms "We love Hamas" and "Burn Tel Aviv to the ground" night after night—and the administration lets this happen, hate unfiltered? How can it be that graduation ceremonies are interrupted by hate? How can it be that Jews feel so abandoned by so many? How can it be that Israel at 75 was (while it had been a tough year with the protests over judicial reform) basically robust and promising, while Israel at 76 feels so very different?
Madness was a big theme of Elie Wiesel. Tomorrow we are going to study a number of Hasidic parables that Elie Wiesel taught at Boston University that were reported in Ariel Burger's book called Witness. Elie Wiesel brought these parables to shed light on the madness of the 1930sand 1940s.
What light do these parables shed on the madness of our own time—the universities, libraries, schools, and neighbors we used to love that we no longer recognize?
Shabbat Shalom.
It is 4:52 PM. Our flight took off at 4:35 PM. Eder has finished drinking his milk. He’s done reading books. He is not tired. He does not want to sit still. In seventeen minutes, he has already played with and discarded every toy in the diaper bag. Now he’s screeching. Solomon and I are passing him back and forth, trying in vain to appease him. The good news is there are only four hours and twenty-two minutes to go.
The woman seated in front of us turns around. “You know, I think he’s hungry,” she says, “have you tried giving him some milk?” Before I can answer, the woman next to me chimes in, “the problem is you fed him too soon. You should have waited. Poor thing, his ears must be terribly painful. Put the pacifier in his mouth at least.” There’s a tap on my shoulder. A grandmother behind me disagrees. “I think he has gas. Did you try moving his legs—sometimes that helps to ease their tummies.” Not to be left out, the woman across the aisle leans over. “Did you pack any socks for him? He’s cold—look at his bare feet!” I look at my phone. 4:54 PM. There are only four hours and twenty to go. There is nothing quite like flying the friendly skies with an eleven-month-old.
4:57 PM the seat belt sign finally turns off. Solomon stands up and takes Eder to practice walking up and down the aisle. The grandmothers swoon. He’s such a good dad. Look at him, bent over, walking with the baby. Awww, he’s so cute. And so lucky to have a such a good dad. I take out my iPad and begin furiously typing this sermon.
For me, the flight was a stark depiction of something I’ve experienced often since becoming a mother. Before Eder was born, I was never blamed for someone else’s bad mood. Honestly, there have been plenty of times I’ve been in public with people who were grumpy or upset, even times when my congenial husband was not the cheeriest. But at those times, no one would ever suggest that Solomon might be gassy or that I had packed him the wrong clothes. But now, there is this sense if Eder is upset, it must be something that I either did or didn’t do that made him feel that way. I didn’t know this, but there is a right way and a wrong way to mother. The rule of thumb is whatever you’re doing is wrong.
At Sisterhood's wonderful donor event this past Sunday, a woman shared with me that she had had a large extended family in Europe before the Shoah. The family members who said in the 1930s it will all blow over, don't be alarmist, all perished in the Shoah. She said her parents were paranoid. They said it won't blow over. The alarm is real. They got out before it was too late. She said I am only here because my parents were paranoid, and they were right.There is an edge in the air. There is anxiety in the air. There is a lot of talk about the 1930s in Germany as a lens for today. How do we think about that? In a recent Israel at War podcast, Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi dismiss this lens as hysterical; that there is no basis for such a comparison; and that the Jewish community ought not to be talking this way as it amps up anxiety in a way that is unwarranted. Are they right?Consider the liturgy for this solemn day.I believe there is zero chance that there will ever be an Auschwitz in America. I have zero worry that there will ever be concentration camps here.That said, that is the wrong question, that is fighting the last war, the wrong war, and that does not help me sleep at night. We are fighting a new war, a different war, but it is war, and it consists of three questions.One, does Israel have a right to exist, or was its founding a historic mistake which must be rectified?Two, does Israel have a right to defend its citizens from attack, or is the IDF per se all war criminals?Three, is Hamas a terrorist organization that murders innocent men, women, children, and babies, or is it a liberation movement, and all of its violence is justified to free Palestine?The protesters at the college campuses, and the faculty defending their right to their hateful protests, answer the questions: Israel has no right to exist; the IDF are war criminals; Hamas are agents of liberation. Zionism is a dirty word. Zionists are beyond the pale morally. That is why even on October 7, and the days thereafter before Israel's war on Gaza began, they refused to condemn Hamas. They see Hamas as agents of liberation, conquering an Israel that must die so that Palestine can be free from the river to the sea.I do not know how numerous they are in the population. But they are loud. They are noisy. They punch way above their weight. And they vote.Might American politics change, in deference to this tectonic shift in thinking? If the Majority Leader of the Senate were AOC, instead of Charles Schumer, would Israel get the support it needs in times of war? If the Speaker of the House were Ayanna Pressley or Ilan Omer, instead of Mike Johnson, would Israel get the support it needs in times of war?The old war is Auschwitz. The new war is no Israel because the politics in America on Israel have changed so dangerously and so precipitously that America would not support Israel in its darkest hour. In the old war, the people who survived fled. In this new war, we have to stay and fight for Israel. We need to get active in local government. We need to join the library committee so that this atrocity now showing never happens again. We need to make sure that people who support Israel's right to exist and to defend itself are elected, and that those who support Hamas as freedom fighters are defeated at the ballot box. We have so much important work to do.
When was the last time you changed your mind on a matter of deep principle? You felt one way on an important issue, and then you flipped and came down on the other side? If that has happened to you, what inspired your change of thinking? What changed your mind?
Pharaoh and his courtiers changed their minds not once but twice. For a long time, he was not going to let the people go. Then after the tenth plague he changed his mind. Not only can they go, they need to go now. ASAP. And then in the reading for the seventh day, they change their minds again. What did we do? Why did we ever let them go? Let’s get them back, now. Send out our finest soldiers and chariots to take back our slaves.
When we discussed these biblical texts at services, a number of people volunteered that they had indeed changed their minds on important issues. It was always a personal relationship that prompted the change.
I was against LGBTQ plus inclusion, but then a family member came out; now I am for it.
I did not understand trans. It was not my issue. Then my grandchild announced that they are transitioning. Now I really care about this issue.
Fifty years ago I was against women’s equal participation in Jewish ritual. Then my daughters had their Bat Mitzvah. And of course my granddaughters. I can’t remember why I was ever against it.
These narratives suggest that it is personal relationships that drive changing our minds. People we know and love can cause us to think again.
What about ideas? Have you ever changed your mind because of the power of an idea? Has anyone ever sent you an article, a podcast, a book, a video link, an op-ed, and your response was: I was wrong after all. Does that happen, ever?
What do our sources suggest? Do ideas ever change our minds? Or is it only people and relationships that change our minds? What does all this suggest about the minds we need to change now, and how do we go about doing it?
Yizkor sermons tend to be challenging for rabbis because we give a lot of them. We say Yizkor four times a year. If you do the math year after year, that is a lot of Yizkor sermons, and what is there new to say? What is there to say that we haven’t said before? That you haven’t heard before?
I wish we had that problem again this year. Unfortunately we don’t. This is a Yizkor with an entirely fresh angle. The last time we said Yizkor was October 7. I don’t need to tell you that the months since October 7 have been, and continue to be, the most harrowing for the Jewish people, since the Shoah. What is the impact of this hard new chapter on our private Yizkor mediations now?
I want to ask you to imagine for a moment that you are one of the Israelites fleeing Egypt. And let’s be granular. I want you to imagine that you’ve been a slave for decades. That your life is dictated by the whims of a cruel pharaoh, that your days are spent lugging huge stones, that you’ve been separated from your family, kept apart so that you can work harder. I want you to imagine that after decades of hard work, you are tired. Your bones creak. Your muscles are sore. When Moshe tells you that God has heard you, that he’s going to get you out, you can’t even process that possibility. You can’t even catch your breath.
You might have stayed in Egypt, and simply enjoyed a few days off, but during this past week, Egypt has become more miserable than ever. You’ve endured water shortages, frogs, lice, hordes of wild animals, disease, hail, darkness, and widespread destruction. There aren’t enough resources to stay. And so, even though walking is the last thing you want to do, you’re marching with 3 million Israelites, following some cloud towards a “Promised Land.”
After what seems like forever, walking day and night following God’s mysterious pillar of clouds and fire, you make it to the Sea of Reeds only to hear Pharaoh’s army following behind. Wearily you race ahead, walking through the water on dry land. In terror you watch as Pharaoh’s armies give chase, and then with relief you see the waters crash down on them.
You’re safe. You’re exhausted. You’re relieved. What do you do?
Abe and Sarah have been happily married for more than 60 years. They share children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. One fine day, Sarah says, Abe: I’d like a banana sundae. Would you please go to JP Licks? Of course! It would be my privilege! What kind of banana sundae do you want? Abe, write it down. A banana sundae has a lot going on. Would you please get me three flavors: chocolate chip, Oreo, and cake batter. Then whipped cream. Lots of hot fudge. With a cherry on top. Abe, write it down. I don’t need to write it down. I’ve got it. Off he goes. Thirty minutes later, he comes back, smiling and triumphant. Sarah, I got you just what you wanted! A dozen hot, fresh bagels. And delicious plain cream cheese, which you always love. Abe, I told you to write it down. I told you you’d forget. I don’t want plain cream cheese. I want cream cheese with scallions.
This is an old joke that my father in love used to tell, but the older I get, the more I realize that this joke is no joke. This joke has a deep pathos. The pathos that Abe is not the person he used to be. The pathos that Sarah is not the person she used to be. The pathos that their decline does not have an answer or a happy ending. The pathos that their children, grandchildren and caregivers are increasingly going to be called upon to help get them through their days safely. The pathos that their life is going to be changing in ways that they would not have chosen and cannot control.
Abe and Sarah’s 60-year love story has complexity to it. A lot of joy. A lot of love. A lot of rich shared history. A lot of what matters most in the world. And a lot of pain and loss. How do we think about the totality of their story—and of ours? How do we make sense of not only the happy parts but also the rough patches?
This morning we are trying to make sense of two things that have their own cycle, their own rhythm, their own ups and downs—and that at first blush do not seem connected but in fact deeply are. The first is Through the Decades membership in Temple Emanuel for folks who once celebrated their Bar or Bat Mitzvah here, as an adult or as a teen, and are still connected to our community. The second is the outburst of hatred on college campuses directed against Israel and the Jewish people.
This year, on the 8th day of Pesach, we will say Yizkor. In a recent clergy conversation as we were planning out this class, Michelle asked the simplest and most profound question, one I had never thought about before. Why do we not say Yizkor for fallen ideas and ideals? For broken hopes and dreams?If we did, there would be so much to say Yizkor for this year. Think of all the ideas and ideals that have fallen since October 7. Think of all the hopes and dreams that feel utterly vanquished.Michelle’s question shined the light on a simple fact: we only say Yizkor for dead people, not for dead ideas and ideals. We say Yizkor for parents, spouses, children, siblings, friends—people. We don’t say Yizkor for a peace process that feels terminally derailed; for a sense of pre-October 7 normalcy in Israel; for the rise of eliminationist Jew hatred on college campuses throughout our country; for the golden age of American Jewry that is either over or seriously threatened; for democracy in our own country and throughout the world that feels so very tenuous.Why not? What wisdom is encoded in our holiest and wisest sources for how to think about ideas and ideals, hopes and dreams, that feel not realizable in our lifetime?
Do you remember where you were last Saturday night when we learned that Iran was firing more than 330 drones and cruise missiles into Israel? Shira and I spoke to several Israelis, and they used three words to describe last Saturday night.
One word was apocalyptic. We spoke with an Israeli woman living in Boston who spoke to her Israeli sister living in Tel Aviv, and the sister said the sirens are blaring, we are going into the bomb shelter, and I do not know what will be on the other end of this attack, whether Israel will be, whether we will be. Please know that I love you. The Israeli sister who received this called it apocalyptic. Can you even imagine what it would be like to make or to receive a call like that? Thank God, Israel and Israelis survived. Thank God, there were no fatalities from Saturday night. But the Israeli sister who went with her three young children and husband into the bomb shelter did not know that at the time, nor did the Israeli sister in Boston.
Then there was a second word: surreal. We spoke with our brother and sister-in-law in Jerusalem. They said the night was surreal. When the sirens were sounding, they went to their safe room where they could not sleep. When the sirens were not sounding, since they could not sleep anyway, they cleaned their kitchen for Pesach for the umpteenth time. Their kitchen has never been so clean. And the morning after, it was over, the missiles and drones had been shot down, the sun was shining, and people went about their Sunday, seemingly as if they had not been attacked by 330 drones and missiles. Surreal.
And then a third phrase, courtesy of Micah Goodman. Radical uncertainty. There is radical uncertainty about the narrative that best captured Saturday night and its aftermath.
One plausible narrative: This was an evening of miraculous strength and success for Israel. After all, virtually all 330 drones and missiles were shot down by Israel’s defense systems, and by Israel’s partnership with its allies--America, England, and other unnamed regional partners. They worked in concert to produce a biblical miracle. 330 fiery agents of death, zero deaths.
But there is a second narrative, also plausible. Israel was attacked by Iran in a brazen way. Israel’s citizens were forced to scurry to shelters. This time they emerged okay, who knows about next time.
Which leads to the next radical uncertainty: what to do next?
Within the last few weeks, something has happened to give me a new lease on life. A new glide in my stride. We are all looking for hope and energy, and I got mine from an unexpected source: the release of Beyonce’s new album of country music, Cowboy Carter, in particular one incredible song, a duet with Miley Cyrus called II Most Wanted. I have listened to this song easily 100 times in the last few weeks. I listen to it in the kitchen when I am doing dishes. I listen to it in the family room when I am folding laundry. I listen to it in the gym when I am working out. I listen to it in my bedroom when I am getting dressed. Shira thinks that listening to the same song 100 times is excessive. Can you believe that? Every time she walks into a room where the song is playing, she says: again?
I love this song for so many reasons. Beyonce’s voice is beautiful, Miley Cyrus’s voice is beautiful, and their voices together are beyond gorgeous.
I love this song because the melody is also gorgeous.
But mostly I love this song because of its message.
What happens to love in a world of not love? Consider this past Sunday at Temple Emanuel.In the morning Shai Held was in dialogue with Marc Baker about his new book Judaism is About Love. It was a truly inspiring conversation. After their dialogue, I heard many people offer some version of the following statement which, to my mind, is the single greatest compliment any rabbi could ever earn. “Shai Held inspires me to want to be a better human being.”Totally beautiful, and totally well earned. There is only one catch. In their dialogue, there was no mention of October 7; Gaza; the hostages; the war. Their dialogue did not explicitly deal with the mess that is—and raised the question, can we deal with the mess that is, and still be inspiring?After Shai and Marc’s dialogue, there was a robust TE contingent at the rededication of the wall at the home of Jeff and Miriam Kosowsky, the wall whose photos of the hostages were blacked out, faces blotted out, names blotted out, and “Free Gaza” written on their wall of hostages.What happens to love in a world of hate? Can love survive?Click here to view Chapter 11 of Shai’s new book, Love in the Ruins. Three questions to guide your reading:
Shai quotes a rabbinic text that after the destruction of the Temple the Jewish people’s best move was to engage in acts of lovingkindness (hesed). What is the role of hesed for you now? (pg. 249)
Shai talks about how the 9th of Av was the day of endless pain and destruction. And yet not six days later, on the 15th day of Av, before shiva was over, there was a day of love, renewal, blessing as the maidens of Israel would find their partners. What does this “dizzying transition” (pg. 251) say to us now?Shai quotes Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik as teaching that when inexplicable suffering befalls us, we don’t try to explain it or analyze it or understand the hidden ways of God. Rather, we try to act in helpful ways. (pg. 252-253). What does the Rav's insight teach us now? Can love survive in a world that is the opposite of loving? Can these three moves get us there?
This Shabbat, we hear reflections from two visiting members of Brothers for Life. Since October 7, Amit Gilboa has served 155 days of active duty in the IDF and is currently participating in a workshop to facilitate support groups for newly wounded soldiers. Shahaf Segal, who served in the Golani Brigade, volunteers with Brothers for Life visiting newly wounded soldiers, showing them there can be a better future.
I must tell you that whenever I have entered this sanctuary, I am reminded of the Starship Enterprise of Star Trek….and now I have the honor of speaking from the Control Room, And I flash to Spock communicating “Beam me up Scotty”… For me, this is a metaphor of how we use the spiritual power of this Sanctuary to create a Place For Healing. A true story. When my 40 year old son Adam Goldman-Yassen was in second grade, they brought the class to the Temple Emanuel sanctuary…and they showed them around and said of these chairs back here, “ These is where the rabbis sit. And Adam, having been brought up the the Newton Centre Minyan, the precursor of Minyan Ma’Or, A LAY-LED CONGREGATION, raised his hand and asked :“What’s a Rabbi?” I share that story with you because I believe Psychotherapy is the attempt to create a secular clergy to supplement what the religious clergy can offer. We are ALL the Purveyors of Hope.
For Talmud this week a different kind of move, in two ways. First, we are actually going to study a page of Talmud, tractate Megillah 14a. Second, we are going to examine a halakhic question: why do we not say Hallel on Purim?We say Hallel on Pesach, when we were rescued from Egyptian slavery.We say Hallel on Hanukkah, when we were rescued from the Syrian Greeks.We say Hallel on Yom Haatzmaut, when we established the State of Israel.Why do we not say Hallel on Purim, when we were rescued from genocide in the Persian Empire?And what does this halakhic conversation teach us about how traditional Jewish sources value Israel and value the diaspora as places for Jewish living?
I want to start with something lovely, a little bit of serendipity. I meet from time to time with a good friend to catch up. This friend has a tradition, after our conversations, of giving me a book to read. He is a big reader, a person of ideas. So often he gives me a new book, usually hard cover, that just came out, and that he had read right away. But on this last occasion, for reasons I do not know, he gave me a book off his shelf, a used book, a paperback that he had read long ago. The book is called Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom, who had achieved fame with Tuesdays With Morrie. I love the title. I would love to have a little faith.
At first I wondered whether this book could possibly speak to our world today. It came out in 2009. That is not only 15 years ago. That is a different universe ago. All the places that I love: America, Israel, Harvard, the Jewish community in North America, were so different back then. Could a book written before October 7, before Israel’s longest war, before the scary rise of anti-Semitism, before the toxic division in our own country, could such a book speak to us now?
A hypothetical based on a real-world situation, not at Temple Emanuel, but at another Jewish organization:Imagine you are on the rabbinic search committee for some institution near and dear to your heart: shul, Hillel, federation. You read the resume of a candidate. Superb. Excellent education. Deep experience at Jewish summer camp. Has lived Judaism in a rich journey. Doing exceptionally well in rabbinical school. You go into the interview very favorably disposed. At the interview, you like this candidate. You feel a connectivity. Chemistry is good. Then you ask this candidate about Israel.The candidate responds: I am not anti-Zionist. I am just not into Israel. I want to teach Torah, mitzvah, Shabbat, chagim, tikkun olam, a Torah of love and bridge-building. And I can’t do that with Israel. Israel is just too divisive. Israel does not build bridges. It creates rallies and counter rallies. So I am not against Israel, it’s just not part of my religious identity nor will it be a part of my rabbinate.Should we hire this candidate, reject this candidate categorically, or reject this candidate with some ambivalence?Here is a lens. At the upcoming Pesach s’darim, there is that classic kneged arbaah banim, The Four Children. The voice that says “I am very into Judaism. I am training to be a Rabbi to teach Torah and mitzvah. But I am not into Israel. I am not anti-Zionist, I am just not a Zionist”—is that Wise, Wicked, Simple, or the One Who Does Not Know what to Ask?One last layer of complexity: Last year Hebrew College’s Rabbinical School changed its admissions policies so that intermarried rabbis can get admitted and ordained (a move that I enthusiastically agreed with and supported). How do you think of the non-Zionist rabbi in the larger context of the fact that intermarried rabbis are now being admitted and ordained? Are you good with both? With neither? With one but not the other, and if so, how does your thinking work?Complexity. It may be coming soon to a seder table near you.
The IDF has an intelligence unit whose name does not exactly roll off the tongue. It is called Terrain Analysis, Accurate Mapping, Visual Collection and Interpretation Agency. As Dan Senor and Saul Singer point out in their new book The Genius of Israel, which came out on November 7, 2023, the job of this intelligence unit is to analyze millions of details in millions of images gathered by Israeli satellites, airplanes and drones
For example, if the war in Lebanon happens, Israel would need to send paratroopers into enemy territory. How do they get resupplied with food and other essentials? Israeli technology has captured millions of images which have to be interpreted for the light it sheds on where food and drink might be found. While this unit uses computers and algorithms to help process all this big data, computers only get you so far. Human beings need to read and analyze the data.
The challenge is that this work is extremely tedious and painstaking. Another word might be boring. It takes an unusual capacity for patience and attention to detail. It’s not a job for everyone. But Israel has figured out a way to solve this problem. The title of the book is the genius of Israel, and Israel’s solution is genius.
Israel has created a special unit filled by Israeli soldiers who are neurodiverse. Pairing autistic soldiers with this elite intelligence unit is a win win.
It is a win for the IDF because these neurodiverse soldiers have the smarts and patience to interpret millions of details in millions of images.
And it is a win for these soldiers and their families. Serving in the IDF is a badge of honor. Not being able to serve is stigmatizing. Pairing neurodiverse soldiers with a special unit that utilizes their distinctive intelligence gives these young soldiers a feeling of accomplishment, of being needed and valued. And it also gives them analytical skills that they can use when their army service is over.
No good options. All options are bad.There is a hard-to-understand Bible story, 2 Samuel 24, about what do we do when there are no good options.King David commissions a census. How many soldiers are there in Israel and in Judah? The text assumes, without stating why, that this is a grievous sin. King David’s general Joab knows this is a sin but does it anyway because the King has commanded it. What makes the sin particularly puzzling is that God incited David to do the census. God punishes David and Israel for the very census that God instigated. What is that?Once King David has the answer to how many soldiers he has, he learns from the prophet Gad that God is furious with him. Punishment is coming, and King David gets to choose from among three horrific options: a 7-year famine, a 3-month military defeat, or a 3-day pestilence.The pestilence that follows claims the lives of 70,000 perfectly innocent citizens of Judah and Israel. To King David’s credit, he owns that he has made a mistake, and he seeks atonement.The story raises so many questions:Why is taking a census is a sin? And why, if God instigated it, is it a sin? How can God punish David and the kingdom for a census God instigated? Why is there collective punishment? Why, if King David sinned, do all the citizens of his kingdom have to suffer?How does King David secure atonement?What does this rich story teach us about our world today, where there is a lot of suffering and not a lot of good options?
Dronme Davis tells a powerful story. She was nine. At the time, she had developed the habit of biting her nails until they were raw and sometimes even bleeding. A teacher told her, in all seriousness, “if you keep biting your nails, one day you’re doing to meet a boy and you’re going to want him to date you and he’s going to be holding your hand and will look down and see how disgusting your hands are and he’s not going to want to date you.” Even as a nine-year-old, Dronme knew that there was something very wrong with this picture. How could it be that her teacher didn’t see the pain that she was holding, the pain that was pushing her to self-harm in this way? How could it be that at nine, she is getting the message that her relationship to her body should be predicated on the perception of a potential partner? That her body exists to make someone else happy?
Please look at this iconic photograph of a chair at the Constitutional Convention. The chair has a sun which is ambiguous. Benjamin Franklin famously wondered out loud, is the sun rising or setting?https://files.constantcontact.com/d3875897501/094c58c3-688a-4ef0-a325-c75a886b067a.pngNow please read this evocative article entitled “The New American Judaism” by Shira Telushkin published recently in The Atlantic. https://files.constantcontact.com/d3875897501/abe8a1a9-3ebd-45aa-b776-e060145674b6.pdf?rdr=trueThe presenting problem is the great rabbi shortage. There are not enough rabbis to serve the congregations that need them. In Rabbi Chiel’s day, the Seminary ordained 60 rabbis a year. In my day, 35 rabbis a year.Today, between LA and New York, the Seminary and Ziegler ordain 12. Ziegler sold its campus and its few rabbinical students meet in the religious school classroom of a local synagogue. So too HUC is ordaining fewer and fewer rabbis, as a result of which it closed its Cincinnati location, its flagship since 1875. What does the great rabbi shortage mean for American Judaism?Shira Telushkin opens with a congregation that simply could not find a rabbi and, after some time, was reduced to getting a rabbi that would do fee for service, officiating at Shabbat and holiday services, paid by the service, but not being a pastor or otherwise involved in the leadership of the synagogue.Shira Telushkin treats the great rabbi shortage as a symptom of a systemic change. Something is going on here. Deeper trends are at play. What is her analysis? Do you agree with her assessment? She entitles her article The New American Judaism, meaning, quite explicitly, that an older American Judaism (and the institutions that served it) are being eclipsed.Let’s bring the chair of the Constitutional Convention and the Telushkin article together. Does she think American Judaism is rising or setting? What do you think?
This week we enjoy the reflections of Sonia Saltzman, Noah Rivkin, Rhiannon Thomas, Michael Gardener, and Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz on their Mitzvah Mission to Israel.
The Temple Emanuel 50-person mitzvah mission to Israel last week experienced the confusing reality that diametrically contradictory truths can both be true.Normal or not normal? Is Israel a nation in mourning, as Rachel Korazim taught? Or is Israel getting past October 7, not in mourning, trying to live a normal life, as Donniel Hartman taught? Yes, and yes.Returning the hostages? Is it absolutely essential that Israel do everything possible to bring the hostages home? Or will it undermine the success of Israel’s war effort if it has to fight with one hand tied behind its back in order to secure the release of the hostages and free terrorists who will jeopardize the lives of Israelis in the future? Yes, and yes.Unity? Is Israel’s unity post October 7 real, or beginning to seriously fray? Yes, and yes.Is there a diplomatic or military solution? Do Israelis believe a two-state solution is possible after the betrayal of October 7? No. Is a military solution possible meaning that war will go on and on generation after generation? No.So many Israelis have stories of Gaza civilians whom they trusted who turned out to be Hamas operatives and gave Hamas intel which they used to lethal effect on October 7. Every Israeli knows soldiers who have died. (Two people in my brother-in-law’s Jerusalem minyan are fathers saying Kaddish for their sons who fell in battle. Such infinite grief is all over Israel, palpable.) Peace is not the answer. War is not the answer. What do you do when there is no answer?To be in Israel now is to experience profound contradiction. And yet, here is one more: to a person, all 50 of the TE travelers felt deeply anchored and at peace being in the Gaza envelope. Many expressed the view that they felt better in the Gaza envelope than in Newton because showing up for Israelis felt just right. 50 out of 50 were glad that they had come. Such unanimity is rare.In Talmud tomorrow we unpack what these living contradictions mean for us now.
This Shabbat, I’m going to share a personal story very different from the kinds of sermons I used to give when I worked in a congregation. I want to be clear it is my story. I recognize that in this room there are Autistic people and family members who have their own perspectives that may differ from mine. They are just as important and valid. We are a large and diverse community.
Three years ago, a neuropsychologist assessed our then 3-year-old son and called a few weeks later to tell us that was Autistic. I was so relieved. Our son was verbally precocious, made intense eye contact, and was very charismatic and social. He also loved being read a wall calendar or a Hebrew/English dictionary as a bedtime story, struggled with transitions and unpredictablemeltdowns, and ran in circles around his preschool classroom here in Temple Emanuel, seeking sensory input he wasn’t getting. Bedtime could take 2 manic hours. Like our ancestors in this week’s parasha, my family was in an unknown wilderness, and we were ready to receive some Torah.
Except the Torah the doctor delivered to us didn’t seem right.
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Have you ever said yes to a commitment without knowing what that yes would mean to your life?
If you have taken a new job, moved to a new city, gotten married, had children, or nurtured a loved one through a rough patch, you have said this type of yes.
The address for saying yes without knowing what yes means is the famous phrase “na’aseh v’nishmah” in Ex. 24:7 in our reading this week. That is what the Israelites say after receiving the Torah at Sinai and then the supplemental civil and cultic laws and statutes in this week’s portion. This phrase is translated in different ways. “We will do and we will obey.” “We will faithfully do.” And “We will do and we will understand.”
What often gets lost in the story is four verses earlier the Israelites, having been given a full report on all of God’s commands and rules, proclaimed: “All the things that the Lord has commanded we will do.” Na’aseh without any nishmah. Ex. 24:3
What is the difference between “na’aseh” in verse 3 and “na’aseh v’nishmah” in verse 7? It sounds potentially nerdy, like who cares. But this technical Torah question may go to the very heart of what we love, care about, and work for the most: our marriage, our children and grandchildren, and the ideas and ideals and causes closest to our heart, like Israel’s security and America’s democracy.
Rabbi Michelle Robinson sits down with Annette Miller to discuss her role as Golda Meir in 'Golda's Balcony,' a play opening in Boston on February 23. They discuss inhabiting the iconic figure and what her legacy can tell us about the events of today.
The holy grail in Jewish education is “transformational.”An Israel trip like Birthright or any of our Passport experiences are supposed to be “transformational.” Going to any of our wonderful day schools is supposed to be “transformational.” Jewish summer camp--24-7 immersion, lifelong friends--is supposed to be “transformational.” The idea of a “transformational” experience is that the person is different on the other end.But the two big salvation stories in Exodus suggest that “transformational” experiences may not transform. That the very notion of a transformational experience may be an illusion.You might think that the splitting of the Sea of Reeds would be transformational.“When Israel saw the wondrous power which the Lord had wielded against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord; they had faith in the Lord and His servant Moses.” (Ex. 14:31) And yet three days later the afterglow of the miracle has already dissipated as “the people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’” (Ex. 15-24)In our reading this Shabbat, the Israelites stand at Sinai. God comes down and reveals the Torah. The first commandments are I am the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt. Don’t make idols. You might think that standing at Sinai, the thunder and lightning, divine revelation, is transformational. But famously while Moses is getting the ten commandments, the Israelites are already busy violating them, building the golden calf and saying that the golden calf brought them out of Egypt. These stories suggest that transformational experiences may not transform.And yet, October 7 did transform. As Rachel Korazim taught us in her recentsessions on Israeli poetry since October 7, Israel is not the same. Israelis are not the same.Putting this all together is confounding. Splitting the Sea of Reeds does not transform. Standing at Sinai does not transform. But October 7 transforms.What does it say about us, what does it say about the human condition, that positive experiences like standing at Sinai or the splitting of the Sea of Reeds do not transform, but that the horror and loss of October 7 do transform?
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” Mark Twain
I think of the Mark Twain quote whenever I ponder a signaturepiece of wisdom of my late mother that I resisted as a teen, but that I agree with as an adult. My mother used to say: “Lower your expectations.”
My mother’s rationale: If we go through life with high expectations, there is a higher likelihood we might be disappointed. If we go through life with lowered expectations, there is a higher possibility we might be pleasantly surprised.
I thought of my mother’s wisdom when hearing the sobering, indeed searing Israel at War Podcastwith Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi. They confront the reality that 100 plus days later, Israel is scaling back its military operations in Gaza without having accomplished the aim that more than 90% of Jewish Israelis all agreed to on October 8: Wage war in order to crush, destroy, defeat Hamas. And now, more than 100 days later, Hamas is not crushed, destroyed or defeated. Many of those who planned October 7 are still alive. Their military capacity, including missiles, is not destroyed. Their tunnels are not destroyed. Hamas, its evil and its genocidal menace, persist. How do we understand this moment?
Donniel: We need to move from a messianic Zionism (Israel can solve any problem, Entebbe style) to a more realistic Zionism which owns the limits of our power, which owns what we cannot solve. He talks about a Dayeinu Zionism. If God took us out of Egypt, but not through the Sea of Reeds, it would have been enough. If God took us through the Sea of Reeds, but had not fed us in the desert, it would have been enough. What is the meaning of this seemingly impossible text? That we should be satisfied with what is, even when what is is not ideal. Donniel quotes his father’s signature teaching that we are to thank God for being satisfied after a meal even if all we ate was an olive.
Yossi Klein Halevi: I could not disagree with you more Donniel. Your Dayeinu Zionism leaves Israel uninhabitable in the south and in the north where hundreds of thousands of Israeli are internally displaced refugees. We cannot be satisfied with an olive here. We have to crush Hamas to live.
Donniel: Great. We have to crush Hamas. But we haven’t and we likely can’t. And we are facing Hezbollah. And the Houtis. And the hatred of much of the world. And the Hague. Time for more realistic expectations.
How do we understand this very sober moment in the Jewish people’s story? This week, Shabbat Shira, we read of the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, and the Shira, the song of joyful exaltation following total victory. We would all love the Shira. But if the Shira is not going to happen, can we be good with Dayeinu? Should we be lowering our expectations?
I have been thinking a lot about something that many of us—not all, but many—have in common: brothers and sisters. I have been in a deep brother and sister place this week for two reasons.
I am the youngest of six children. My five older siblings live in different places. Two live in Los Angeles, one in New Jersey, one in Denver, and my sister Jill and I live in Newton. This past Monday night, for a brief, incredibly sweet, totally-to-be-cherished nano second, we were all in the same place together, Brooklyn, for the wedding of Jill and Steve’s son Ari to his wife Esther. Between geographical challenges, health challenges, Covid, and life, the six of us don’t get a chance to see one another altogether in the same place nearly as much as we would like. The last time all six of us were together was at another nephew’s wedding in Denver before the pandemic. So it felt incredibly special, and rare.
And, just as we were dancing at Ari and Esther’s wedding, my brothers on Shira’s side of the family, Ari in Jerusalem, Daniel in Atlanta, and I were concluding saying Kaddish for our father after the 11 months. Every morning, and every evening, in Jerusalem, Atlanta, and Temple Emanuel, we said Kaddish for our father, and it was deeply meaningful that we were doing so together in our respective cities. This past Tuesday we said our last Kaddish.
Sharing the wedding and the Kaddish with brothers and sisters made me think about the special blessing, and special challenge, of brothers and sisters. A deep paradox lies at the heart of the sibling relationship.
There is a Jewish holiday that few know, Tu B’Shevat, the new year of trees, celebrated next Wednesday night and Thursday, January 24-25. If Passover is the most broadly observed holiday, Tu B’Shevat is among the least observed—a holiday about trees in the dead of winter.To prepare ourselves for the holiday next week, we are going to study three stories about trees: A story about a tired and thirsty traveler who is nourished and renewed by a tree’s shade and fruit and gratefully offers the tree a blessing. Taanit 5b-6a. Shel Silverstein’s classic children’s story The Giving Tree (1964) is the antithesis of the first story. In Silverstein’s tale, the human has no gratitude and just keeps using the tree, taking and taking until reducing it to a stump. Why is a story about an abused tree and an abusive human a bestseller? What does this troubling story teach us, and how are we to understand its apparent popularity? The story about a person who plants a carob tree that will not yield fruit for 70 years because he had inherited carob trees that had been planted for him by others. Taanit 23a What do these stories about trees teach us about us?
Our reading this week, parshat va’era, features otot u’moftim, signs and wonders, that are intended to persuade Pharaoh of God’s power and therefore that he should let the Israelites go. The problem is, while the signs and wonders are indeed powerful-- a rod turning into a snake, the Nile turning into blood, millions of frogs jumping up and down--the signs and wonders do not succeed in their appointed task: Pharaoh remains unconvinced.Our reading reminds us that signs and wonders do not work. In one of the Talmud’s most famous stories, Rabbi Eliezer tries to prove that his theory about the oven of Achnai is correct. He tries to do this with signs and wonders.Rabbi Eliezer said to them: If the Halacha accords with me, let this carob tree prove it, whereupon the carob tree was uprooted from its place and moved one hundred amos. Unconvinced, the sages said to him you cannot bring proof from a carob tree. He then said to them: If the Halachah accords with me, let the water canal prove it, whereupon the water in the water canal flowed backward. The sages said to him: You cannot bring proof from a water canal. (Bava Metzia 59B)Today we talk about why it is that signs and wonders never work. They never convince the unconvinced. Even the tenth plague—there was no home where a first born was not dead—persuades Pharaoh only temporarily. But he soon changes his mind and mobilizes his army and cavalry to pursue the Israelites at the Sea of Reeds. In the end, the Egyptians are never persuaded. They are defeated. They drown. We bring some learning from Sheila Heen, the head of the Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School, about why even the most powerful arguments and signs and wonders never convince the unconvinced. And we talk about signs and wonders that do work and that we can believe in.
If a picture paints a thousand words, then a screen shot I saw this week conveys a truth that we need to reckon with. The screenshot shows the different realities of New York City and Israel on New Year’s Eve. New York: fireworks. Israel: taking fire, the glare of missiles and rockets that Hamas still manages to fire into Israel. New York: people on the streets, reveling, counting down in anticipation, 5-4-3-2-1, Happy New Year! Israel, another night in the bomb shelter?
What do we do with this asymmetry?
Wisdom. We could all use it now. Many of us had hoped andprayed for a better 2024, a happier 2024, a more peaceful 2024. But now that we are in 2024, we are faced with the same stubborn challenges of 2023, deepened. The election cycle in America. The ongoing war in Israel and Gaza and the simmering threat of war with Hezbollah.
Ongoing tensions on our college campuses, including one five miles from Temple Emanuel. In the face of all this complexity, what might wisdom look like, and where could we get it?
Today we examine two classic Jewish stories on wisdom:Solomon, who urges splitting the baby down the middle, in response to two women who each claim to be the mother, and Joseph, who plans for the lean years during the years of abundance. Both the Bible itself, and the rabbinic tradition, link these stories. What is the relationship between Solomon’swisdom and Joseph’s wisdom, and what does each offer us now?
A member of TE, Dr. Heller is a respected member of the Hebrew College MEAH Bible faculty and has taught many courses at TE. Dr. Heller combines her passion for biblical text with her academic background in Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature and holds a Ph.D. from NYU.
My grandfather was a curmudgeon, especially this time of year. He would start to get grumpy mid-November, when Christmas lights started going up around town and his mood would really sour after Thanksgiving when retailers began blasting Christmas carols. Then a simple trip to the grocery store would send him muttering angrily under his breath up and down the aisles and then all the way home. His mood wouldn’t improve until February when the last decorations were finally packed away.
I never fully understood what exactly my grandfather had against Christmas, but I somehow unconsciously adopted some of his feelings. For a long time, Christmas music at the mall or at grocery stores would put me on edge. Christmas lights made me think about climate change. And if anyone wished me a Merry Christmas, I would rush to explain I don’t celebrate but that I hope they had a good holiday season.
But then something shifted.
The prayer life of the Jewish people gives voice to contradiction and dissonance.On the one hand, all week long we have been singing Hallel, in which we acclaim how God saves us: I called on Adonai; I prayed that God would save me.... God has delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I shall walk before Adonai in the land of the living.On the other hand, a poem by Israeli Asaf Gur, called Kadish, offers a different reality. Yisgadal V'yiskadash Shmei Raba And no one came Many thousands called Him on Shabbat morning Crying His name out loud Begging Him with tears just to come But He ceased from all His work No God came And no God calmed Only Satan celebrated uninterrupted Dancing between Kibbutzim and the slaughter festival...This poem evokes the spirit of the Kaddish we recite on Yom Hashoah: Yitgadal Auschwitz Vyitkadash Lodz Sh'mei raba Ponar...What do we do with this dissonance? Is the Joseph story helpful? When Joseph is sold into slavery, when he is unjustly sent to prison for a crime he did not commit, when he lives as a prisoner, three times the Torah says "The Lord was with Joseph." What does that mean, and what does that mean to us?
Ever since October 7, I have been living in an anxiety-filled, doom-driven stupor. All day, from the moment I wake up until I go to bed at night, I check my news apps compulsively and obsessively, worried that there will be some new development that will rock my world the way that horrible attack did. At night, I delve deeper. I doom scroll. I read every new article I canfind. I search for stories and testimonies I haven’t read yet. We sleep-trained the baby, so now he mostly sleeps through the night (thank goodness), but I’m still waking up every few hoursjust to check, to make sure nothing has drastically changed.
In the morning, every morning, Solomon and I have the same conversation. Solomon shares his concern about how much I am marinating in all of this. I share how essential it feels to know what is happening. After all, if I don’t read the paper, how would I know that Oakland is having a teach-in where teachers have been given lesson plans that include books for kindergarteners with pages like “I is for Intifada, Intifada is Arabic for rising up for what is right, if you are a kid or a grown-up! ” How would I know that 93 members of the House refused to acknowledge that anti-Zionism is Antisemitism . If I am not up to speed with what is happening in the world and what is being said about it, how will I possibly engage with young adults who write to me that they aren’t sure they can come to Yisod anymore because they are decidedly pro-Palestine. How will I help young adults to process what is happening and to maintain their connection to Israel if I don’t know what they’re reading and seeing and responding to?
Before October 7, our children were blessed to live in a world where their Jewish commitments were not an obstacle to making friends or fulfilling their dreams. Yes, there has always been some anti-Semitism. But for the most part, our kids could be who they were, without hiding anything. Our job was to inspire them to give voice to all parts of themselves: their love of sports; music; drama; dance; and their Jewish lives. You can do soccer and you can do Judaism. It’s an and.That task now feels quaint.To the extent that our children love Israel, and the Zionism that made Israel possible (which is how we have educated them), they will face a world in college that is explicitly hostile to those commitments. Some might be tempted to disconnect from the hot mess, too depressing and complicated. Some might be bullied into silence. If they still love Israel, they become at best Marrano Zionists.Still others might be tempted to turn on Israel and claim that it is an illegitimate state. But in the bullying anti-Israel climate of today’s college campus, among universities whose presidents cannot condemn genocide against the Jewish people as against their university’s code of conduct, who among our 18–22-year-olds would have the moral courage to stand against the tide and say: I stand with Israel. I am a proud Zionist. Yes, there surely are Jewish students who are out as Israel supporters even today, and we are proud of their moral courage. But it is not easy. How do we help them?We will examine texts about Joseph in Egypt in the Torah and in the midrash; Robert Putnam’s classic American Grace; and Dara Horn’s People Love Dead Jews to talk about how the challenge of educating our children Jewishly has changed dramatically as a result of October 7. How do we prepare our children for the world they now face?
This morning has been so beautiful, so joyful, just what we needed. Daniel’s Bar Mitzvah. Eli’s Bar Mitzvah. Ronna’s birthday. Elizabeth’s naming, three generations of love.
And the reason it is especially joyful is that things have been so dark. Eight weeks of war later, with no clear end in sight, we don’t know when it’s going to end, we don’t know how it’s going to end, it’s dark. What the hostages who have been freed have reported about their captivity, what they had to endure, is dark. The hostages who have not been freed, what they and their families are going through, is dark. The hostages who have been murdered, dark. The resumption of war, and what that means for Israelis who are now in battle, and for Gazans who are caught in the crossfire, who have been so ill served by Hamas, is dark. What do with do with all this darkness?
I have wrestled with this darkness. I have found two positions that are not helpful.
I have tried disconnecting from the heartbreak. Not reading the news. Following only sports stories. But I know that is not okay.
And I have fallen into a rabbit hole, following the news obsessively, worrying all the time, not sleeping through the night. That doesn’t help anybody.
Is there a way to engage the darkness without becoming dark? Is there a way to engage this depressing reality without becoming depressed? Is there a way to follow a story that generates heart ache and heart break every day without falling into a rabbit hole?
The holiday of Hanukkah offers us some helpful insight here.
An envelope structure is a great way to tell a story. The story begins with a place, an event, a memorable moment. Stuff happens. The plot unfolds. And the story ends back at the same place or a newer, deeper version of the same event or memorable moment.A classic example of an envelope structure is God, Jacob, and Bethel.Last week’s reading: At the beginning of Jacob’s dangerous journey, when he is alone and vulnerable, God promises to be with him, to protect him, and not to leave him until he comes safely back home. Jacob pours oil upon a stone, creating a pillar at a place called Bethel, which the Torah notes used to be called Luz. (Genesis 28: 13-19)This week’s reading: Many years later, Jacob now has four wives, eleven sons and his daughter Dinah. He and his large family have made it back home to Canaan and survived his reunion with Esau. It seems like God has fulfilled God’s promises. The Torah self-consciously and intentionally creates an envelope structure:God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and remain there; and build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau. (Genesis 35:1)Thus, Jacob came to Luz—that is, Bethel—in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. There he built an altar and named the site El-bethel, for it was there that God had revealed Himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother. (Genesis 35: 6-7)God parted from him at the spot where He had spoken to him; and Jacob set up a pillar at the site where He had spoken to him, a pillar of stone, and he offered a libation on it and poured oil upon it. Jacob gave the site, where God had spoken to him, the name of Bethel. (Genesis 35: 13-14)Promises made at Bethel. Promises fulfilled, duly noted, and celebrated, at Bethel.Clean. Neat. Tidy.Or not? What do we learn about the apparent envelope of Jacob’s story that can help us make sense of our own reality that is not clean, not neat, not tidy?
We hear a lot these days about “the college campus,” and I just want to note, it is important to remember that every student is different and every student is experiencing his or her campus differently. I don’t speak for all college students, perhaps not even most, and what I’ll share today is my perspective based on my experience. I strongly encourage you to continue to talk to other college students you know – ask them how they have responded to their unique campus climates, and what they have been thinking about over the last 7 weeks.
In that spirit, when I think about my Jewish peers on the Columbia campus, here are a few types that come to mind.
How do we understand the double absence of God since October 7?The first absence is obvious: where was God when Hamas butchered, maimed, kidnapped, and performed unspeakable atrocities upon the innocent? Not there.The second absence is less obvious but still noteworthy: in the countless articles, podcasts, and conversations, we hear very little about God. Yes, we recite psalms every day. Psalms are poetry about God. Yes, we recite a prayer for the IDF and for the hostages every day, and we pray that God will protect the IDF and rescue the hostages. But for all of our daily prayers, how relevant is God to this moment?Winning the war is relevant. Destroying Hamas is relevant. The courage of IDF soldiers is relevant. Maintaining America’s support for Israel’s war effort is relevant. Maintaining awareness of the hostages (see the unbearably painful exhibit outside the State House of 240 empty chairs at a holiday table) is relevant, the posters are relevant, and the blue ribbons are relevant. Rallies like last week’s in Washington are relevant. Raising millions upon millions of dollars for Israel continues to be hugely relevant. But God? Is God relevant?Our text will be Jacob’s vows in this week’s portion: If God is with him in certain ways, he is with God. The implication is clear. If God is not with him, he is not with God. Is that us, now?
The State of Israel has a religious establishment that is totally out of touch with most Israelis and a school system which does not teach Judaism. What can be done about this dual problem?
This is a Talmud class like no other for a moment like no other.One short story encapsulates the moment. There are tragically so many moments like it. On Sunday, Shira was speaking with her brother Ari and sister-in-law Tziporit who live in Jerusalem. They had just returned from the funeral of a close friend who was a member of their shul in Jerusalem. This man was 44. He had aged out of being required to do miluim. He could have taken a pass. He could have opted out. He is married and has five children. But he, and 360,000 others, believe that Israel’s very existence is at stake. This is Israel’s Second War of Independence. So, he volunteered to fight even though he did not have to fight. His life is about something larger than his life. He died in battle, leaving a widow, five fatherless children, and a grieving nation. My siblings had no words for their heartbreak. Funerals, shivas, sleepless nights (their children are in harm’s way) are how they are spending this war. How are Israelis living through this? They can never press pause.Rabbi David Golinkin, who lives in Jerusalem, shares his reflections. The rest of his teaching on Shabbat, as the Scholar in Residence for the Rabbi Samuel Chiel Kallah, is replete with sources, texts, precedents. Talmud class is from his heart.
This morning I want to tackle a question that is granular, sensitive, painful, common—and coming soon to a Thanksgiving table near you. What do we do when different generations in our family disagree, passionately, about Israel? This is not a new question. It is an old question.
What is new is the urgency of the question in light of the massacre of October 7, and Israel’s ongoing response in the weeks since. If this war continues to be protracted, if both Gaza civilians and Israeli soldiers continue to die, the latent differences among the generations will only get exacerbated.
Several families have come to see me asking how they should respond to views of their children that are very different from their own. My son told me that he attended a rally to pressure Israel into a ceasefire. My daughter told me that she has been calling our Senators to force Israel into a ceasefire. I can’t even believe it. What do I say? What do I do?
What happens when these different views are expressed around the Thanksgiving table?
About the daily stories of rising anti-Semitism, two questions. First question: How does this current chapter compare to previous chapters? The Haggadah contains the famous passage vehei she’amdah: This promise has stood us and our parents in good stead.For not only has one enemy stood over us to annihilate us.But in every generation enemies have stood over us to annihilate us.Yet the Holy One keeps the promise to save us from their hands. Take a look at the one-page rendering of Jewish history in the Haggadah entitled A Night to Remember. It is a timeline of Jew hatred. In what ways is the current chapter like previous chapters? In what ways is the current chapter unique? How would you compare this present moment to our long history of anti-Semitism? Second question: What should we do about it? What is the response of Elie Wiesel in Souls on Fire? What is the response of Dara Horn in People Love Dead Jews? How do Elie Wiesel’s and Dara Horn’s responses compare? What works for you as a response?
All of us worry about the courageous soldiers of the IDF going into the alleys and tunnels of Gaza. It fills us all with deep dread.The ground invasion, and what it will mean to Israeli soldiers, has resurfaced a very important text in Israeli history, Moshe Dayan's brief remarks at the funeral of an officer named Roy Rotenberg who was murdered in 1956 patrolling the Israeli-Gaza border in the same area where more Israelis were murdered on October 7. Dayan's brief speech is called Israel's Gettysburg Address. In few words, he nails the reality of what it will take to keep a Jewish state alive. The words seem exhausting, depressing and all too true. They were true in 1956. They remain true today.Shavit tells the story of why the conflict which eventuated in death along the Gaza border in 1956 and again in 2023 will never be resolved, which will make Dayan's words the eternal cost of an eternal Jewish state.
Elie Wiesel talked about madness descending on Europe in the 1930s. Cultured, urbane, sophisticated Germans who loved opera and philosophy, and who were nice to their dogs and cats, warmed to the Nazis. A similar madness is descending on American college campuses and universities today. It is madness because throngs of students feel that Israel is an apartheid regime; that it is morally always in the wrong; that Hamas was justified in doing what it did; and therefore, these undergrads and graduate students will criticize Israel only and will not criticize Hamas at all.J.J. Kimche, a graduate student in Jewish history at Harvard, recently published a piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Harvard Shrugs at Jew-Hatred.” This is his concluding paragraph:As a grandson of an Auschwitz survivor and a student of German-Jewish history, I was always incredulous that highly cultured Germans, the people of Goethe and Beethoven, could have displayed sympathy and even enthusiasm for the Nazi slaughter of the Jews. Now I believe it. I have seen it happen here [at Harvard].All of this creates a darkness and heaviness in our heart and in our soul. Question: Do psalms help?Twice a day, every morning and every evening, we offer Psalm 121 and Psalm 130. The act of saying psalms, together with other Jewish communities in Israel and throughout the world, feels like an important statement of solidarity.But do the words of the psalms, if we actually think about what they mean, address the pain in our hearts? Do they give us a helpful insight in how to think, how to feel, how to act, in this fraught moment?
I would like to start with something lovely, the most beautiful words in the world: I love you forever. Think of the people and places that have inspired these magical words.
I have a question. How long is forever? How long do we get to keep who and what we love forever?
This past Monday, our beloved friend and teacher in Jerusalem, Micah Goodman, was speaking to 100 Conservative Rabbis about what is going on in Israel, and he said something about forever love that is so quintessentially Micah. I had never heard it before. But once he said it, it was obviously true.
Micah observed that there is a paradox about what we love forever. Namely, if we assume that what we love forever, we will have forever, then we will not have it forever; we are at serious risk of losing it. But if we worry that what we love forever we may lose, it may not last forever, and if we work hard on preserving it, there is a higher chance that we can hold onto it. If we assume it, we lose it. If we don’t assume it, if we worry that we could lose it, we have a higher chance of keeping it.
The most obvious example is marriage. When a couple gets married, they pledge to love one another forever. What all of us who have been married for any length of time know is that this pledge is not self-executing; it cannot be sustained by the power and beauty of the chuppah; it must be sustained by both spouses investing in their marriage every day. It must be sustained by both spouses making their marriage their highest priority. Taking a marriage for granted, taking anything for granted, puts what we love in grave jeopardy.
Micah’s lens for understanding Israel today is the paradox of forever love.
The weekly Torah portion always speaks to our world, but never more so than now. The word hamas is in the third verse of the portion. The presence of hamas spells the ruination, death, destruction of the entire world. "The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness (hamas)." Genesis 6:11 In his JPS Commentary on Genesis, Nahum Sarna observes “hamas here refers predominantly to the arrogant disregard for the sanctity and inviolability of human life.” A violent society will meet a violent end. The world filled with hamas must come to an end. Innocent people will die. That is our portion. Tragically, that is our world. The story is well known, but it is the less well-known coda to the story that also speaks so loudly to our times. Noah and his family survived. They were alive and well. Plus, God promised repeatedly that God would never again destroy the world. The first never again is spoken by God. You might think that Noah was in for better days. The flood is behind him. The death and destruction are behind him. His family is intact. He can now rebuild the world in blessing. Happy days are here again. But the coda tells us precisely the opposite is the case. He gets drunk. He commits some kind of embarrassing sexual immorality, the details of which are deliberately vague. He repeatedly curses his grandson. He sews discord and hatred among his sons and grandchildren. He dies rageful and broken. Oh, and this sad coda chapter lasted hundreds of years, a third of his life. What does Noah’s sad end—after he and his family had survived the flood and the destruction of the world—say about him and, more importantly, about Israel and about us now?
How many of you have seen the play or the movie Golda’s Balcony? If you have, you know about that powerful moment, early in her career for Israel, she is Golda Meyerson at the time, it is January, 1948, it is three years after the Shoah, it is five months before Israel’s independence would be declared and the war for independence would start, and Golda is with American Jews, at the General Assembly of Jewish Federations, held in Chicago on January 21. Her mission was to inspire American Jews to support the incipient Jewish state and the Jewish army in the war for its very existence. She was supposed to raise $25 million. She ended up raising $50 million.
Make no mistake. This is our Golda moment. Golda’s secret sauce contained three ingredients. They apply to us with equal force.
First, American Jews in 1948 learned of horrors and atrocities, murder and death, that befell innocent Jews of Europe. Slaughter. It made American Jews angry, sick to their stomach, nauseous, worried, grief-stricken, and determined to fight back.
Check. American Jews in 2023 woke up last Shabbat morning, and every day and every sleepless night, through our insomnia, through the pits in our stomachs, we read stories that claim us, stories of horrors and atrocities, murder and death, that befell innocent Jews in the towns and villages near Gaza. By the way, none of these areas were settlements. None of these areas could in any remote way be called occupied lands. None of these areas carry moral complexity. These were indisputably and properly Jewish communities whose Jews, celebrating Simchat Torah, celebrating a peaceful music festival were slaughtered precisely because they are Jews living in Israel.
There was a second secret sauce to Golda’s success: American Jews in 1948 knew that if Jews were to make good on their promise of Never Again, we would have to create, sustain, and defend the State of Israel. Europe was a killing field for Jews.
Part of the infinite tragedy of the Simchat Torah massacre was that Israel also became a killing field for Jews; and that peaceful Kibbutzim and villages were soaked through with Jewish blood. The Kishinev pogrom came to Israel. It was not supposed to be that way.
Hatred of the Jewish people continues in these shores. Elias and Lorena are in New York, with Mikey at Columbia for a freshmen parents’ weekend. But in our Talmud conversation yesterday, Elias shared that on Thursday night Mikey called him and Lorena and was very rattled. New York, and Columbia, have a significant Jewish population. You would think in the week that Hamas had committed these atrocities, Columbia would be a safe space where Jewish students could protest. Two hundred Jewish students showed up. But there was a counter protest of 700 Palestinian students and sympathizers. Campus police were so concerned about the safety of Jewish students at Columbia that they were whisked away to the Kraft Hillel Building, where the 200 students could continue their protest, in private, behind locked doors.
What?
How could it be?
How could it be that 700 people at Columbia University, or the Harvard students that signed that odious statement, would walk with Hamas?
The American Jews to whom Golda spoke knew what we now must also know: that evil is real, hatred is real, and if never again was to be real, it would take a partnership between Israeli Jews and American Jews. Israeli Jews, then and now, are on the front lines. What do we do to help?
Which leads to the third ingredient of Golda’s secret sauce: we are not helpless and we are not hopeless. We have agency and we have power. That’s what those American Jews on January 21, 1948 understood when Golda raised 50 million dollars. David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, called Golda Meir the “Jewish woman who got the money which made the state possible.”
Golda’s generation in America helped create the state. Our generation in America now can help sustain the state.
At the rally for Israel on Monday at the Boston Commons, there were two clarifying moments. When Senator Markey called for de-escalation, he was loudly and roundly booed. When Congressman Auchincloss observed that Israel did not ask America to de-escalate on 9/12, he was loudly and roundly cheered. What is that about?
Last Shabbat was the worst day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. This week is the worst week for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. The prayer we say about Nazis on Yom HaShoah applies with equal force to Hamas. It is as if it were written for Hamas. The obscene and ongoing barbarism, savagery, cruelty, inhumanity of Hamas raises a question: what do we do with the hatred that can take root in our own soul as a result of Hamas’s evil?
Consider the Haftarah for Shabbat Zachor, wherein God commands genocide:
Thus said the Lord of Hosts: I am exacting the penalty
for what Amalek did to Israel, for the assault he made upon them
on the road, on their way up from Egypt. Now go, attack Amalek,
and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill alike men
and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and
asses! I Samuel 15:2-3.
What did you think of this Haftarah before this week? What do you think of this Haftarah now?
I get hatred. I get the desire to exact revenge. But what does that do to our soul? In response to the Harvard students who “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” RabbiDavid Wolpe, as is his wont, cut to the core issue poignantly and concisely: “If mutilation, rape and caged children cause in you a swelling of nationalistic pride, an impulse to parade and celebrate, then your soul has rotted to its roots.”
Israel has an unquestionable right and responsibility to protect Israeli citizens and rescue hostages. How do we destroy our enemy, while not becoming like our enemy? How do we destroy our enemy, while preserving our soul?
The last chapter of any book is critical to understanding the meaning of the book. The last chapter of the Torah, Deuteronomy 34, which we encounter this weekend on Simchat Torah, is in several ways a surprising last chapter, given the book as a whole.The Torah is supposed to be about life. Choose life. But Deuteronomy 34 is about death. Why end with death when the book is supposed to be about life?Why does Moses have to die on the wrong side of the River Jordan? Why does God command Moses to climb to the top of Mount Nebo to see the river he can never cross and the land he can never enter? How is this fair and just?We only read this sad chapter--Moses’s death on the wrong side of the River Jordan, his life work unfulfilled--on Simchat Torah, which celebrates the joy of Torah. How does Moses’s death fit with the larger agenda of the joy of Torah?What do we learn about how to die, and more importantly how to live, from the last chapter of the Torah?
I have two classmates from the Harvard Law School class of 1986 who are extraordinarily famous. World famous, but for different reasons.
One of them, Elana Kagan, is a Justice on the United States Supreme Court. She just made news recently because she has argued that the nine justices of the Supreme Court should be held accountable for their ethical practices, and that power without accountability is not a healthy combination in a democracy.
The other of them, Kenneth Chesebro, made news recently for being indicted as one of the 19 defendants in the Georgia RICO case for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Mr. Chesebro is presumed innocent. The prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. But if convicted, he faces jail time.
I have been thinking so much recently about their different trajectories: Supreme Court Justice. RICO defendant. And I have been wondering how did their paths diverge so dramatically?
In his final podcast of 'For Heaven’s Sake' for the year 5783, entitled “Farewell 5783,” Donniel Hartman said something that really stuck with me. He said: “I don’t do pessimism.” Despite all the drama and tension in Israel, the many articles and voices talking about how the country is deeply divided, how this is the greatest domestic crisis in Israel’s 75 years, a cold civil war, Donniel does not do pessimism. He goes to demonstrations every week; learns; teaches; advocates; gives public speeches; does podcasts. But he will not surrender to pessimism. Donniel here channels the spirit of the late Shimon Peres who famously observed: “Optimists and pessimists die the exact same death, but they live very different lives!” Do Jewish texts have a position about pessimism? Are there circumstances when pessimism is not only okay, but even called for? On the one hand, there is no shortage of texts in the Donniel/Shimon Peres tradition of eschewing pessimism. Hagar crying at the well when she and Ishmael were banished and thirsty; Jeremiah buying real estate in Anathoth even though he is in jail and the Babylonians are coming; Nehemiah telling the returnees to Jerusalem after the exile “You must not mourn or weep…Do not be sad, for your rejoicing in the Lord is the source of your strength.” On the other hand, there is a whole other tradition called prophecy, which is not infrequently saturated by deep pessimism of sin, national failure, exile, and destruction. The same Jeremiah who bought the house from prison also is the source of our Tisha B’av morning Haftarah: I will make an end of them, declares the Lord:No grapes left on the vine,No figs on the fig tree,The leaves all withered;Whatever I have given them is gone.Why are we sitting by?Let us gather into the fortified citiesAnd meet our doom there.For the Lord our God has doomed us,He has made us drink a bitter draft,Because we sinned against the Lord. How do we put all this together? Is there ever a time for us to be pessimistic, or not?
A writer named Robert Hubbell is not Jewish. He and his wife are both observant Catholics. But earlier this year he wrote an essay entitled “My Kippah” about the fact that one of his most cherished possessions is a kippah. He did not know any Jews growing up. One of the first Jewish people he ever got to know was a law school classmate, a woman who became a fast platonic friend and study partner. After they graduated from law school, their friendship continued, and Robert Hubbell and his wife were invited by this friend to join what she called their synagogue havurah, a group of friends that met regularly for conversation, learning and friendship. This observant Catholic couple finds themselves going to Shabbat dinners, Passover seders, Neila services at the Temple and the break-fast after Yom Kippur was over. At all these moments, Robert Hubbell would borrow a kippah and return it when the event was over.
When his friend had her first son, Robert Hubbell and his wife attended the brit milah. Before the ceremony began, his friend presented him with a beautiful hand-knit kippah and said: “Here. It’s about time you had your own.” Since then, Robert Hubbell would wear the kippah to all the events as the young families in this havurah lived their lives. He wore his kippah to their Bar and Bat Mitzvah services, weddings, and joyful religious gatherings.
As the years went by, however, he started wearing his kippah to the funerals of the families in his havurah. One day, alas, he had to wear his kippah to bury his friend. He writes:
On Tuesday, I helped to bury my dear friend. She was 65…As I approached the grave, I wondered, “What profound thought is one supposed to hold in mind while helping to bury a lifelong, dear friend?” My mind was blank. No profound thoughts. All that came to mind was, “I am wearing the kippah I wore to her firstborn’s bris.”
That kippah symbolizes the wellspring of our relationship, our mutual respect for one another’s faith traditions. The taut stitches of the kippah mirror the strong bonds of family and friends she wove into the beautiful tapestry of her life. She is gone, but I will hold tight to the kippah as a physical manifestation of her life, just as I will hold fast to the community of family and friends that is her enduring legacy and testament to the world.
There is so much pathos, poignancy, beauty, sadness to this story.
Every August there is a show called Hard Knocks about the training camp of an NFL football team. This year the show focused on the New York Jets because of their new quarterback Aaron Rodgers. If you are not a football fan, Aaron Rodgers was a legendary quarterback of the Green Bay Packers where he won both a Super Bowl and the Most Valuable Player of the league four times—two times in the last three years. Rodgers was thought to be the missing piece that would help the New York Jets compete for a Super Bowl this year. The Jets had a lot of stars on their team, but they were missing a great quarterback. Aaron Rodgers was that great quarterback, their missing piece. His presence created tremendous excitement and expectations. Hard Knocks devoted five full episodes to the building, mounting, surging, soaring excitement that the Jets, so mediocre for so long, were now about to have their moment.
I watched all five episodes. I did it for our congregation since I was searching for High Holiday content. The basic plot line of all five episodes is: yay!! Aaron Rodgers is coming to New York. The excitement mounts.
Then came the first game. It did not follow the plan.
For our Talmud class this week, we read the classic short story If Not Higher, written by the Yiddish writer I.L. Peretz (1852-1915). Dr. Stephen Greenblatt, a proud alum of the Temple Emanuel Hebrew School, and a University Professor at Harvard, where he is the world’s preeminent Shakespeare scholar, teaches us If Not Higher before Neilah on Monday night.
As you read this story, consider these questions:
- What is the theory of goodness, decency, menschlikeit that the rabbi in the story embodies?
- Do you consider the rabbi’s posture an adequate response to the pain in our world? When we read Unetaneh Tokef this year, there is so much pain: who by fire (Maui), who by water (Libya), who an untimely end (the victims of Russia’s evil war against Ukraine). The list goes on. If that is our world, and it is, sadly, does Peretz offer us a response that is commensurate to the problem?
- What is the role of ritual, halakhah, Jewish law, in the rabbi’s life, and how does it relate to how he acts? What is the relationship between his piety and his decency?
- What is not included, not covered, not addressed, by this rabbi’s example? How does the rabbi’s move affect systemic problems like poverty (the problem he addresses in the story). Consider this text from Deuteronomy 15 that aspires to a world without poverty but concludes that poverty will always exist.
- This story is iconic. Does it speak to you?
There is an old joke about a mother who wakes up her son and says: Honey, you have to get up. It’s time to go to shul. The son resists. I don’t want to go to shul. I want to sleep. Honey, you have to go to shul. I don’t want to go to shul. I want to sleep. You can’t sleep. You have to go to shul. Give me one good reason. Give you one good reason? What about: you’re the rabbi!
What do we do about the things we don’t want to do? It’s easy to respond to the things we want to do. Want to go to the Taylor Swift concert? Yes. Want to go watch the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics or Bruins? Yes. Want to go away to the Berkshires or Cape or Martha’s Vineyard with your loved ones? Yes. But what about the stuff we don’t want to do? Two things are both true, and they cut in opposite directions.
One, people like doing what they want to do when they want to do it, not what they feel they have to do. Like the rabbi in the joke who does not want to have to go to shul, we resist what we have to do and gravitate towards what we want to do.
But two: if all we do is what we want to do when we want to do it, that is an inconsequential life. If you think about the people you really admire, if you think about the funerals you have been to that leave you inspired, it is never because somebody focused on their own needs. Rather we admire people who sacrifice their energy, time and peace of mind to pursue some greater good.
Thus our dilemma. We like doing what we want to do. But a worthy life means doing what we don’t always want to do. How do we thread this needle?
One of my closest friends tells of an impish childhood. Facing his parents’ discipline, whether after a homework assignment not turned in, a skirmish with his sister, or a fly-ball through the living room window, they would ask him, “How did this happen? Did you do this?” To which he would reply, “Yes – but that was when I was younger.”
We sometimes tease about that mantra, adorably employed to excuse any error, no matter how recent. We test its range: “You’re right,” I might say, “I was texting while we were talking on the phone just now, but that was when I was younger.”
It never fails to turn frustration into laughter – perhaps because of how ridiculous it is. Taken literally, it would be a spectacularly bad way to approach our wrongs. After all, even the worst things we ever did share one indelible truth: We did them when we were younger.
But back in April, I had an interaction that made me look again at my friend’s childhood plea and convinced me that “I did that when I was younger” is a phrase we all could use more of in this new year.
On March 18, 1980, a young historian named Marty Sherwin, then age 43, signed a contract with Knopf publishing to write a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the so-called father of the atomic bomb. When Marty Sherwin signed the deal, both he and the publishing house expected that it would be a five-year project. He was to get paid $70,000, $35,000 up front, and the remainder five years later when the book was to have been completed.
But, famously, five years later, he had not completed the book. In fact, five years later, he had not even started writing it. Marty Sherwin was a meticulous researcher, and he found himself in a rabbit hole. He would spend twenty years doing research on Oppenheimer. His research came to 50,000 pages of original sources, including 8,000 pages of FBI records. There were more than 100 records of interviews.
So for twenty years, Marty Sherwin accumulated box after box of material. Boxes in his attic. Boxes in his basement. Boxes in his office.
There was just one thing he did not do. He did not start writing. The book that was to have been completed in five years was still not started twenty years later. At first it became a running joke in his family. Marty Sherwin’s son Alex recalled that when he was growing up, his father would say to him: “Alex, do your homework.” To which Alex would say: “Dad, write your book.”
But as the years went on, it got less funny. Sherwin told his wife I am going to die without ever writing this book. Put the epitaph on my tombstone: researched but did not write the biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
In a word, Marty Sherwin was stuck. S-T-U-C-K. Stuck.
Most of us are not stuck in the way Marty Sherwin was stuck. But who among us has not been stuck in our own way?
We are stuck in a job we don’t love, but we can’t figure out how to get out of it and what to do next.
We are stuck with our children. Little kids, little problems. Bigger kids, bigger problems, and often it is hard to talk about what really matters, so we let stuff go.
We are stuck in our marriage, okay, not great.
We are stuck financially, still worrying about inflow and outflow.
We are stuck emotionally, walking around with entirely too much worry and too many dark clouds.
We are stuck spiritually, another Rosh Hashanah, and the nagging question, have we grown Jewishly?
Our neshamah, our soul, our morale, our inner life, are all too often stuck in neutral.
If a goal of our life is to thrive, to live our best life now, in too many areas of our life, we are not doing that. In too many areas, we are stuck.
How do we get unstuck? We can learn from Marty Sherwin’s story how we can get unstuck.
The first move is to get help
The story is told of a man named Harry whose business had fallen on hard times. He goes to shul and prays: God, I don’t often ask you for things, but my business is failing, and I need a miracle now. Please help me win the lottery. The lottery happens, and he doesn’t win. He is feeling the financial squeeze. If he doesn’t get help soon, he might lose his house. So off he goes to shul and prays: God, my business is going belly up, I don’t want to lose my house. Please help me win the lottery. The next week, the lottery happens again, and he doesn’t win. Off he goes to shul a third time and prays: God, my business has failed, it looks like we’re not going to keep our house, my health is deteriorating, my marriage is on the rocks. Please help me win the lottery. To his utter amazement, something happens right then and there that had never ever happened to Harry before: God answered back. From the heavens God thundered: Harry, I would like to help you win the lottery, I really would, but first you have to buy a ticket!
I thought about that old joke one day this summer when I read about a woman named
Louise Levy who died this summer in Greenwich, Connecticut at the age of 112. She enjoyed remarkably good health until almost the very end of her life. She got to be 111, with no high cholesterol. No heart disease. No diabetes. No Alzheimer’s. Louise Levy enjoyed such extraordinary health and longevity that she was selected to be part of a study on aging. Seven hundred Ashkenazi Jews, all 95 years or older, were studied to learn more about the reasons for their unusual health and longevity.
Was her secret how she ate, a particular kind of diet? No.
Was her secret regular exercise? No.
Was her secret that she had a glass of red wine every night at dinner, or that she never drank? No.
Was her secret that she was an active member of a faith community? It would have been fabulous if that had been her secret, but no.
What then was the secret to her longevity? The answer is genes, very lucky genes.
“In this house we believe that…”
American lawn signs confidently proclaim that the members of this house all believe the same things: and the sign then lists the tenets that the members of the home all believe. These lawn signs cover a wide gamut of political convictions.
All of which made me wonder: what, if anything, do we have to believe to be considered a good Jew?
This is particularly vexing because we famously disagree, two Jews, three opinions.
And what happens if we don’t believe, or want to believe but can’t believe, or if we are offended at the notion that we are supposed/required/expected/commanded to believe? What if we believe that belief should be organic, intuitive, freely chosen?
As the holidays approach, we usually think it is our deeds we need to work on. Do we also need to work on our beliefs, or not?
Another way to put it: It is said that Judaism is a religion of deed, not creed. Is this true? Watch as we share the texts and learning of Donniel Hartman’s lecture from the Shalom Hartman Institute community learning program this past summer.
Recently I’ve become obsessed with the reality show Alone. The premise is that 10 survivalists are dropped in the wilds of Alaska or Patagonia or Mongolia with only the clothes on their back, 10 tools, and camera gear to document their experiences. It’s wild to watch. They build primitive shelters and hunt with bows and arrows. There is a lot of ingenuity, but there is also a lot of suffering. A lot of shivering through cold nights, a lot of hunger, a lot of loneliness. And what’s so interesting for me is that every season, there is this refrain that you hear from the contestants. They’ll say, “I’m miserable. I’m lonely; I’m hungry; I’m tired; I’m cold. I wish I could just go home and eat good food in a warm room with my family. But I’m not a quitter. I’m not going to quit.”
How do we understand this ethos? I am miserable. I am cold and tired and hungry. What I am doing is actively making me unhappy. And yet, because I committed to this thing, because I said I would, because our culture frowns upon quitting, I’m going to stick it out. No matter what.
It seems the goal-post of how we reach and teach the next generation is always moving. As parents, grandparents, educators, and a community who cares, how do we get it right? How can we move the next generation toward an indelible connection to Judaism now and for generations to come?
Rabbi Ravid Tilles has been the Director of Jewish Life and Learning at Schechter Boston since 2017. Schechter Boston is a Jewish Day School in Newton for students from 15 months to 8th grade. He and his family are also members of the Temple Emanuel community. Before moving to Newton, Rabbi Tilles was the Associate Rabbi at the Merrick Jewish Centre in Merrick, Long Island and has served multiple communities in various educational/pastoral capacities. He received ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2013 where he also earned a masters degree and certificate in Pastoral Care.
Why was this Tisha B’av different from all other Tisha B’avs?
On all other Tisha B’avs, we read about how once there was a Jewish homeland in the land of Israel, and that homeland was destroyed not by external enemies, but by internal Jewish hatred, what the Talmud calls sinat chinam, hatred of Jew for Jew.
In previous years, we got to read about it. We had a luxury. It was history.
What’s different this year is that we are not reading about it. We are living it. It is not history. It is our reality.
What do we do with something that is beautiful, broken, and ours? I want to tell you a story that captures beautiful, broken and ours. The story flows from this black and white photograph that was shared at Hartman two weeks ago by Rabbi Rani Yeager. Rabbi Yeager is the rabbi of a congregation in Tel Aviv called Beit Tefilah. He is also a senior faculty member of Hartman. The photograph is of his mother as a very young child, her siblings, and her parents, Rani Yeager’s grandparents. His mother was named Hertzelina by her Zionist parents. Two things about this photograph are striking.
One, the date. This photograph was taken in 1944, in Bulgaria. In 1944 the Nazis were intensifying their efforts to murder Jews. In 1944 the cattle cars to Auschwitz were going full-time. In 1944, other countries like Hungary gave up their Jews to the Nazi death machine. And yet, the second remarkable thing about this photograph is that the members of his family are smiling. Why, in 1944, was this family of Bulgarian Jews smiling?
Rani Yeager’s answer is that ordinary citizens of Bulgaria refused to be Nazi accomplices. Ordinary citizens of Bulgaria protected their fellow Bulgarian citizens who were Jewish. Leadership started at the top. The head of the Bulgarian church said, publicly and clearly, that if you cooperate with Nazis, and send Jews to their deaths, you will be officially excommunicated by the Bulgarian Church. Bulgarian citizens so resisted Nazi entreaties that Albert Eichmann penned a memo saying that the hunting of Jews was not having traction in Bulgaria because Bulgarian citizens were not cooperating.
Rani Yeager’s grandparents, mother, uncle and aunt were protected during the Holocaust by the decency and humanity of ordinary Bulgarian citizens, and they came to Israel after the Shoah singing the Bulgarian national anthem in their hearts.
Rani Yeager carries around this photograph which captures Israel for him.
I want to tell you a story that has a coda and a second coda.
The context is college baseball. If college baseball is not your thing, if you have never followed college baseball, not to worry. The story, which I heard on ESPN Daily Podcast, is about life.
There is a college in North Carolina called Wake Forest, which has a historically mediocre baseball team called the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. The team last won the College World Series 70 years ago.
In 2010 a man named Tom Walter became the coach at Wake Forest. The lifeblood of college athletics is recruiting star high school athletes. In Columbus, Georgia there was a star outfielder named Kevin Jordan. In baseball parlance, Kevin Jordan was a 5-tool player. He could do everything that is required to shine on a baseball diamond: hit to get on base, hit for home runs, run, throw, and play superb defense. As a teenager Kevin Jordan was one of the most highly recruited high school baseball stars. He was drafted by the New York Yankees. He was courted by the most powerful and prestigious college baseball programs, which Wake Forest was not. And he was courted by Tom Walter, the new coach of Wake Forest. As Tom Walter would put it, calling Kevin Jordan was his first call.
As college coaches in all sports do, Tom Walter paid a recruiting visit to the Jordan home, meeting this young star outfielder and his parents. Tom Walter promised the parents: if Kevin comes to Wake Forest, I will take care of your child. I will watch over him. Both Kevin Jordan, and his parents, believe Tom Walter. The family made the surprising, unexpected decision to say no to the New York Yankees; to say no to the college powerhouse programs; and to say yes to a mediocre college baseball program that had last won a College World Series in the 1950s. They did so based on their intuition that Tom Walter was a mensch.
Roll the film forward. In Kevin Jordan’s senior year in high school, he started to lose weight. He could not eat. He could not hold anything down. He became slower, weaker. He went to lots of doctors, and they could not diagnose his problem. Meanwhile, his performance on the baseball diamond dropped precipitously.
That fall he went to Wake Forest to begin his freshman year. He no longer looked or acted like the superstar athlete he once was. He was very sick. At last he was diagnosed with having a rare auto immune kidney disease. He was in kidney failure. He took 35 pills a day, and was on dialysis three times a week, just to be able to stay alive. The only way he would survive is if he were to get a kidney transplant.
But there was a problem. There is far greater need for kidneys than availability of kidneys. If a person needs a kidney transplant, but does not have a kidney donor, they go on a list, which is very crowded with other people who also need kidneys. Kevin Jordan did not have time. If he did not get a kidney, he was not going to survive.
All the members of his family were tested, but there was no match. Tom Walter stepped up and said: I’ll get tested. Long story short, Tom Walter was a match, and when he discovered that he was a match, he did not hesitate. He agreed immediately that he would donate one of his kidneys to Kevin Jordan.
What character in the Hebrew Bible says, “kill me now”? What character is so burnt out, so dark inside, so spent, so worn down, that he does not want to live any more and literally says “kill me now”?
The answer is Moses in our reading this morning. Usually the Torah says nothing about its characters’ interior lives. When God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham says hineni, here I am, ready to do the deed. What was he thinking? What was he feeling? The Torah does not say.
In stark contrast, in today’s reading, upon hearing the Israelites complain for the umpteenth time, upon hearing their revisionist history that they used to eat fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic for free in the land of Egypt, upon hearing their demand for meat when there was no meat to be had, Moses finally lets God have it:
And Moses said to the Lord, “Why have You dealt ill with Your servant,
and why have I not enjoyed Your favor, that You have laid the burden of all this
people upon me? Did I conceive all this people, did I bear them…I cannot carry
all this people by myself, for it is too much for me. If You would deal thus with me,
kill me now, I beg You, and let me see no more of my wretchedness.
Numbers 11:11-15.
We need to pay attention to this passage. Moses had an interior life, and his interior life was not being tended to, and as a result, he was in a deeply dark place. What is true for Moses is true for all of us. We all have interior lives. Jewish language for that is neshamah, soul. We all have a soul. And we need to tend to our soul lest we become burnt out, anxious, depressed.
For our last Talmud class of the year we want to leave you with a question to ponder about asymmetry—an asymmetry between Israeli Jews and American Jews.
For its 75th, Israel had a contest for what Israeli song best captures Israel? Israelis voted for the winner: a song that was composed in 1982 called ein li eretz acheret, I have no other land.
Here are some questions:
What is the essential message of this song?
What is it about this song that inspires Israelis to vote for it as conveying the Israeli condition?
What language, what adjective, would you use to describe the rendition of this song in the video, accompanied by photos of life in Israel?
The song, the lyrics, the video, all suggest a deep purpose and blessing, and a deep cost and heaviness, to living in Israel, but the narrator has no other choice: I have no other country. With all its challenges, with all the blood, sweat and tears, with all the wars and terrorism, with all the Israelis who have died in battle or from acts of terrorism, it is the only country they’ve got.
But we’ve got another country, imperfect though it may be. When the going in Israel gets tough, we have another home to come home to.
Their 18-year olds do military service in places like Gaza and Jenin. Ours go off to college. How do we think about that asymmetry? Is that just a fact of nature, like gravity. Or do we have a decision to make about how to think about and act in the face of this asymmetry?
I promise that in the fullness of time I will, one day, give a sermon that is not about the Boston Celtics. But today is not that day. We have to process Game 7. What happened on the court Monday night was not just a sad basketball story, if you happen to be a Celtics fan. It was also a confusing, perplexing human story.
How do we understand our team losing the first three games, including two at home, and then winning the next three games, including two on the road? How do we understand the Celtics’ stunning, last tenth of a second victory in Miami on Saturday night, and then their utter collapse at the Garden on Monday night? So hot, so cold. So dialed in, so not dialed in. So inspiring, so disappointing. Same team. Same players. Same coach. Same week. I had a friend who was at the game. OK, it’s Matt Hills, and he and Lisa were at the Garden instead of the Gann Chapel, which is why the team lost. But I digress. Matt observed that the teams’ body language told the story. The Miami Heat players were focused and intense. The Celtics were listless.
The intense team of Saturday night became the listless team on Monday night. I always think of this as the sudden stranger syndrome. What happens when somebody you think you know, somebody you know and love, starts acting so strangely that they become a stranger to you. You think who are you? I don’t quite recognize you.
Why do we do what we do as Jews? What is a mitzvah? Is it a nice thing to do, a commandment, or a cultural folkway of the Jewish people? If we don't believe in a commanding God, can we believe in commandment? If not, how can Judaism make any demands upon us? And if we do not allow our faith to make demands upon us, is it too thin and weak to be of consequence?
These were the questions that came up in last week's class about the essay by Elliot Cosgrove entitled "A Choosing People" published in Sources (Spring 2023). Rabbi Cosgrove diagnosed the problem: "The Jews I serve are not halakhic Jews living lives bound by Jewish law." p. 11. What to do about this reality remains elusive.
Enter the very next article in Sources written by Rabbi Leon A. Morris, President of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem (and son in love to our own Joel Berkowitz), entitled "In Defense of Surrender in Liberal Jewish Life." This is a fascinating piece conveying an important distinction that was new to me--and potentially very useful to us.
Citing the work of psychoanalyst Emmanuel Ghent, Rabbi Morris distinguishes between surrender and submission:
Ghent defined surrender as "a quality of liberation and expansion of the self as a corollary to the letting down of defensive barriers." Rather than abandoning or rejecting the self, surrender's "ultimate direction is the discovery of one's identity, one's sense of self, one's sense of wholeness, even one's sense of unity with other living beings."
Ghent defines submission in sharp contrast to the notion of surrender. Submission allows a person to be controlled by another's power while one's own distinct sense of identity is weakened... What we really desire is to be able to surrender our lives to a larger force, not to be controlled by someone else. p. 22
Rabbi Morris shows how we surrender to larger forces all the time in order to fulfill our deepest purposes. Parents surrender to the needs of their children. Children surrender to the needs of their elderly parents.
Architects and artists surrender to the "boundaries, borders and limits" of their fields to produce their designs and their art. p. 28.cHow might this concept of surrender (familiar to us in these other contexts) intersect with our quest for a thick and rich Judaism that imposes boundaries, borders and limits on our lives, and in so doing, creates beauty, meaning, community, and deep relationship?
Rabbi Samuel Chiel, of blessed memory, used to say: the Jewish people are not superstitious…kenahorah.
Recently I was an eyewitness to the birth, the thriving, and the death of a superstition…kenahora.
It happened in our evening minyan in the Gann Chapel, and it concerned the seating arrangement of two of our evening minyan regulars, Grant Finkel and Lisa Hills. Every night Grant sits in the section to the left, facing the bimah, in the second row. Every night Lisa Hills sits in the section to the right, facing the bimah, in the first row. That is how it has been forever. But one night, for whatever reason, only God knows, Grant Finkel sat next to Lisa Hills in the first row of her section. He had never sat there before. And do you know what happened as a result?
I’ll tell you what happened. The Celtics won that night.
They were in the midst of a playoff series. Their play had been inconsistent. The previous game they had not played so well in the fourth quarter and lost. But the night that Grant sat next to Lisa, the Celtics won a tough game on the road. Obviously, they won because Grant sat where he sat.
The next night, as folks walked into Gann at about 7:28, we said to Grant: sit next to Lisa again. He did. And the Celtics won again.
The next night, at 7:28, as folks walked in, Lisa and Grant came in as usual. But on this particular night Lisa’s husband Matt Hills also came in. We said to him: scram! You can’t sit next to your wife. The Celtics are playing! Sit a few seats away from your wife so that Grant’s magical powers continue to lift up the Celtics. Matt himself is a big Celtics fan. As it happens, that very night he was wearing a Celtics t-shirt. He happily complied. Grant sat next to Lisa. The Celtics won.
Then came the Miami series.
This Shabbat is the second day of Shavuot—a good time to think about our relationship to the Torah as a source of law (halakhah) that is supposed to shape how we live every day.
Problem: For most of us, it doesn’t.
The Torah says: keep kosher. Many of us don’t.
The Torah says: observe Shabbat. For many of us, Saturday is not Shabbat but another weekend day, not particularly distinguishable from Sunday.
The Torah (as the rabbis interpret it) says: we are obligated to pray daily. Many of us don’t. Perhaps we come to shul when we have a Yahrtzeit, or when we are invited to a Bar/Bat Mitzvah or an auf ruf. But few of us actually believe we are required to pray every day. Witness that in our congregation of almost 4,000 souls, we average 20 to 40 people at our daily minyanim.
The Torah we received at Sinai posits a commanding God whose commands we are obligated to observe.
Few, if any of us, believe in that commanding God.
There is a disconnect between the commanding God we are supposed to believe in and the autonomous lives we lead, where we do what we want to do, when we want to do it.
How do we understand this disconnect? Can we solve for it, or at least ameliorate it?
To consider these questions, please read the attached article by Elliot Cosgrove, the rabbi of Park Avenue Synagogue in New York, “A Choosing People,” published in Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas, Spring 2023. In addition, Rabbi Cosgrove was in dialogue with Yehuda Kurtzer in this recent podcast.
Rabbi Cosgrove asserts:
While the language of “obligation” may have run its course, “commandedness” has not. The performance of mitzvot as an expression of service to God remains a powerful driver for Jewish practice.
Can we resuscitate commandedness as a relevant category in our religious lives? If not, do you have an elegant theory that explains why you do what you do as a Jew? What is your personal definition of the word mitzvah?
Shira and I spent the last two weeks of December at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem being with our father. While attending to a loved one in these circumstances is obviously painful, at the same time, we marveled at how day-to-day life at Hadassah Hospital felt not only like Israel at its best, but almost like the fulfillment of prophetic visions of peace, of the lion and lamb dwelling together in harmony.
The patients, doctors, nurses, medical crews, cleaning and maintenance crews, cashiers in the restaurants and cafes, represent the enormous diversity of Israel: Haredi, religious Zionists, secular Israelis, Arab Israelis, Palestinian Israelis, Druse, side by side, in harmony. We were there during Hanukkah. Every night we would go to the community room on our floor and light candles with all the above. Outside of Hadassah, there would have been no connection. Inside of Hadassah, there was no distance. The only Haredi Israelis I have ever talked to were at Hadassah Hospital.
We are so blessed this Shabbat to have with us Hadassah’s head nurse, Rely Alon. Michelle, Elias and Dan will be in dialogue with Rely to ask her: Why do complex human relationships work so well in spite of difference at Hadassah, and not outside Hadassah? What can the rest of Israel and the Jewish people learn from Hadassah?
Dan is a board member of Repair the World (Jewish engagement through service) and the Friends of the Arava Institute (bringing Arabs and Jews together in Israel to address environmental and climate issues). He is a long-time member of Temple Emanuel and has, over the years, volunteered with other Jewish organizations, including Combined Jewish Philanthropies, JCDS, the Newton Centre Minyan, and Our Generation Speaks.
In his free time, Dan created a software package for calculating income tax, as well as software to help attorneys and individuals with the financial aspects of divorce.
How do we think about Mother’s Day when our own mother has passed away? Even if we are blessed to have our mothers alive, how do we think about lots of joyful moments in the spring season when that joy belongs to other people, but not to us?
How do we dance at somebody else’s adult child’s wedding when our own adult child is still looking?
How do we feel joy for somebody else’s graduations when our own season of graduations is long gone, when young family energy is a distant memory?
How do we attend a brit milah or baby naming for somebody else when there are no babies in our family?
In our parched season, can we truly feel joy for somebody else? This is the question of the prophet Habakkuk in the Haftarah for Shavuot, second day:
Though the fig tree does not bud
And no yield is on the vine,
Though the olive crop has failed
And the fields produce no grain,
Though sheep have vanished from the fold
And no cattle are in the pen,
Yet will I rejoice in the Lord,
Exult in the God who delivers me. (3: 17-18)
I have bolded the word Yet to highlight the question: how, in a down time, do we exult, do we feel joy, do we nevertheless sing?
There is a Hebrew word to the rescue which we will discuss in Talmud tomorrow: firgun, which means to be genuinely happy for somebody else’s happiness. Firgun has been described as the opposite of Schaudenfreude. Firgun is such a spiritual challenge that there is no English equivalent. Can we do it? Are we capable of it? Can we nurture it within our own parched hearts?
Happy Mother’s Day.
If you are a Boston sports fan, two words inspire pathos: Boston Bruins. This past regular season, the Bruins enjoyed not just a successful season, but a historically successful season. The National Hockey League, NHL, is 106 years old. In the long history of the league, this year’s Bruins set the record for most wins in a season. They set the record for most points in a season. Not only did they win lots of games; they usually trounced their opponent. The NHL keeps a record of what is called goal differential: by how many goals did the winning team beat the losing team. Boston’s goal differential ranks second in history. During the regular season the Bruins could not have been more dominant.
Meanwhile, their opponents in the playoffs, the Florida Panthers, could not have been more mediocre. Literally an average team, actually below average. Out of 32 teams, the Panthers had the 17th best record. They just barely made the playoffs.
When the series started, the Bruins took a commanding 3-1 lead in a best of seven series. All they had to do was win one more game, a reasonable expectation for the team with the most points and wins in the history of the league. And yet, remarkably, the Bruins lost three games in a row, including game 7 at the Garden on Sunday night.
In the wake of this historic collapse of this historic team, sports commentators broadly pointed out that the Bruins failed to finish. Failed to close.
How should we think about finishing, about closing out a project?
When the history of twentieth-century Jewry is written, I believe that one of the most important, impactful, influential thinkers will be Rabbi Harold Kushner, who was laid to his eternal rest this past Monday. I do not know of a rabbi whose teaching had a broader reach or a bigger
impact.
It is not just that his books sold millions of copies.
Not just that his books were translated into many languages.
Not just that his work was read by Jews and non-Jews alike.
Rabbi Harold Kushner did something else virtually miraculous: he talked about God in a way that landed for ordinary people who do not usually talk about God. What was his secret sauce? How did he make God real and relatable for millions of people, Jews and non-Jews alike? Now that he has passed, how can his Torah on God connect with you?
May Rabbi Harold Kushner rest in peace. May his Torah deepen our relationship with God, with Torah, with mitzvah, and with the very special community we are blessed to have at Temple Emanuel.
Join Rabbi Michelle Robinson and Jill Ebstein as they discuss Jill's book, "Alfred's Journey to be Liked".
Find the book here!
Join Oren Kessler as he discusses his book, Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict.
Israel. The images of civil unrest playing out in Israel this past Monday are images we never thought we would see. Demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of Israelis; counter demonstrations; the airport closed; IDF soldiers and reservists and pilots refusing to serve; general strikes; universities closing; ambassadors resigning; a high government official, Yoav Gallant, fired for speaking his mind and asking for dialogue. All this happening just as Israel is about to celebrate its 75th anniversary.
And all this happening just as we are about to sit down to our seders Wednesday and Thursday nights. How, if at all, do we talk about Israel at our seders?
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” - William Faulkner
Faulkner’s famous quotation underlies all of Rachel Korazim’s sessions in this series about the crisis in Israel today. To understand the push for reform, and the protests against reform, we went back to the Altalena incident in 1948 (March 18 Talmud class) and to what Arabs in Israel have come to call their naqba, also 1948 (March 25 Talmud class). Rachel takes us to the Wadi Salib neighborhood of Haifa on July 9, 1959, when police shot and wounded a man named Yaakov Elkarif, as a result of which riots ensued. These riots were fueled by tensions between Ashkenazis and Mizrachis—all of which is brought to life by the poems we will consider tomorrow. The tensions today are in part fueled by unresolved tensions between Ashkenazis and Mizrachis. The past is never dead. It’s not even past. We here may not be able to solve the tensions at play on the streets of Israel today. But Rachel’s teaching will enable us to better understand them. Learning is always good.
How can you make sure to have the most meaningful and impactful Passover? Is it about preparation? The extent to which you clean out every cabinet and kasher your kitchen? Is it about the Seder itself—the Haggadah you choose and the activities you plan for the Seder?
In the spring of 2014, I was in my second year of rabbinical school and got a gig as a cruise-ship rabbi. Given that this was my first real gig as a rabbi, I was determined to create the most meaningful Passover experience ever. I researched for months leading up to Pesach and put together a folder of midrashim and teachings for every part of the Seder.
Little did I know what the cruise had in store for me.....
Talk to any Israeli, talk to any American who has recently been to Israel, and the words one hears are: depressing, very concerning, unprecedented, I’m afraid. I don’t know how this ends.
How did we get here? Where does this story begin?
Last week, Rachel Korazim, our Israeli teacher of Israeli poetry, made a point that is so simple, so profound, and so important. The conflicts playing out in Israel did not just spontaneously happen in year 75. They have been cooking for 75 years. Their roots go back to the beginning of Israel’s existence. Last week she talked about how the Altalena conflict evinced deep conflicts among Jewish Israelis that continue to play out on the streets today.
This week, Rachel is going to go back to 1948 again, to what Palestinians call the Naqba, as reflected in this poetry. There is no more urgent issue for American Jews than Israel. There is no better teacher on Israel than Rachel Korazim. Let’s learn together.
The impasse over judicial reform in Israel continues to be concerning and unresolved. Protests continue. Conversations have not resulted in resolution. Positions are hardening. The compromise which President Herzog implored both sides to work towards remains elusive. Talk to Israelis—their morale is low. They are troubled. “We hope we get there”—to Israel’s 75th. This Shabbat we are blessed to have a familiar voice and dear friend offering us a genre that we have not yet encountered regarding the impasse: poetry. Rachel Korazim, born in 1948, has lived her life in Israel. She is an expert in Israeli poetry. Before the pandemic, she would teach at TE in person every year. Since the pandemic, she has continued to offer classes to TE members on Zoom. In fact, one of the classes she is offering remotely now concerns how poetry speaks to this moment. On Shabbat, through the magic of technology (thank you Brian Lefsky and David Beckman), Rachel Korazim, in Israel, joins our clergy team and in person learners in Room 24-25 in dialogue. She will share her personal experience as a citizen of Israel who has attended many protests. And she will teach three poems, one by Uri Tzvi Greenberg and two by Nathan Alterman, that will give us a helpful frame for this heavy and hard moment. Thank you Rachel Korazim for helping us connect with Israel through the sacred text of Israeli poetry.
I recently heard a podcast featuring Andy Stanley--have I mentioned him before? He is a pastor in Atlanta--and his wife Sandra, and they were discussing a most compelling question: How do we parent our children so that when they grow up and grow out, they want to spend time with their parents, and with one another, even when they don’t have to? If this is our goal, our parenting north star, that should motivate all our parenting decisions along the way.
When I was in Jerusalem last week sitting shiva for our father, after folks gave their condolences and shared their memories, they would ask me for my take on Israel. The conversation was sobering, making me feel naïve and disconnected from the real Israel that is.
Me: In Greater Jewish Boston, we are so excited to be marking Israel at 75. A big contingent from our shul is going to celebrate Israel at 75! A big contingent from the whole Boston Jewish community is going to mark this joyful and incredible milestone! How are you thinking about Israel at 75?
Comforters: One of two responses. The less common: “Not on our radar screen at all. We’ve given it no thought till you just mentioned it.” By far the more common: “I hope we get there. Not clear that we will make it to 75 as one country.”
In the shiva house, I had the sinking feeling that there was not one death I was mourning, but two. Something has died in Israel beyond our father – a belief of Israelis in a bright future for Israel.
Nothing makes that clearer than two titles of Danny Gordis. When he and his family made Aliyah in the 90s, during Oslo, his first book about Israel was called If a Land Can Make You Cry. The title evoked the pathos, the emotion, the ups and downs, the resilience, but the fundamental hopefulness of a nation whose national anthem is Hatikvah. That title seems long gone. The new title, from his piece this week: Drowning in a Sea of Resentment and Hate, It’s Far from Clear that Israel Can Make it Back to Shore. This piece details how numerous tribes within Israel—settlers, Haredis, Israeli Arabs, Palestinian Israelis, Ashkenazi, Mizrachi—feel betrayed (his word) by the state. One can sense this hate in the friction over dedicated war hero pilots who are protesting the erosion of Israeli democracy being called a “pathetic bunch of deserters” by the ruling coalition.
What do we do about it?
This week Thomas Friedman offered us another sobering essay with a sobering title: “American Jews, You Have to Choose Sides on Israel.” He quotes Rabbi Sharon Brous who speaks of rabbis giving Death by Israel sermons.
Is he right? Is our response to this moment to see it as a political fork in the road, and we have to choose, and bear the consequences of our choice? Is there another way to frame and respond to this moment?
How does our weekly Torah portion (uncannily, it involves a civil war, a milchemet achim, in the wake of the sin of the golden calf) help us frame this sad and sober moment in the history of Israel? How can we help? Can we take a principled stand in favor of democracy and against Israel becoming an authoritarian regime without checks and balances without adding to the division of this moment?
As a child, I reveled in the heroism of Mordechai. I admired him for his gumption, for the way he stood up to Haman and never betrayed his values--even when his very life was at stake. I was taught to see Mordechai as a capable and wise civil servant, as a mensch who took in his orphaned niece and loved her like his own, and as a visionary who empowered the people around him, most especially his niece, Esther.
But the story of Mordechai is more complicated than that of a simple hero.
Tomorrow, we're going to interrogate the narrative that so many of us were taught:
Was Mordechai a true hero who lifted up good Jewish values every minute of his life? Or was Mordechai a self-centered politician who was so focused on his own image that he risked the safety and well-being of the Jewish people in order to prove his dedication to Judaism?
Was Mordechai a benevolent and loving uncle? Or was he a manipulative abuser, forcing Esther to conform to his will and serve his purposes?
Is the point of Purim to celebrate heroism in its simplest form, or does the holiday remind us that the line between hero and villain is impossibly thin such that we must take care in every moment not to cross over to the wrong side?
The mass murderer of 11 innocent people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh will go on trial in April. The Justice Department is seeking the death penalty. What do we think of that? Two questions present themselves.
First, if we were to look for wisdom from Jewish sources, should the Tree of Life mass murderer be sentenced to life in prison,
or the death penalty? One of the strongest arguments against the death penalty is concern that the justice system might makes a mistake and convict and execute an innocent person. That is not a concern here. There is 100% certainty that on October 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, the defendant murdered 11 innocent human beings. If we know that he did this unspeakable act of evil, would the primary Jewish source suggest that this is one of the rare times we would favor capital punishment, or not?
Remember, however, that mass shootings in America are tragically and depressingly all too common. If you believe that the defendant in the Tree of Life murders should receive the death penalty, would you advocate for the same result for all the defendants guilty of murdering innocent people in mass shootings? There are a heartbreaking lot of them.
Second, with what organ do we decide this question: our head or our heart? You will remember the first question in the famous debate of Governor Dukakis and Vice President Bush in 1988. If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would the Governor support the death penalty? The Governor answered all head, no heart, and many thought he lost the election in that moment.
Are feelings of anger, revenge, and tribal connection appropriate or not appropriate as we think about the worst massacre of Jews on American soil in American Jewish history coming to trial in a few weeks?
This week, we are reading Parshat Mishpatim. This Torah portion is all about rules and regs. After the revelation, God spells out in minute detail what the people should do and how they should behave. It’s not a conversation, not open to interpretation, the laws are given without explanation and the people simply accept them. They say, na’aseh v’nishmah—we will do what God says and then we will seek to understand what we are doing and why.
So often, this is how we engage with our world. That is how law enforcement agents get into trouble. They get so hooked on forcing people to behave in a certain way, so focused on doing rather than thinking, that they lose track of what is appropriate force and end up causing harm rather than maintaining order. It happens in the classroom too. Recently, I was speaking with a family. Their child had come up with a creative way to solve a math equation. Their methodology wasn’t the same as what was being taught, but it worked. Every answer they wrote on their worksheet was right. But the teacher gave them a 0 for the assignment. Why? Because the way they did the work was different than what the teacher had taught. And the teacher wanted them to follow the rules—na’aseh v’nishmah.
When we receive rules and follow them in this way, there is a strength. It saves mental energy. Na’aseh v’nishma means you don’t have to evaluate every given situation. You just do, you follow the rules, you get through the day, and you save your mental energy for the projects and ideas you care about most.
But there is another way to engage with rules and with law that is revealed in the book of Vayikra. God says וּשְׁמַרְתֶּ֤ם אֶת־חֻקֹּתַי֙ וְאֶת־מִשְׁפָּטַ֔י אֲשֶׁ֨ר יַעֲשֶׂ֥ה אֹתָ֛ם הָאָדָ֖ם וָחַ֣י בָּהֶ֑ם you shall guard my laws and ordinances and you shall live by them. In other words, rules aren’t just limits that are intended to be followed without thought. In an ideal world, the process of following rules, of affirming societal norms, should enhance and sustain our lives.
A 26-year old named Ilya Sosansky was the seventh victim of the terrorist attack in Jerusalem on January 27 in Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighborhood. Ilya Sosansky was a graduate of AMIT Technology High School. AMIT sent out an email describing the indescribable loss of this young man.
Ilya Sosansky was a beloved, popular DJ. His friends
described him as a young man filled with a joy for life,
who could cheer up anyone. Adi Yona referred to Ilya as,
“A charm, a walking smile, a good soul who only did good.”
At the end of AMIT’s email are three Hebrew words: “Hashem Yikom Damo,” meaning, may God take revenge for his blood.
How do we think about praying for revenge? It is a complicated question with sources on both sides.
On the one hand, there is a famous prayer for bloody revenge during the Shabbat Musaf service Av Harachamim that is in traditional Orthodox siddurim that channels the vengeful, bloody energy of Psalm 137 (“By the rivers of Babylon, there we say…and wept”), which climaxes by invoking a blessing “on him who seizes Babylonian babies (Babylon destroyed the first Temple) and dashes them against the rocks!” These prayers for vengeance are wholly absent from our siddur, where in the same spot in the Shabbat morning service we offer a Prayer for Peace and a Prayer for the Renewal of Creation.
On the other hand, whether we know it or not, we actually do pray for revenge three times a day, in the malshinim prayer of the thrice-daily
Amidah which is deliberately mistranslated by the Rabbinical Assembly siddur in order to take out the offensive edge.
Famously the Jewish people have been debating for thousands of years whether, at our Passover seders, when we reduce our cup of wine by ten droplets for the ten plagues, those are tears of joy (our enslavers got the punishment they deserved), or are tears of sadness (the Egyptians are also human beings made by God, and they also suffered).
The ambivalence of this seder ritual carries forward to today. Do we pray for revenge of the terrorists who murdered Ilya Sosansky, just desserts for those who spilled innocent blood? Or do we channel the wisdom of the famous Beruriah in the Talmud, tractate Berakhot, interpreting Psalm 104, that we want sin to disappear not by the sinners dying, but by the sinners changing their ways so that they are no longer sinners?
Sadly, this issue is not going away. It recurs. Just this week a 17-year old Jewish man, and a 20-year old Jewish man, were stabbed in Jerusalem. The news source reporting the story concluded: “The terrorists, 14 and 13 years of age respectively, hailed from eastern Jerusalem.”
If there's one lesson of this coming Shabbat, it is that life is not a solo sport - we are better when we are together - all of us. That applies to leadership - Yitro teaches Moses to include others as leaders. That applies to family - Moses listens to Yitro, including him in decision making. And that applies to community - when our ancestors gathered at Sinai, they spoke together as one, including all.
We are holy when we are one. We are stronger when we are one. We are better when "we" is truly inclusive of all!
This week at our Talmud Class we have the privilege of learning in conversation with a true expert on how to get inclusion right, Shelly Christensen, co-founder of Jewish Disabilities Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month (JDAIM). She will be teaching us, “From Longing to Belonging: How wisdom from Isaiah gives us God’s definition of inclusion.”
Click here for texts.
Often, we experience music in a passive way. In a synagogue setting, very few of us know where liturgical melodies come from and rarely do we have the time to consider the effect of any particular melody on our prayer experience. (Even when we do have the time and inclination, we often struggle to find words to articulate the impact of a melody on our emotional or psychospiritual experience.)
This class is about tuning in--literally--to the magic of Sephardic music.
These melodies are fascinating. They are often rhythmic and upbeat. They play with intervals and motifs which sound exotic to our ears. When paired with prayers, these melodies have a very different effect on our hearts than do the traditional Ashkenazi melodies that sometimes dominate Jewish spaces.
During Talmud, Elias sings different Ashkenazi and Sephardic melodies for five different prayers and we as a clergy team are going to be discussing how each melody affects our heart and our internal experience. This class isn't about music theory or musicology. It is about discovery and about opening our hearts to the magic that is in store for us all through the day tomorrow!
The law of unanticipated consequences.
As Micah Goodman shares with Danny Gordis in this utterly fascinating conversation about Israel today (35 minutes and well worth it), conservative leaders are chastened and restrained by the law of unanticipated consequences. Since we never actually know what will ensue from our conduct, the wisest course is humility and restraint lest we unintentionally unleash a hurricane that we never saw coming. Micah offers two examples:
What is the unanticipated consequence of birth control being readily available in Europe? Answer: Radicalized xenophobic, racist, far-right politics.
How? Because of the pill, European families had smaller families, which led to fewer workers, which led to increased immigration to fill those worker slots, which led to Muslim immigration, which led to complexity and navigating cultural difference, which led to a conservative backlash against Muslim immigration, which led to the ascendancy of far-right xenophobic parties in Europe. Unanticipated.
What is the unanticipated consequence of the internet, of all that knowledge being a click away on Google? Answer: The undermining of democracy.
How? We thought that the internet would result in the profusion of information, which would strengthen the marketplace of ideas, which would strengthen healthy and vigorous debate, which would strengthen democracy. What also happened, that few if any foresaw, was the profusion of dis-information, which led to echo chambers, which led to conspiracy theories, which led to people not debating the merits but re-enforcing their own views, which led to the undermining of democracy. Unanticipated.
Micah’s talk with Danny Gordis talks about how the law of unanticipated consequences applies to Israel today.
In Talmud class, we talk about how the same law is a revealing lens for our biblical story.
- Joseph is sold into slavery, but becomes second only to Pharaoh. Unanticipated.
- Joseph’s family is taken care of during a time of severe famine, given the best land of Goshen, which leads to their becoming slaves for 430 years. Unanticipated.
- The Israelites are freed in tomorrow’s reading, which leads to their complaining why do you bring us to the wilderness to die, when we used to get leeks, melons and cucumbers for free in Egypt. Unanticipated.
How does the law of unanticipated consequences play out in your Jewish life, and in your life? Being aware of this law, do we act any differently?
The great writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez once observed: “Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life.”
I learned of this quote in the forward to a fascinating book about secrets. Written by noted American Jewish author Letty Cottin Pogrebin, the book is entitled Shanda: A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy. Pogrebin talks about how deeply held, and deeply embarrassing, secrets were part of her family’s culture.
“Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the Lord. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God…I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…”
But when Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage.” Exodus 6: 6-9.
Our reading this week begins with God promising the Israelites, through
five famous verbs, that God would save them. The promises all turned out to be true. Every year at our seders, we celebrate these five verbs of redemption through the four cups of wine and the fifth cup for Elijah and Miriam. Famously, however, the Hebrew slaves who were the intended audience for this reassurance could not take it in. Why not? Because of Abraham Maslow.
In 1943 Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, wrote a paper entitled “A Theory of Human Motivation” in which he argued that there is a hierarchy of needs. Before we can get to spiritual liberation (the apex of the pyramid), we need to feel safe, secure and protected (the base of the pyramid). All of us have experienced the truth of Maslow’s hierarchy if you have ever attended an outdoor burial in January in New England. It does not matter how much you love the person being laid to their rest, when you are at the graveside, all you want is to conclude the burial as quickly as possible and get back into a warm car.
The Israelites could not take in promises of liberation when their reality on the ground was so painful. What about us? In Hallel, we thank God, but only after we recover from illness or serious threat. What does Maslow’s hierarchy of needs say to us, today? How do we provide spiritual comfort to people whose physical realities remain challenging with no ready solution?
How do we think and talk about Israel now as its new government (In Israel, a Hard-Right Agenda Gains Steam. Patrick Kingsley, NY Times, 1/11/23) takes power? Here are five options.
Do not think and talk about Israel. It is too upsetting. It is too much.
We have our hands full. There are synagogues and rabbis who do not talk about Israel because it is too divisive.
Protest and/or boycott members of the governing coalition whose words and policies are anti-democratic and anti-pluralistic. More than 330 American rabbis signed a letter doing just that.
Improve your Hebrew so that you can follow contemporary Israeli discourse in Hebrew. As Danny Gordis points out, there is far more nuance, complexity, and movement within Israel than is reported in English newspapers, and we should have humility before giving up on an eternal homeland whose language we do not speak and read fluently.
Words matter. Sound the alarm, eschew complacency, for the many red lines that violent words from newly empowered Israeli officials cross. And yet, as Yossi Klein Halevi notes in this thoughtful piece in reflecting on his 40 years in Israel, making Aliyah during the nadir of 1982, one can believe in Israel's capacity to renew and heal.
Be always supportive of Israel our eternal homeland, and sharply and loudly critical of this Israeli government when it pursues policies that are antithetical to our values. This week's statement of the Rabbinical Assembly attempts to walk that line. The RA attempts to be humble and convicted at the same time:
----Despite our ongoing and unconditional strong support for the State of Israel, the rhetoric and initial proposals coming from this new government are of concern due to the unusual and extraordinary potential to weaken democracy and religious pluralism. Our need to publicly oppose Israeli government policies in ways that are unprecedented is of concern to us and is not a step we embrace easily. We will be in close consultation with our partners and members.
What is your voice on Israel now? That is a complicated question, and it requires a nuanced conversation.
We all want the best for our children. For many parents, this means affirming our children no matter what they do and normalizing their feelings and reactions in every moment. This school of “gentle parenting” teaches that the world is a tough place, but we as parents can strengthen them with our love and acceptance.
Jacob’s parenting philosophy appears to be the opposite. He seems to believe that the more he criticizes and critiques his children, the better off they will be. He takes it upon himself to point out their failures, even with his very last words.
Interestingly, when Jacob becomes a grandparent, he changes his ways. He not only affirms and loves his grandchildren, but he also claims them as his own descendants. He blesses them. He lifts them up.
If we drop the ball in one generation, is there still time to pick it up?
In November, a woman posted the following thread to Twitter:
“Several guys moved in next door, students I guess. And I’ve gotten two confused DoorDash drivers for them in the last week, and their trash can was completely overflowing with pizza boxes. I don’t think they cook. I am feeling such a strange motherly urge to feed these boys.”
A minute later, she posted that she had decided to bring over a pot of chili when the weather cooled down over the weekend as a kind, neighborly gesture.
When I first saw the post, I was touched. In my mind, we all live in these disconnected universes, especially after COVID, and the idea that someone would notice what others were throwing away and would care enough to cook for strangers—I found that to be sweet.
But that’s not how others interpreted the post. This kind woman was trolled. Her initial post was retweeted 556 times with acerbic and vitriolic commentary. People accused her of “imposing” her life preferences on others, of being condescending, of being “presumptuous.” One wrote, “IDK how I would feel if a stranger came to my house with a meal I didn’t ask for.” Others took it even farther. In their eyes, she was “coddling,” and encouraging “man-child behavior.” Maybe, they wrote, this was her sick way of assuaging her “White savior” complex.
As is the way of the internet, the thread went viral.
For the past few years, 5th grade has been my sweet spot teaching religious school. To be honest, I think 10 is the perfect age. They're just beginning to think of themselves as individuals, and just beginning to access abstract thought. Because they’re still kids, they haven’t learned the teenage trick of looking bored and disconnected at all times. They’ll squeal with delight when you share a cool story, and they are so full of energy and joy.
I love teaching 5th grade. But this year, my class has put me to the test. Renowned child-psychiatrist, Foster Cline, used to say that any kid worth their salt will test your boundaries. Let’s just say my class this year is worth a lot of salt.
Teaching them feels like playing verbal whack-a-mole
The Jew. Rich. Powerful. Behind the scenes exerting undue influence.
Getting richer and richer while the non-Jews in society get poorer and poorer.
Where does that horrific trope—from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the Mapping Project—begin? What is the origin story for the hateful things that Jew-haters say about us?
The origin story is in the Torah.
And the tropes are true in the story the Torah tells.
How does Joseph. second only to Pharaoh, who ends up enslaving the Egyptians, and giving the fat of the land to his own family, seed hatred against our people, and what do we do about it?
This week a Peter K. Newman of Dayton, Ohio wrote a letter to the editors of the Wall Street Journal in which he tells the following joke:
A departing CEO met with his successor, presented him with three numbered envelopes and advised him to open these if he ran into trouble.
After sales and profits dropped during the next quarter, the new CEO opened the first envelope. It contained the message: “Blame your predecessor.”
The company continued to struggle during the next two quarters, so the new CEO opened the second envelope. It contained the message: “Distract
your critics by reorganizing.”
Finally, because the company’s year-end results were still disappointing, the new CEO rushed to his office and opened the third envelope. It contained the message: “Prepare three envelopes.”
This joke is about the danger of repeating unfortunate patterns that we inherit; and the flip side of the joke is that it invites us to think about how we might transcendthe unfortunate patterns that we inherit. Because the new CEO could not transcend the troubled trends of the old CEO he shared the same fate as the old CEO. When we realize that we have inherited a pattern that is not healthy, how do we transcend it?
The pathos of our mother Leah. One of the saddest stories in the Torah concerns Leah and the mandrakes.
Last week’s Talmud class ended on a strong, life-affirming note for Leah. Her first three sons (Reuben, Simon and Levi) she named for the idea that now I have given my husband 1, 2, or 3 sons, now maybe he will love me. Jacob’s love still did not come. When she gives birth to her fourth son, she names him Judah: This time I will praise God. I can still praise God, I can still affirm life, in the face of a reality that just is, that just is not ideal and is not solvable. A strong, gritty, life-affirming message from which the Jewish people get their name.
There is only one problem. The story does not end there. And the coda to the story, the mandrake story, is heartbreaking.
In Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel, Lucy By the Sea, the central protagonist, Lucy Barton, goes through life with an essential question: what is it like to be you?
Two people make me think about that question. The first is Joseph Bankman, who is the Ralph M. Parsons Professor of Law and Business at Stanford Law School. His academic expertise is tax law. He is the author of widely used casebooks with exciting names like Federal Income Taxation. But he is not just a tax nerd. He is a deeply caring and empathetic professor. He got an additional degree in clinical psychology so that he could be more helpful in counseling anxious law students. He also hosted a podcast called WellnessCast for Stanford Law School to discuss “wellness and mental health within the legal profession.” A tax scholar with heart.
The other person I have been thinking about is Barbara Fried. She is the William W. and Gertrude H. Saunders Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. Her academic expertise is distributive justice, namely, how are the goods and services in our society distributed, and are they distributed fairly? She is a three-time winner of an award that recognizes excellence in teaching at Stanford Law. Barbara Fried is married to Joseph Bankman.
Quinta Brunson, the creative genius behind the critical and popular hit show Abbott Elementary, was interviewed by Doreen St. Felix on a recent episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour. St. Felix asked her the most interesting question: Did you ever experience an impactful no? You wanted something, you did not get it, the no caused major disappointment at the time, but in the end the no prompted something positive that would not otherwise have happened.
Brunson responded that she once went to a television producer with an idea for a network
television show she believed in. The plot of the proposed show was that she and a male friend, both in their 20s, who had a good platonic relationship, slept together once, as a result of which she got pregnant. The show would be about how these two friends co-parent their child—a fact pattern that she said happens all the time. The television producer said no, which stung at the time. But in retrospect, that no helped give birth to Abbott Elementary.
In class we consider this concept of impactful no through two different lenses.
I have been thinking a lot this week about Trevor Lawrence. Trevor Lawrence stands 6-foot-6. He is a professional quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars. As a freshman in college, he led his team, Clemson, to a national championship. When he declared for the NFL draft, he was labeled a can’t miss talent, a generational football prodigy with the size, the arm strength, and the intelligence to be one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game. It has not quite worked out that way so far in his first year and a half. That’s a separate conversation. But he was one of the most heralded and anticipated college quarterbacks ever and was the first player chosen in the draft.
What is the connection between Trevor Lawrence and Thanksgiving weekend and parshat Toldot?
Trevor has an older brother named Chase. Chase is also tall. He stands 6-foot-2. But unlike his famous brother Trevor, Chase has zero interest in sports—playing or watching He has not played team sports since middle school. He watches Trevor’s games as a loving brother, but if his brother is not in the game, Chase has no interest in watching sports. Chase is a professional artist. He and his wife Brooke are oil painters and sculptors. They get a lot of commissions, and make a good living, doing art.
Here are two siblings—same mother, same father, same home. And yet they are so different. The athlete who has no artistic ability. The artist who has no athletic ability.
How do we understand sibling diversity?
What happened to Rebecca?
In last week’s portion (Chayeii Sarah), she is kind to camels. She offers water to thirsty Eliezer, parched from his travels, and then offers water to his camels. Eliezer immediately concludes that Rebecca is so kind she is the right partner for Isaac.
But in this week’s portion (Toldot), Rebecca is the opposite of kind. She lies to her blind and dying husband Isaac. She pits her two sons against one another. She corrupts Jacob, enlisting him in her lying scheme. She and Jacob steal the blessing that is properly due to Esau. She explodes her family.
How do we understand the trajectory of Rebecca from kindness to deceit? There are 70 faces of Torah, and tomorrow we are going to consider very different reads to this question.
Can one muster understanding and empathy for Rebecca on the grounds that Isaac was a challenging husband; that he was limited; that he was wounded; perhaps he was neurodiverse; perhaps he was traumatized in lasting ways by the akeida, in ways that made him hard to live with. Perhaps years with this difficult husband made the light go out in Rebecca’s soul.
Or do we say, no. We are responsible for our own choices. There is no way to contextualize, reframe, justify the choices Rebecca made in destroying her family. Rebecca’s descent is not about Isaac. It is about Rebecca. Which leaves us with a very different set of lessons.
One thing is certain: Rebecca’s descent is precipitous. The harder issue is: What are we to learn from it?
Imagine if you could actually fulfill this Jewish teaching. It is short and seems simple.
Yet it is somewhere between impossible and even against human nature to fulfill.
And yet if we could somehow bring ourselves to do it, doing so would change our lives for the better:
Reciting a blessing for health, happiness and good things feels intuitive. Hashem, thank you for our new child or grandchild. Hashem, thank you for my recovery from illness. Hashem, thank you for my surviving this accident or near miss. All that blessing flows from a grateful heart. But this famous teaching in Berakhot would challenge us to bless God for the reversals of life, for our loss, our illness, our pain. How is that even possible?
This Shabbat we have a special treat. Rick Stone is a master story-teller, and an expert in the field of story-telling. Learn more about Rick here. At our Talmud class this Shabbat morning, Rick will teach these three brief, evocative Hasidic stories (Trusting in God's Goodness, The Leaf, and The Remarkable Horse).Each is a response to the above teaching from Berakhot.
Do these stories convince you? How does story truth compare to our other modes of truth for engaging our mind, inspiring our heart, and motivating our deeds?
I love Thanksgiving. It’s a little early, I know. But every year, November comes, and all I can think about is Thanksgiving. I’m going to see my family soon. We’re going to eat turkey and cranberry sauce green beans and sweet potatoes and pies…there was the year I almost got stopped by TSA for bringing too many pies back…I didn’t know they’re considered a liquid. I love all the sweet memories I have of Thanksgivings from my childhood, when we used to gather in my Aunt Vanessa and Uncle Allan’s restaurant, the River Sage, in Evergreen, Colorado or at my grandparents table with the giant mirror. Four years ago, I loved Thanksgiving even more when Solomon proposed to me, and we got to celebrate our engagement with my whole family in Colorado. I loved Thanksgiving three years ago because we were just married and reveling in the blessing of getting to celebrate with everyone we love. This year, every time I think of Thanksgiving I want to cry. After so many months of infertility purgatory, this year we get to go home to Colorado with our little PB—that’s what we’re calling our little one before they make their appearance this spring. Thanksgiving has never felt sweeter.
And then, the other day, while scrolling through Hulu, I came across Padma Lakshmi’s new show, Taste the Nation. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, Hulu suggested I watch an episode filmed right here in Martha’s Vineyard called “Truth and the Turkey Tale.”
The show was incredibly powerful.
Some hypotheticals:
After his lengthy prison term, Harvey Weinstein joins Temple Emanuel and wants to come to services. He says I now get it. I was wrong. Would you sit next to him?
We receive a generous check from Jeffrey Epstein to be used by the Temple in any way we wish, and anonymously, no need to publish his gift. He writes I now get it. I was wrong. Would you accept his gift?
After referring his 4.6 million followers to a vile Jew-hating movie that denies the Shoah, and after refusing to apologize for it, and after refusing to state that he has no anti-Semitic beliefs, Kyrie Irving goes on March of the Living. He goes to Auschwitz. He goes to Israel. He comes back and says I now get it. I was wrong. Would you support the Nets reinstating him? Would you now root for him?
Is teshuvah always available to right our wrongs? Or do we ever reach a point of no return where teshuvah is not possible? It is a complicated question, and the evidence of the Torah is mixed. The concept of teshuvah is late, late, late, not until Deuteronomy chapter 30. Before then, the basic concept is that sinners pay the price. Adam and Eve are banished along with a host of other punishments.
And in the reading tomorrow about Sodom, the categories are tzadik and rashah, translated by JPS as innocent and guilty, also translated as righteous and evil. That is a binary. What about people doing teshuvah and changing their ways? Teshuvah is not on the table in the Sodom story. Why not?
There is a famous story in the Talmud where Rabbi Meir was attacked by brigands. He prayed that they would die. His wife Beruria took him to task. Wrong prayer, she said. Better instead to pray that they change their ways and sin no more.
The issue comes to a point in the closing line of psalm 104: yitamu chataim min haaretz u’reshaim od einam, which is translated in very different ways by our siddur and our JPS Tanakh.
Siddur: “Let sins disappear from the earth and the wicked will be no more.”
Tanakh: “May sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more.”
Are Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and Kyrie Irving human beings who committed sins; or are they sinners?
Do we ever reach a point of no return, and if so, when and what is that point of no return?
Are we a healthier religion if we teach that there is a point of no return? Watch it.
Live with an active awareness of it.
This past Monday morning I got both an email and a text from my wife Shira, who was out of town. I knew it was trouble when the first word of both the email and the text was honey. Honey means that she is about to ask me to do something she knows I won’t want to do.
Honey, today is Halloween. And I know you just got home from an overnight flight from Israel. But we don’t want to be Scrooge. We don’t want to be the only dark house on our street. So please go to CVS and buy candy, and turn on the lights to let the kids in the neighborhood know that you are so happy to give out the candy on Halloween. XXOO Me.
How can I say no to an email that begins with honey and ends with XXOO Me?
We live in an anxious age. If it is hard for you to watch the news, what lenses does our tradition offer to help us make sense of it all?
Tomorrow we are going to look at the two models that we are in the middle of reading in shul: Noah, who seeks refuge in his ark, away from the pain of the world (Click here), and Abraham, singled out by God to do justice and righteousness (Click here).
The Noah principle is so tempting, and that is where many of us live, in our zip code, worried about the world, but insulated from its harshest features. 02459 and the other zip codes of our congregation are an ark. We can read about the horrors of the world without, for the most part, experiencing them on the front lines. Noah is no child’s story. Noah captures the reality of withdrawal from a world that feels impossible to fix and too painful to face. We do Noah, pretty much every day. But is more expected of us, and if so, what?
The Abraham principle is so daunting. The classic question is: why Abraham? What did he do to deserve the covenant? The classic answer, which we will study tomorrow, is that when he saw a world on fire, he felt summoned to do something about it. Put out the fire. Restore the building. Sounds good. Seems hard to argue with. But if we take that midrash seriously, what does it call upon us to do, particularly if the problems we see as most vexing do not admit of any solution that we can bring.
We don’t have answers, but we do have helpful lenses.
Join Sisterhood and the TE community to hear Ed Shapiro speak on the current refugee resettlement crisis: “The Ukrainian Refugee Situation and what Americans Can Do”.
Edward Shapiro is the Managing Trustee for The Shapiro Foundation, a Boston-based charitable foundation started in 2000 by Ed and his wife and now focusing on community-based refugee resettlement. Ed is also actively involved in many national and international nonprofits involved with refugee matters.
Why Moses’s Final Words Call Out to Us With Special Urgency Right Now
This past week, in anticipation of Simchat Torah, I was drawn to a granular question that I had never thought about before: namely, what are Moses’s very last words before he dies? The portion we read on Simchat Torah contains Moses’s final farewell speech. He blesses all the tribes of Israel one by one, offering them final words suited to their story. When he is done blessing the last tribe, he has one last thing to say to the Jewish people. What is it?
When I examined the text, I was surprised by what I found. Here are his final words:
Your enemies shall come cringing before you,
And you shall tread on their backs. Deuteronomy 33:29.
Curious. Enemies come cringing before you. You shall tread on their backs. What enemies? What does treading on their backs even mean? Rashi, the classic commentator, explains that it means: “Put your feet upon the necks of these enemy kings.”
Not what I would have expected.
One of the most evocative figures in the Torah does not get much attention because
his brief appearance is embedded in a dry genealogy. His name is Methuselah.
When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he begot Lamech. After the birth of Lamech,
Methuselah lived 782 years and begot sons and daughters. All the days of Methuselah
came to 969 years; then he died. (Genesis 5:25-27).
Methuselah is famous for two things. He lived the longest of any biblical figure. Moses
lived until 120, Methuselah until 969. But Methuselah is known for nothing beyond his length of years. If he touched somebody’s life, if he made the world better, if he inspired love, the Torah contains no record of it.
By contrast, the composer Jonathan Larson, most famous for writing the musical Rent and dying at the age of 35 the night of its first performance, inspired this gorgeous song from Rent, sung by Leslie Odom, Jr. called Without You. (Click here for the video) The thesis is: life goes on, as it must, without you, but I am not the same without you because of the deep impact you have had on me. (Click here for lyrics)
We have just left the High Holiday season with its message that we do not get to control how much time we have, we can only control what we do with the time we’ve got. We are now entering a month without holidays, a season of ordinary days. The most important question for us all: what do we do with our ordinary days that turn them into days of impact? What are we doing that can inspire the love of the song Without You? Who will sing that song for us, and what have we done to earn that song? In his classic When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough, Harold Kushner lays out three things we can do every day (Click here for text). Hopefully, that will not be our question until 120. But asking that question now can invest our years with their greatest joy, blessing, and impact.
I recently attended a wedding where the bride and groom shared beautiful vows under the chuppah. Both of their words were poignant, but the bride’s words landed especially powerfully for me.
The bride offered that in general she is nervous. She is anxious. She is a worrier. She is nervous about money. Nervous about her career. Nervous about where they are going to live, what they are going to do. Nervous about health. But, she said, the one thing she has never been nervous about is marrying her beloved. She always knew that marrying him was just right, a rare oasis in an otherwise anxious world.
Should we be judged on the basis of our finest moments, our worst moments, or our final moments? Do our worst moments vitiate our finest? Or should we properly consider our worst moments part of a complex package of our flawed humanity—but without the power to diminish the good we have also done? Case in point: King Solomon, who starts out so bright, and ends up thoroughly corrupted.
This summer I studied with my 94-year-old father-in-love a classic text that I had encountered before, but seeing it at the age of 61, I saw something I had never seen before, which now seems obvious. We were studying Robert Frost’s poem about being at the crossroads which famously concludes:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
What I picked up this summer is the narrator’s lingering uncertainty, wistfulness, regret, about whether the decision at the crossroads was the right decision. The title jumped out at me this summer: The Road Not Taken. The sigh jumped out at me: I shall be telling this with a sigh. Maybe I messed up. Maybe I should have taken the road not taken.
Erin Alexander sat crying in her car in the Target parking lot. Her beloved sister-in-love had just passed away suddenly, and she was overwhelmed with grief. When the worst of it had passed, she wiped away her tears and decided to stop by Starbucks to get some green tea before attempting to complete her errand.
As soon as she opened the Starbucks door, she could tell the barista was not having a good day. She kept explaining to customers that the espresso machine was broken and was trying her best to accommodate their caffeine requirements with workarounds, but was clearly stressed and struggling to keep up. When it was her turn in line, Erin smiled as brightly as she could and told the barista to “hang in there.”
A few minutes later, when she picked up her iced green tea, she was surprised to see a message scrawled on the side of the cup. “Erin,” it read, “your soul is golden.” That barista didn’t know her sister-in-love had died, she didn’t know how rough it had been to get through every day or the strength it was taking just to face an errand to Target, but that message meant everything to Erin. As she shared recently with the New York Times, “that little thing made the rest of my day.”
In October 1973, singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen was hating his life. He struggled with depression. He struggled with drugs like acid and LSD. He had had a child with a woman to whom he was not married, and he struggled with monogamy. His creativity was stymied. He couldn’t write. He couldn’t find joy in performing. At 39 he felt he was past his prime, that he should retire. In his own words, that he should “shut up.”
As Leonard Cohen was in the throes of his mid-life crisis, Israel was attacked on Yom Kippur, October 6, 1973. Israel was unprepared for this war. The initial weeks were brutal. Israel’s air force, so dominant six years earlier, was dramatically undermined by new Russian anti-aircraft missiles. Israeli ground troops suffered horrendous casualties.
These two stories—Leonard Cohen’s personal crisis, and Israel’s national crisis—came together because somehow, in the midst of the war, Leonard Cohen decided to go to Israel. The day he arrived, he went to a Tel Aviv café to ponder his next steps. Just then, a group of Israeli singers walked by. One of the singers, named Ilana Rovina, recognized him. Are you Leonard Cohen? I am. What are you doing in Israel? I don’t know, I’m not sure, but I think I will go to a kibbutz. Why don’t you join us? We are going to the Sinai to sing to the fighters. We’d love you to join us.
I don’t have a guitar.
This summer Shira and I tried a new move. We started riding e-bikes. An e-bike is like a regular bike, with a seat, handlebars, two wheels, shifting gears. You pedal, and the bike moves. There is only one difference. The e in e-bike is for electricity. There are three settings, and you can give your bike a jolt of a little electricity, a moderate amount, or a whole lot of electricity when the going gets tough. All summer, I felt vaguely like this was not kosher. This was not authentic. A real cyclist would eschew an e-bike. I particularly felt this pang of inauthenticity while going uphill because the steeper the hill, the more electricity I summoned, with the result that it kind of felt like I was Lance Armstrong, climbing the steepest hills with ease, while all the while I knew it was the electricity, it was not me. It felt off, but I couldn’t place why it felt off—until this week.
This week I was listening to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast. Andy Stanley, as I have shared before, is in my view the greatest religious thinker and speaker in America today, and he speaks not only about sacred texts, but also about leadership. In the most recent episode he was interviewing a leadership guru named John Maxwell. John Maxwell has sold 30 million books on leadership.
Maxwell is 75 years old. He has been teaching leadership for decades. He said something simple that really stuck with me.
He often asks people: what is the greatest life lesson you have ever learned?
For my money, the best, simplest, shortest expression of the complexity of Israel remains the opening chapter of Ari Shavit’s classic My Promised Land. Shavit’s grandfather was among the first Zionists who settled Eretz Yisrael. Shavit himself served in the Israeli army as a paratrooper. The book opens: “For as long as I can remember, I remember fear. Existential fear.” Two pages later: “For as long as I can remember, I remember occupation. Only a week after I asked my father whether the Arab nations were going to conquer Israel, Israel conquered the Arab-populated regions of the West Bank and Gaza.”
How do we, and our children and grandchildren, respond to this complexity?
One response is, it’s exhausting. We have enough problems here in America. Disconnection.
Another response is indictment. Using words like Apartheid. Hostility.
That is where a lot of American Jews (especially young American Jews) are, somewhere between disconnected and hostile.
Tomorrow we are going to consider a model of wisdom from an unlikely source: Stephen Sondheim mentoring a young singer in singing Send in the Clowns . Could this model a different move to keep American Jews in loving dialogue with Israel?
This clip of Sondheim working with a young singer embodies a classic source, Maimonides’ teaching on repentance, which is about a directional energy of moving towards in love rather than away from in anger. Maimonides offers: “Repentance brings near those who are far away.” What does this text about directional energy have to say about bringing our disconnected or hostile generations closer to Israel?
We bring two great thinkers to one of the Jewish people’s biggest challenges and opportunities: reclaiming Zionism. Danny Gordis’ excellent and thoughtful piece shows how, shockingly, Zionism has become a dirty word among certain segments of the American Jewish community. There are American synagogues today who are ideologically opposed to Zionism. There are rabbinical students today who are neutral or negative on Zionism. How is it possible that Zionism, which gave birth to the Jewish state, is a source of negative energy among some American Jews? Please read or reread Danny’s piece. What is his diagnosis, what is his prescription, and do you agree with him?
Our second thinker is Yehuda Kurtzer. We will examine the sources and how he framed them in hislecturecalled The Zionist Idea delivered at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem this past summer. While Yehuda does not mention Danny Gordis or the issue of anti-Zionism, his lecture and his sources are an incredibly persuasive response to both. Yehuda talks about the idea of an idea that is a North Star, that is a compass for a system. Such an idea has to be (a) short, sweet and to the point (in Yehuda’s words, “essentialized”); and (b) it has to be so powerful that it galvanizes action. We will examine Yehuda’s treatment of the Rabbinic Idea and the American Idea as a prelude to his treatment of the Zionist Idea. What is Yehuda’s wisdom here, and does it allow us to reclaim Zionism in Israel’s 75th year for people who love Israel and are troubled by significant questions and doubts?
In this special year of Israel’s 75th, let’s recommit to a conversation about Israel, and Zionism which made Israel possible, that welcomes diverse points of view and that deepens all of our love for the miracle that is our Jewish homeland reborn after 2,000 years.
What is true for our Torah portion this morning is also true for every human being who has ever lived, including all of us here today. Also true for our country. What we all have in common is complexity: our Torah, our nation, each of us, contains multitudes.
Charlie spoke with a wisdom beyond his years about the complexity in our parsha. The same parsha which begins with “Justice, justice shall you pursue” also commands genocide in God’s name. Also commands, in God’s name, “You may take as your booty the women, the children, the livestock, and everything in the town—all its spoil—and enjoy the use of the spoil of your enemy, which the Lord your God gives you.” We wrestle with Charlie’s question, how can the same portion that is emphatically concerned about justice in Deuteronomy 16 also command what we now know to be war crimes in Deuteronomy 20? The Torah contains multitudes.
But isn’t that true for us all? We can be generous and ungenerous, forgiving and unforgiving, gentle and cruel. We can be present and not present, responsive and not responsive, caring and not caring, depending on the day, depending on the context. All of us contain multitudes.
Isn’t that also true of our beloved country?
In 1961, Sandy Greenberg was wallowing in despair. Up until that moment, his life had been full of promise. He was brilliant, musical, and athletic. In high school, he was elected president of the student council and of his senior class, upon graduation, he won a full scholarship to Columbia University in New York and was pursuing his dreams of becoming a lawyer. He had close friends and was dating the love of his life, whom he had met in the 6th grade.
But in 1961, Sandy felt like all the promise of his life had abandoned him. For years, ophthalmologists had failed to diagnose his vision challenges correctly, resulting in a botched treatment that hastened the deterioration of his remaining vision and forced doctors to perform a surgery which ironically saved his eyeballs while destroying what remained of his sight. Sandy was deeply depressed. He left college, moved back home to Buffalo, gave up on his dreams of becoming a lawyer, and had resigned himself to being a burden on his family for the rest of his life.
But suddenly, out of the blue, his best friend and college roommate, Art, showed up at his door.
Serena Williams. Everyone, even the most sports illiterate, knows Serena Williams. Ever since she hit the professional stage in 1996, she has dazzled the world with her strength, skill, determination, and success. She won her first Grand Slam at 17, spent 319 weeks—more than 6 years—ranked as the No. 1 player in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association, has held all four Grand Slam titles at the same time twice, and has won more matches than all but 4 women in the history of tennis—and achieved that even though she would often turn down matches for which she qualified so she could focus on Grand Slams.
For me and so many other women, Serena has been not only a great tennis player, but also a very personal she-ro. As a young woman, I remember watching her, thinking about how amazing it was that she wasn’t afraid to be strong. She wore clothes that highlighted her muscles, that made her look like a superhero, and avoided outfits designed to be sexy. She was aggressive on the court and didn’t try to modulate her behavior to fit within a cultural norm of demure femininity. On and off the court, she was always laser-focused and clear, and as a teenager, I was most struck by the fact that people liked her not because she was trying to be someone else, but because she was comfortable in her own skin and people are drawn to those who have confidence.
Last week, Serena published an article in Vogue Magazine announcing that after decades of dominating the tennis world, she has decided to evolve and will soon stop playing tennis professionally. The article, titled “Serena Williams Says Farewell to Tennis On Her Own Terms—And In Her Own Words” made me think this was one more classic Serena Slam—a powerhouse woman who was moving on to another powerful vista and chapter of life with confidence and joy. I was surprised to learn just how much pain and vulnerability is wrapped up in this choice.
I have a confession to make. Many of you know that I love fishing—a passion I discovered after I met Solomon. But I haven’t been completely truthful. Because, you see, it’s not just that I love fishing, I particularly love beating Solomon at fishing.
Ever since our first fishing trip together, I have always managed to catch more fish and better fish than Solomon. From the beginning, Solomon joked that I had an advantage—that the fish were drawn to a spiritual connection. Every time we would go, Solomon would laugh and tell the crusty old boat hands about his wife, the rabbi, who catches more fish and better fish even though she has only been fishing now for a couple of seasons.
But all that changed on our recent trip to Canada. We went out cod fishing out of Lunenberg, Nova Scotia. As usual, we joked about how long it would take me to catch my first fish. But when we sunk those lines into the water, I was in for a surprise. Unlike every other fishing trip, my line was quiet and still. But Solomon was catching fish like there was no tomorrow. Within a short window, he caught enough cod to feed the 12 friends we were visiting that night, and then started offering fish to the families around us who did not have his incredible luck. He quickly became the most popular client on the boat. I quickly became the world’s worst sport.
Up until that point, I hadn’t realized how much of my love of fishing had to do with my luck in fishing. Also, up until that point, I hadn’t thought it was luck, really. Somehow, I had convinced myself that I was just a superior huntress, that all the years of knitting and piano had made my fingertips more sensitive, that I had an intuitive sense of the fish. But on that boat in Canada, I employed exactly the same strategies I do on every boat, I was the same person with the same skills and the same track record, but my result was so different.
The next day I demanded that we go again.
Rabbi David Wolpe tells the story of the time that Ralph Waldo Emerson went to church one Sunday morning and was displeased with the minister’s sermon. The minister revealed nothing of his own life story, Emerson complained. He just talked about ideas and texts. Tell me how your life experience connects with my life experience connects with our life experience.
In that spirit, I want to talk about the fact that two weeks ago, on July 3, Shira and I were in Italy for the wedding of our son Nat to his husband Davide. I share this with you not just to talk about the wedding, which was joyful and beautiful, but for a way in which a struggle I had on that day might connect with your own version of a similar struggle. What do I mean?
Chaplain, Colonel Larry Bazer shares some special experiences of serving as a full-time National Guard Chaplain in light of Parshat Korah and our nation’s 246th birthday, as well as personal insights regarding the last few challenging years for our country, as he oversaw the National Guard's religious response during the pandemic and the tumult of these last few years.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court struck down a New York law which required citizens to demonstrate “proper cause” to carry a firearm in public. Yesterday the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. Next week, the Court will hear West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency and will almost certainly strike down the right of the EPA enact rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions and to fight climate change.
Whatever your political affiliation, whomever you voted for in these past elections, we should all be concerned about these decisions.
Do you know what the word dox means—d-o-x? I had never heard of the word before this week. I learned its meaning as our community has encountered something you might have heard of, a website called The Mapping Project of BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction) Boston.
The dictionary definition of dox is to publish private or identifying information about a person or organization on the internet with malicious intent.
BDS Boston engages in a massive doxing of both Jewish institutions and individuals, including many who are members of our own community. It lists names and addresses of institutions and individuals, while the people responsible for this website refuse to identify themselves. BDS Boston is ostensibly about Israel and Palestinians. But in fact it does not discuss Israel. Does not discuss Palestinians. BDS Boston is about us, the Jews of Boston. They are not after Israel. They are after us. Cloaking themselves in anonymity, they pursue a double agenda.
This past week in the holy city of Boston, a miracle happened not once but twice. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, Paul McCartney, who is eleven days shy of 80 years old, rocked on at Fenway Park. Fenway was jammed to the rafters, and this 80-year old singer wowed and captivated a full park for two and a half hours. Thirty songs. Did I mention that he is 80?
How does an 80-year-old still have the energy, the charisma, the voice to hold that big of an audience for that long?
How does a performer continue to perform the same songs that he has been singing, some of them Beatles classics like Can’t Buy Me Love, Hey Jude and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da for 60 years, with fresh energy? Can you do that? Can you do the same thing for 60 years, with fresh energy? Could I give the same sermon for 60 years, with fresh energy? Could you hear my same sermon for 60 years, with fresh energy? How does he do that?
Is self-care (the agenda of summer rest, renewal and relaxation) a Jewish value? Did Jeremiah go swimming? Did Rabbi Akiva go to the beach? Did Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi go off the grid so that he could recharge? Did Elijah ever need “me time”? Jewish sources talk about learning (Talmud) and doing (ma’aseh). Do Jewish sources value doing neither of those in the interests of recharging? How does our context figure into this question? Since the world, and our country, are in such a challenging place now, is thinking about the next few months as a sanctuary in time where we get to focus on our own healing and our own welfare an abdication—or it is essential for the work that lies ahead? What Jewish sources speak to this question, and what do they say about this moment?
Shabbat Shalom, Everyone!
What a morning! I am utterly overwhelmed and so deeply blessed to be a part of this truly special community.
As I reflect upon what has been most important to me on this extraordinary journey as an educator, I’d like to share three of the “principles” that have motivated and guided me. But first, a disclaimer: You may hear things about me that will surprise you. As they say in the commercials, don’t try these at home…or at Religious School!!
For many decades, Rabbi Simon Greenberg would teach his students at the Seminary: Never preach about the binding of Isaac, Genesis 22 , the Torah reading for the second day of Rosh Hashanah. A parent sacrifice his child? Who would do a thing like that? A parent place some principle above the life and health and welfare of their own child? Who would do a thing like that? The whole premise of the binding of Isaac is so unrelatable, Rabbi Greenberg taught, that real people cannot relate to this opaque tale of a parent prepared to sacrifice his own son. Better to not talk about it.
I have been thinking about Rabbi Greenberg’s question: Who would do a thing like that? It is now clear that the answer is: we would. Our country would. Our country does. It is now clear that Genesis 22, this opaque tale of a parent prepared to sacrifice his own child, is our current, foundational American story. Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac for his principle, the commanding voice of God. America is prepared to sacrifice our children for the commanding voice of the Second Amendment, and the unfettered right of every American to own a gun, including assault rifles.
We know about Columbine, Newtown, Parkland and Uvalde. But the Daily’s discussion of Uvalde taught me something I did not know.
How do we think about the person whose views are not only different from our own, but antithetical to our own? What they stand for, we stand for the exact opposite. And yet we share a planet, we share a country, we share a community, perhaps we even share a family. They are not changing. We are not changing. They are here. We are here. How do we see this other human being on the other end of a contentious issue in a contentious time?
Uvalde. Buffalo. Santa Ana. Bomb threats at JCCs (including our own).
If the Messiah were ever going to come to fix our broken world, now would be a good time.
On Shabbat we are going to take a look at three texts that deal with the Messiah.
The first is an Elijah story. Elijah famously tells a rabbi searching for the Messiah that you can find him in a leper colony, among the most diseased and impoverished people.
The second is a story by Israel’s Nobel Prize-winning author Shmuel Agnon called The Kerchief, which is a literary treatment of the passage from the Talmud about the Messiah coming from a leper colony.
The third is a sermon by Rabbi Harold Kushner, delivered at his son Aaron’s Bar Mitzvah (Aaron would pass away later that year), on the Agnon story.
If you ever asked Barry Shrage, the long-time former head of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, how he was doing, he always answered in an utterly unique way. In all my life, I have never heard anyone else answer this way. He would always answer: Never better.
Never better. What a great response. It is unique. It rhymes. Never better. It is short and to the point. It radiates positive and hopeful energy.
There is only one problem. Does it ring true? I have been thinking about Barry’s signature phrase this week given the events of the world. With Buffalo, and Santa Ana, and all the other dreadful news that you do not need me to remind you of, is it possible to say and mean : never better? We could engage the world as it is, but that might make us depressed. We could ignore the world as it is and focus on the Eastern Conference Finals between the Celtics and the Heat. But can we engage the world as it is, and still radiate positivity?
Two years and three months later, we now know two things. Covid is not going away any time soon. There will be new variants and new cases. And we have to get back to life. There is a short and haunting passage from the tractate Berakhot 3A that connects deeply with our reality.
Rabbi Yose (from the Maxwell House Haggadah) is in Jerusalem, after the Temple was destroyed. God’s house is ruined. The people are exiled. The community that was is no more. He is there apparently alone, and he goes to the Temple ruins to pray. Elijah (he did not die in the Bible, but went to heaven in a fiery chariot, leaving him free to come and help the vulnerable in the world) pays Rabbi Yose a visit in the ruins. Please read this brief story ahead of our class on Shabbat with an eye towards four questions.
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The passage imagines how God must feel in this new, changed, sad world—what Abraham Joshua Heschel would call the divine pathos. God has an inner life. God has feelings. We see God roaring like a lion, cooing like a dove, and shaking his head like a resigned parent. What is the Talmud trying to say here, and how, if at all, does it connect with us?
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Elijah and Rabbi Yose regard one another with extreme courtesy. There is a lot of “my teacher,” “my teacher and master,” “my son.” What is the point of this extreme courtesy, and what does it teach us?
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What drives Rabbi Yose to pray in a ruined Temple?
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What are Elijah’s concerns? After all, he comes down to earth specifically because he does not love the rabbi praying in the ruins. What does the Rabbi learn from the prophet’s concerns, and what do we learn?
Like the rest of the world, Temple Emanuel has to reimagine life in this new, hard, uncertain age. What do we learn from a rabbi and a prophet conversing in the ruins of the Temple in the holy city of Jerusalem?
Last Shabbat an event of great importance happened: the Kentucky Derby and the unexpected, unlikely, implausible victory of a horse named Rich Strike. It is a double miracle underdog story.
As of the day before the big race, Rich Strike was not even supposed to be racing. At the last minute, because another horse that had been scheduled to race was a last-minute scratch, Rich Strike was the last horse to enter the field.
And Rich Strike was an 80 to 1 underdog. That made his upset victory the greatest upset victory since 1913.
The conversation about abortion in this country is strident and polarized. You are either pro-life or pro-choice. Every voice is passionate and convicted. There is no space for nuance.
That is why, when the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), the union of Conservative movement rabbis, published their statement in the wake of the Supreme Court leak, they were unanimous and unequivocally pro-choice. But Jewish tradition, and certainly Jewish law, is never unnuanced. A close reading of the sources reveals that Judaism does not fall neatly into either the pro-life or pro-choice camp. Instead, Jewish sources reveal a third way to engage this issue—we are a tradition that is pro-life, that values the sanctity and holy potential of every spark of life, and we are a tradition that understands the need for medical intervention which can include abortion.
This Shabbos, we will be doing a deep dive into the sources to explore the way our tradition invites reflection, nuanced evaluation, and a sensitivity which is all too often lacking in the political conversation unfolding around us.
These remarks were delivered on May 7, 2022 by Rabbi Marc Baker, President and CEO of CJP, Combined Jewish Philanthropies.
You can find more information about Marc here.
In general, we like to say that we don’t do politics at shul. We teach Torah. We try to teach and to live Jewish values. There are other places where divisive politics can be discussed and debated. Let the shul be a political-free zone.
Does that paradigm apply now? After all, immediately after news of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion came out, the Rabbinical Assembly (RA), the union of Conservative movement rabbis, immediately, strongly, and unambiguously came out with a robust statement criticizing this opinion:
"The RA is deeply troubled by reports that the Supreme Court will soon nullify the constitutional right to abortion. Reproductive freedom is again under assault, this time from the highest court in our nation. The RA supports full access for all those who need abortions to the entire spectrum of reproductive healthcare and opposes all efforts by governmental, private entities, or individuals to limit or dismantle such access."
What is particularly striking, and noteworthy, is that the usual Jewish rule—two Jews, three opinions— does not apply here. What time do we pray the evening prayer, the Talmud’s first question. There are three answers. Should a woman be able to get an abortion where “continuation of a pregnancy might cause severe physical or psychological harm, or where the fetus is judged by competent medical opinion as severely defective.”? The answer in our movement is yes.
What does that call on us to do now?
For the last 45 years or so, our shul has been distributing candles that we light at night to usher in Yom HaShoah. Each candle carries the name of one person, one out of the Six Million. As I shared at this year’s Yom HaShoah program, our members Barbara and Steve Grossman showed me their folder that has the names of the individuals that they thought about as they lit the candles every Yom HaShoah for the last 45 years. They have kept every name. I won’t go through all 45 years, but just to give you a sense of it: In 1994 they remembered Esther Kligerman. In 1995 Raizel Farbman. In 1996 Moshe Bikel. In 1997 Else Paradies. In 1998 Samuel Hirsch Kornblatt. In 1999 Theres Neuberg. In 2000 Moshe Fish. In 2001 Gertude Meidedner. And so it goes for 45 years. For each one, they would ask, we would all ask: where was the rest of the world? What was the rest of the world doing?
That was always our question, at every other Yom HaShoah.
Caron Tabb has, at last, solved a puzzle that I could not solve for the last 25 years: how to get an entire class of 5th graders totally immersed, totally focused, totally engaged, for a good long time on Jewish ideas and what they mean to our lives. When our 5th graders walked into shul today, they were immediately drawn to Caron’s different exhibits which are now installed in the Leventhal-Sidman Community Court and the Casty Gallery. Caron was there to greet the thirsty young learners, and seeing her dialogue with an entire mesmerized class of 5th graders was a true delight.
Those 5th graders sense that Caron’s art calls, beckons, invites, and challenges. That is why they listened with rapt attention. That is why they kept asking great follow-up questions.
All of which means two things.
Talmud on Shabbat will be a special segment. Michelle, Aliza, Dan, and I were taped yesterday in dialogue with Caron about her various works of art. (Elias is in Argentina visiting his mother.) The conversations are so rich and generative. This class will be a lovely introduction to Caron’s offerings.
There is a famous vignette in the Talmud that resonates mightily for our time. It concerns a traffic jam. One morning a bride and her retinue go off to her wedding. A happy procession. There is singing and joy in the air. It is palpable. The bride is so happy. She can just imagine the rest of her life, building a life with the love of her life, the good times they will have, the family they will build, the home they will create, the good that they can do together. But at the exact same time, a funeral procession takes off. A wife is now to lay her husband of many years to his resting place. There is sadness in the air. Worry. What will be? The widow weeps: I cannot imagine life without my husband. We have been together forever. I have never been alone. How am I to live alone?
The bride’s laughter, the widow’s weeping, collide. The two processions cannot make it through at the same time. What should happen next?
The prophet Elijah, whom we last encountered at our seders, poses a conundrum.
Elijah has this favored slot in Jewish history: the harbinger of hope and redemption. At the seder, we sing Eliyahu ha’navi as we move along the trajectory from darkness to light. At your son or grandson’s brit milah, the chair of Elijah invites the prophet into our lives at our choicest family moments. We bring Elijah into every Shabbat and Hag service in the blessings after the Haftarah and Havdalah. We bring Elijah into grace after meals every time we bench.
Of all the protagonists in the Jewish canon, Elijah is by far the most recurrent presence in Jewish ritual: more than Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, Moses, Aaron, Saul, David or Solomon.
Why so much Elijah? If you read the biblical story, this role is not only unexpected. It is a shocker. Elijah would be the last figure to get this job as harbinger of redemption.
Fact 1: Elijah’s last act as prophet is to be the Butcher of Mt. Carmel. He slaughters 450 prophets of Ba’al. A war crime. An atrocity. And that is not just a modern read. Leading to fact 2.
Fact 2: God fires Elijah for being only a zealot, and not being open to any other moves but hot zealotry. That is why God tells Elijah to appoint his successor, the gentler and more nuanced prophet Elisha.
So why exactly do we invite the Butcher of Mt. Carmel, fired by God, to our seders, to our britot, to our Shabbat prayers, to our grace after meals, as the harbinger of redemption?
We are going to be doing a four-part series to answer this question based upon a great new book that just came out, Daniel C. Matt, Becoming Elijah: Prophet of Transformation (Yale University Press, March, 2022).
Now that we have finished both seders this year, I have a question: What is the relationship, if any, between the words we say at the seder, the deeds we do at the seder, or that we commit to do, and the world we live in? Does our living a Jewish life, the prayer, the rituals, the community building, in what way, if at all, does that Jewish living affect the world? Will the two seders we just had affect the world, or will they only affect how we feel going through the world?
"Something like a plague has appeared upon my house." Leviticus 14:35.
With these words, the troubled homeowner in ancient Israel gives voice to a truth that is universal. Homes, like human beings, are living things. Organic. Alive. Just like a human being can have healthy or not healthy practices, so too a home, and our home life, can have healthy or not healthy practices. Just like a human being can change it up and become more healthy, so too a home life can get better. Just like a human being can be overcome by illness and leave the world, some homes cannot survive their painful dysfunction. All of these truths are in our portion this week, parshat metzora.
When the Talmud encountered the case of the leprous house, it insisted that we not take these passages literally. That we interpret the leprous house as a metaphor and ask: what are the forces that strengthen home life? What are the forces that undermine home life? Can a bad home life be made good? Is that even possible?
Please read the attached short story from Elizabeth Strout, The End of the Civil War Days. Her story is a literary expression of the leprous house. It is also funny and risqué, and it raises the all-important question: can the patterns in our home life that are not serving us change? (I am sending the teaser early so that you will have the opportunity to read and enjoy this short and wonderful story.)
Finally, with the Passover seders around the corner (April 15-16), we will consider passages from the Haggadah that invite us to be mindful of the patterns that work at creating the home life we want to create; and the patterns that need to change so that if a plague appears on our house, we can exercise some agency and make it go away.
It was the slap, and the rant, heard around the world.
How many of you saw Will Smith strike Chris Rock, and then rant about it, in real time?
How many of you read about it, or saw a clip of it, after the Academy Awards?
It was of course raw and shocking, unscripted drama that was by far the most dramatic thing that happened all evening.
If it were just a celebrity thing, a famous actor slapping the face of a famous comedian, it would just be another moment of sensationalist news.
But it’s not just a celebrity thing, it is very much a human thing. Because most of us, in our own quiet way, have been tempted to do our own version of what Will Smith did that night. Something ticked us off. Something got our blood boiling. Our temper went from zero to 100 in a nano second. And we were tempted to lose it. To give the other person a piece of our mind.
And yet, when we lose self-control, we lose control.
Last Shabbat had a special name, Shabbat Parah, the Sabbath of the Cow. It is one of the special Shabbatot that tells us that Passover is coming. What does the Red Heifer of Numbers 19 have to do with Passover?
This text is famously opaque. A red heifer, hyssop, scarlet, and cedar are burned up, their ashes mixed with pure water, and that solution has the power to purify somebody who has become impure by reason of contact with the dead when the solution is applied to them on days 3 and 7 after contact with the dead. Scholars have puzzled over this passage for thousands of years. They have come up with lots of explanations--which means no one explanation that compels and satisfies. Until two years ago.
In the attached essay, written in 2020, before his last Pesach, in the shadow of his own advancing cancer, Rabbi Jonathan Sachs does something very rare in the world of Torah scholarship: an utterly new idea. When you read his essay, it is clear that he nails it. What he has to say is more wise and true than anything any other commentator has ever said about it. More wise and true than Maimonides, Nachmanides, the rabbis of the midrash. He says something that has never been said (or at least we have no record of anyone else saying it) before about the Red Heifer, and it goes to the heart of our deepest fears: our own mortality.
If one wonders how many more Passovers do I have left? If one's anxiety about a finite number of Passovers disrupts our ability to enjoy this Passover, this text, as explained by Rabbi Sachs, provides a definite point of view. The best answer to fearing our mortality is living a life of faith. If we get Rabbi Sachs' teaching deeply, we will be able to enjoy this Passover, no matter how many more Passovers we have left.
In 1986, Professor Ray Scheindlin of the Jewish Theological Seminary authored a book with an evocative title: Wine, Women, & Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life.The book featured the poetry of Jewish poets who lived during the Golden Age of Jewish Spain. They lived the good life, with rich homes with gardens and pools and fountains. They wrote poetry about their good life, about their gardens and pools and fountains. Most of these poets were secular. And they were rooted in Judaism. At home in Spain. At home in Judaism. The Golden Age.
But something happened to the Golden Age. It ended.
There is a rare cantillation mark called the shalshelet that occurs only four times in the entire Torah. The shalshelet goes up and down and is conspicuously drawn out, to evoke a deep hesitation.
In Genesis 19:16, Lot hesitates before leaving Sodom with his family. He knows it is marked for destruction, but he is stuck. More than we know what we like, we like what we know. Sodom wasn’t perfect, but he hesitated leaving it.
In Genesis 24:12, Abraham’s servant Eliezer hesitates before praying to God to help send an appropriate partner for Isaac.
In Genesis 39:8, Joseph hesitates before refusing the advances of Potiphar’s wife, who tries to seduce him.
In last Shabbat’s reading, in Leviticus 8:23, Moses hesitates before slaughtering the sacrificial animal that would ordain Aaron and his sons as the priests.
In each case, the protagonist wrestles with an inner demon before doing the right thing. Angst, self-doubt, indecision precede deed.
What do we learn from the shalshelet, and the wrestling of Lot, Eliezer, Joseph, and Moses with their demons, about how to handle the angst of our age?
Leadership under fire. President Volodymyr Zelensky and Regional Governor Vitaliy Kim are both inspiring the world with their peerless leadership under the fire of this war. The Times article about the death and dying in the port city of Mykolaiv, shelled every day by Russian forces, provides the context for Governor Kim’s nightly inspiring addresses. President Zelensky this week talked from the heart to the heart of Canadians and Americans in ways that inspire universal admiration. In the spirit of the oncoming holiday of Passover, here are four questions about leadership under fire.
One: what is the key ingredient to this leadership under fire? Is it the fire that creates the leadership that lands so dramatically? Or is it not about the historic context but the personalities of these two leaders?
Two: do we in America have charismatic leaders like President Zelensky and Governor Kim? Why or why not?
Three: how does their model of charismatic leadership under fire compare with our classic Torah model, which we read yesterday for the Purim Torah reading.
Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, “Pick some men for us, and go out and do battle with Amalek. Tomorrow I will station myself on the top of the hill, with the rod of God in my hand.” Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Then, whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; but whenever he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur, one on each side, supported his hands; thus his hands remained steady until the sun set. And Joshua overwhelmed the people of Amalek with the sword. (Exodus 17: 8-13)
Four: what can we, in our ordinary quiet lives, learn from leaders who display leadership under fire?
The eyes of the world are on Ukraine. Day after day for two weeks now and counting. How can the relentless shelling of civilian targets continue day after day, captured on all our screens in real time, and it keeps happening? What can the United States do about it? What should the the United States do about it? Will the extreme sanction regime work? How does it end? What does it portend?
Our Brotherhood had arranged to have our elected Representative, Jake Auchincloss, himself a marine who had served in Afghanistan, talk about his journey from the battlefield to Congress.
But in light of the urgent international crisis in Ukraine, Representative Auchincloss will instead be talking about the issue on all of our minds: Ukraine. What a gift to have a new voice, and true wisdom, on this deep tragedy unfolding before our very eyes every day. May what we learn from Representative Auchincloss help us help.
This week, in honor of International Women's Day and the upcoming holiday of Purim, we will learn the stories of three women:
Vashti, who encountered drunken debauchery, sexism, and injustice and responded with clarity and conviction. When King Achashverosh demanded that she dance naked in front of his friends, she sent back a one-word answer: no. That response resulted in her death and did not change the status quo in the least. Today, she is just a blip in the megillah.
Zeresh, who encountered racism, egotistical mania, and dreams of domination. She did nothing. Goes along to get along. Her response resulted in her disappearance and maybe even made the situation worse. She features more prominently in the megillah, but we hiss when we hear her name.
And then there was Esther. Her response was nuanced. Her agency limited, but effective. In the end, she saved the day, saved her life, and saved the Jewish world.
What do these women’s stories have to teach us about facing today’s challenges?
Is Ukraine on its own? Or is the world with Ukraine? It is so confusing.
The answer seems to be yes.
On the one hand, the world is with Ukraine. The Daily on March 2 told the fascinating story of how it came to be that the European Union passed unanimously the strongest, toughest, most stringent sanctions ever, including sanctions directed personally against Putin and his henchmen. The nations of the world are supplying Ukraine not only with moral support, and economic support, but also sophisticated weaponry to fight this war.
On the other hand, the people fighting and dying and fleeing are Ukrainians. They are in the trenches alone.
Reflecting on this reality, Danny Gordis, in an unusually evocative piece at this urgent time, writes:
"Israelis watch Ukraine, and we see ourselves. We see this week, and we see one possible future. We know with no uncertainty—we would be alone. We would be abandoned. If we or you ever thought otherwise, it’s time to stop the delusion. To see our possible future, all we have to do is look north at the present."
In other words, if Israel were to be attacked God forbid in any of the scenarios that Danny Gordis lays out, it would be worse for Israel than for Ukraine. We would not have the moral support of the world. We would be alone on the battlefield, and much of the world would be against us.
What light does Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the world’s reaction, shed on our beloved eretz Yisrael, and is this grim picture just what it is, or do we have any moves perhaps to make it any better?
Ever since the war started in Ukraine, I’ve been feeling things that don’t make sense. The space over my heart feels achy, almost bruised. My breathing is shallow, like the air around me is thick with worry and the oxygen can’t get through. My heart races and then goes quiet and then races again. I’m desperate for information, doom-scrolling at all hours, reading every newspaper article I can find, as if my survival depends on what I learn. On a logical level, I know what I am feeling is not real. I live in Boston, thousands of miles from this war. I am safe. And yet, I can’t shake the feeling that this is how it starts, nor can I free myself from the inherited memory of how it ends.
Barbara Gaffin and Betsy Hecker spoke to our congregation about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Both have worked on the partnership between the Boston Jewish community, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, and the Ukrainian Jewish community for many years. They addressed the question on all of our minds: what can I do? How can I help? We are praying for peace every morning and every evening. May our prayers for peace inspire our deeds that help real people in Ukraine now.
What can we do now? Click below to find out!
https://www.templeemanuel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/How-to-Help-Ukraine.pdf
How are we to understand the many stories we have all read about anger run amok in public places; about bad behavior on airplanes, at restaurants, at the bridges that connect Canada and the US blocked by angry Canadian truck drivers? This anger victimizes innocent people, the passengers and flight attendants on the plane, the waiters and fellow diners at the restaurant, drivers trying to cross the bridge who are stuck in traffic for hours on end.
Last shabbos, we gathered in the sanctuary to process the rising threat of antisemitism in our world. Officially, we were talking about the recently released report by Amnesty International which condemned Israel in very intense ways. In clearly antisemitic ways. But we were also thinking about Colleyville, about swastikas carved into gym mats and painted on bathroom stalls here in Newton public schools. We were also thinking about the rise in hate crimes perpetrated against Jews, and about the increasingly vitriolic rhetoric against Israel worldwide. We talked about strategies, about how we might fight these forces.
Underlying our conversation, though, was a deep undercurrent of pain. How is it that even after the Holocaust, how is it the world does not see our plight? How is it the world does not see us? Does not see our context, does not see our story? How are we so invisible?
Robert Leikind, the Regional Director of AJC New England, brought us a special sermon on a recent Amnesty International report and and shared what we, individually, and we as a community, can do to support our beloved Eretz Yisrael.
How do you process a world in which doing the right thing, the kind thing, opening your doors and offering warmth and tea to someone in need, could result in someone holding a gun to your head and taking you hostage? How do you process a world in which synagogues around the country go through security trainings about evading shooters and deescalating terrorist attacks as a matter of course? A world in which our kids are so accustomed to active shooter drills, and so inured to the possibility of sudden violence, that they take news of this trauma in stride. They are not shocked.
And how do you process a world in which someone could decide to fly across the world to find Jews to use as pawns for his hateful aim? A world in which someone is so stewed in antisemitic tropes that he believes that Jews run the world and would be able to pull some strings to make his hateful wish come true? How do you process a world in which Jews, who constitute less than 2% of the population in this country, are victim to almost 60% of religiously motivated hate crimes, according to the FBI? And how do you process the fact that our FBI, which produced the report on religiously motivated hate crimes, refused to acknowledge that the hostage situation was an act of antisemitism until Thursday, calling it instead a “terrorism-related matter”?
For us, this was not unique. But it was uniquely heartbreaking.
Last Saturday night Shira and I had friends over for dinner, a lovely couple we had come to know after Shira had met the wife on a CJP mission to Israel. They walked through our front door bearing gifts. A lovely bouquet of flowers. Very nice. And then something else. Something we had never before received from any guest ever. The husband walked into our living room and presented me with this: a collection of gorgeously bound, all Hebrew, very religious looking, books, a five-volume set, the kind of books one would find in a yeshivah.
For the last thirty-one years, until last year, January 6 had been tied for the very best day in our family’s calendar. Thirty-one years ago our son Sam was born on January 6. In addition, the birthday of our beloved colleague Joan Mael is also January 6. For years, before the pandemic, our colleagues would take Joan out to Legal’s for lunch. At home and at work, I just loved January 6.
And then came last January 6, and the day obviously became a whole lot more complicated.
In 1949, David Schacker’s life was radically transformed. Up until that point, he had been a healthy, bright-eyed, 10-year-old boy who loved running and playing tennis. He had the kind of raw talent that promised opportunity. Everyone knew he would get an athletic scholarship somewhere fabulous and looked forward to watching him succeed.
But that dream was not to be. At ten, Schacker was diagnosed with Polio. Instead of running outside and playing tennis, he spent the year cooped up in St Giles hospital in physiotherapy and treatment.
Adam Grant, the teacher of organizational psychology at Penn, a noted Ted Talk speaker, and the author of best-selling books, was recently on NPR sharing two very different takes on the phenomenon of being wrong.
The first take concerned Adam himself when he was a teen-ager. He and a friend disagreed about a particular song in a Broadway musical. Each thought he was right. Eventually his friend summoned proof that he, the friend, was right. Adam was wrong. Adam could see the proof. Knew the proof was irrefutable. But could not get himself to acknowledge the error of his ways. His friend said: Adam, admit you are wrong. Adam could not bring himself to do it.
Join Cantor Elias Rosemberg and Josh Jacobson as they discuss what you can expect at this year's Hanukkah Happens concert on Thursday, December 23rd, 2021.
The classic comedy “Miss Congeniality” has a montage of beauty pageant contestants, one after the other, answering the question, “What is the one most important thing our society needs?” They all give the same answer: “World peace.” It is a long-running joke – that the notion young beauty queens can have anything to do with resolving long-standing geopolitical tensions is naïve, even slightly offensive. Enter this year’s Miss Universe.
If you have been following the news this week, you may have heard that Israel is hosting this year’s Miss Universe competition.
Of course, in the shadow of the unassailably ugly underbelly of antisemitism that Dara Horn captures so vividly in her book, “People Love Dead Jews,” greater than average controversy was expected – and delivered.
At the beginning of Thanksgiving, my dad and I spent hours combing through genealogical records, trying to find his grandmother. During the pandemic, I read Dani Shapiro’s book The Inheritance and had opened a subscription on MyHeritage.com trying to uncover my own family history.
My dad remembered that he called his dad’s parents Grandpa Loui and Grandma Becky. But he didn’t remember his grandmother’s maiden name or where she was from. He told me that when they visited, they always showed up without announcing themselves and his grandma would prepare more food than anyone could eat in a week. But strangely, you can’t search for a Grandma Becky who cooks too much and sometimes shouts in Yiddish on MyHeritage.com. I found countless Grandma Becky’s in countless historical records but couldn’t find enough information to claim any one of them as my own.
It was only 17 years ago, but it feels like forever ago. It feels like it was a different century when, in 2004, David Brooks wrote a book about America called On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense.His main point was that Americans lived in the future tense, by which he meant that whatever problems we faced in the present moment were not really problems because we imagined a future that would be so much better.
Our house is too small, but no matter. One fine day we will live in a big and spacious house.
Our income is too small, but one fine day we will have a better job which will generate all the resources we need for the life we want to lead.
My health is challenged now, but one fine day I will find the doctor and get the treatment that will have me feeling better than ever.
Our children have not yet found themselves, but in the future they will be living just the happy life they dream of living.
The key to living in the future tense is this limitless sense of optimism that the future will be better than the past.
Most of us do not believe that today if we ever did. Most of us ask a different question. What if this is all there is? What if this is it? What if there is no one fine day? What if the present moment is all we’ve got?
The story is told of a woman who feels that something is missing in her life. She has heard that there is a wise yogi, a spiritual virtuoso, who lives and radiates holiness on the top of a mountain in a remote part of India. She is told that this yogi holds court, and that people from all over the world make a pilgrimage to see him. It’s not easy. You fly to India. Then you take a three-day drive on crowded and unpaved roads. Then you climb the mountain, and it is steep. When you get to the top of the mountain, you wait your turn. There is a long line of seekers ahead of you. And here is the catch. The yogi is so in demand, there are so many people to see him, and he is reputed to be so smart, he just intuits things from a few words, that you can only say eight words to him. This woman, in search of something, desperate to find it, flies to India; takes the three-day drive on crowded and unpaved roads; climbs to the top of the mountain; waits her turn among the many seekers who have come to sit at the feet of the great yogi. At long last, after all that, she faces the wise yogi and says her eight words: Come home, Sheldon, it’s time to come home.
It was a hot summer day in 2008. Rick Mangnall was driving from his rural trailer home in Three Rivers to work at the Community College in Visalia. Living out in the wilds of California, Rick was used to encounters with wildlife. He was used to scorpions hiding out in his clothing drawers and popping out suddenly to attack. He was quite adept at smashing them. But that day, he didn’t see the scorpion that must have hidden away in his clothes. He didn’t notice it until he was driving down a granite-lined street and suddenly felt the scorpion sting his back. In shock, he jerked the wheel and his car veered off the road, straight into the granite wall, and then went airborne. He landed upside-down, suspended by his seat belt.
Rick remembers that scorpion sting and the accident, but he also remembers a moment which changed his life forever. As he hung from his seatbelt, he saw an old white Ford truck stop across the way. An immigrant man got out of the car and came over to him. He put his hand on Rick’s shoulder and just stood there with him. Rick was worried the guy might get in trouble, he knew the ambulance and police were coming. He tried to tell the guy he could go, but the man clearly couldn’t understand him. He didn’t speak any English. But what he did understand, didn’t require language. He understood that Rick was in a tough spot, and stood there with him, quietly offering support. This year, when Hidden Brain put out a call for unsung heroes, Rick shared this story. A full 13 years after his accident, the moment he still thinks about the most is that man who stood by his side. As he shared on air, “I wish I had thanked him…”
Is a complicated first line an inevitable part of living a human and therefore imperfect life?
Is worrying about the complicated first line, and how to avoid it, a healthy practice or a morbid neurosis?
It is the best of times, it is the worst of times.
It is the best of times: David Rosemberg’s Bar Mitzvah. David radiates joy, and that joy fills our congregation.
It is the worst of Times. The Red Sox. The Red Sox’s utter collapse. We win games 2 and 3 in historic fashion, and then lose the next three games. What is that?
These two events, the joy of David’s Bar Mitzvah, and the anguish of the Red Sox collapse, have something very important in common, and it is something that we don’t talk about enough: momentum. Momentum is the strength or force that gathers and grows when something is moving in the right direction.
It was 5:30 AM. Solomon and I were sitting in our usual seats on the boat behind the captain’s chair, watching the shores of Plymouth speed away as we headed towards our favorite fishing spot. After chatting with the captain for a while, Solomon decided it was time for breakfast. He walked over to our bags and pulled out a banana.
“Is that a banana?!” the captain asked, turning white with what seemed like shock.
“Yes,” said Solomon, “this is a banana. Why do you ask?”
“Do you need that banana?”
“I was going to eat it for breakfast, but...I guess I don’t need the banana.”
“Man, I’m sorry, but I can’t let you have a banana on board.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Have you ever seen the cartoon of Noah’s ark floating on the water in the distance while two dinosaurs in the foreground look out and say, “Was that TODAY?” Or the one with unicorns standing at the foot of the ark saying to Noah, “We’ll wait for the next one.”
My favorite of this genre pictures Noah standing on deck as two holes gush with water. He looks down and says, “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought the termites.”
For years now, every few months I receive a failing grade as a good citizen. Every quarter it comes in the mail: the dreaded and terrifying, triggering and retraumatizing Home Energy Report from National Grid. It compares our energy usage to that of Efficient Neighbors and Average Neighbors. It is never pretty. There are three possible grades: Great, represented by a big smiling face; good, represented by a small smiling face; and the dreaded “Using more than average,” which is represented by a sad, frowning face.
Shira and I try. We really do. But every quarter, we get the sad, frowning face. Not only do we use more energy than Efficient Neighbors, we use more energy than Average Neighbors.
That is every quarter since forever. It came then as a total shocker when, in the most recent report, for the first time ever, we did better--much better--than even our most Efficient Neighbors. We got a big, smiling yellow face with the notation that we used “42% less gas” than efficient neighbors.
I was so proud, I could not wait to bring this National Grid report to share it with you.
There is only one problem. I took one more look at this happy National Grid report and noticed that it covered a period during the heart of the summer when we were not living at home; we were living in the Berkshires on an extended Air B and B. We did not use less energy. We used no energy, which is why our report was so good.
In other words, there was a lovely report, but there was a catch that undoes the lovely report. Beware of the catch that undoes.
Imagine a friend or loved one comes to see you with a problem. They are wrestling with a dilemma.
Should I stay where I am at in my current job, or should I take a risk and take a new job?
Should I break up with my current boyfriend or girlfriend?
Should we be open to moving cities, to starting all over again?
Somebody offended me. Should I talk to the person, or do I let it go?
They are open to your advice. They are seeking your wisdom. Now further imagine that having heard their take on their dilemma, you have an opinion on the merits of what they might do.
How we can be most helpful to the person who turns to us?
Adam Grant, a professor at Penn, recently posted a teaching about the difference between what he calls good mentors and great mentors:
Good mentors share lessons from their experience. Great mentors help you crystallize lessons from your experience.
Good mentors give useful answers. Great mentors help you ask better questions.
Good mentors walk you through their path. Great mentors help you identify your path.
Very often I feel that my hair is not doing anything for me. It’s just kind of there. So before Yom Kippur, since I was about to see the entire congregation, I have to confess that in addition to teshuvah, I was thinking about my hair. I shared my dilemma with Shira: Should I go see my hair stylist, Tami, who works at Dellaria? Why, she asked. Because my hair is not doing anything for me, I answered. I think your hair is fine. Fine? Is that all you can say? Married for 36 years? All you can say is that my hair is fine? Say more, I said. OK, she said. Your hair is sparse.
Sparse? What is sparse hair, anyway? I found that very demotivating. It was the day before Yom Kippur, I had more important things to think about, so I did not see Tami before the day of atonement.
However, on the morning after the day of atonement, I was with Tami, who was cutting my sparse hair, we were making pleasant chit chat, and since I have been seeing her for years, I know that Monday is her day off. I asked her: what are you going to do this Monday, on your day off?
"I am coming in to Dellaria Salon this coming Monday."
But Monday is your day off. Why are you coming in?
"Because I want to take a class. They are having a hair expert teach a class on how to color hair. And I want to learn."
Wait a minute, I said. How long have you been a professional hair stylist?
"Over 30 years."
And in those 30 plus years, how many people’s hair have you colored?
"Thousands. Too many to count."
So you already know how to color hair.
"Yes, but I could always learn how to color hair better."
In my synagogue growing up, we had a vibrant tradition of journaling and reflection during services. On the high holidays, they would assemble four tents in the four corners of the sanctuary and during services, it was common for community members to duck into a tent for a moment of quiet meditation or to jot down some ideas in a journal. I always thought that writing was an integral part of Jewish practice.
When I got to college, I was so lonely. I missed home and missed the Judaism I had grown up with. When I spoke to my rabbi, she recommended that I try some of the synagogues off-campus. She thought multi-generational community might be a balm to my soul. So I got up my courage, found the nearest conservative synagogue, and headed there for shabbat morning services.
I was nervous. Uncomfortable. So worried about traffic that I left ridiculously early and got there with nearly a half an hour to spare before services. Those were the days before we had to have security, so I wandered into the sanctuary and found a seat near the back. I pulled out my journal and started writing a letter to God about how lonely I was, asking God to help me make this a good community, to help me feel at home.
Just then, a group of women walked up to me. “What do you think you’re doing?! We don’t write on shabbos! And in the sanctuary of all places?! How dare you!”
I was mortified. Alienated. Heart-broken. I managed to blurt out some hasty apology. The ladies started asking me questions about who I was and how I got there. I answered, trying to hold it together, and waited for services to start. As soon as they did, I fled to my car and cried all the way home.
When I turned 60 this past summer, I developed an intense fascination with my grandfather, my mother’s father, Will Bloom.
It is not just that I am named for him. He was Will, I am Wes. We are both Yechiel Shneyer. The connection is deeper. My grandfather was, in the last season of his life, a traveling salesman. He would drive hundreds of miles a week making sales calls. He was Willy Loman. My mother could never watch Death of a Salesman because the pathos hit too close to home. One day, he died on the road, in a single car accident, suddenly, tragically, and in circumstances that were never explained. Did he fall asleep at the wheel? Did he intend to take his own life? We never knew. One day, out of the blue, my mother gets the call saying that her 60 year old father had died on the road. Her loss was shattering and unimaginable. And she decided to respond by bringing a child into the world to name after her father, that would turn out to be me.
It was an implausible choice, to bring another child into the world. My parents already had five children, one bathroom, and no money. The last thing they needed was another mouth to feed. But my mother was determined to name a child after her father.
Will Bloom’s death, and my life, are intertwined. If he had not died the way he had died, I would never have been born.
How are we to think about this day, the 20-year anniversary of 9/11? This is a day of double memory, double mourning, double pathos.
We remember the lives that were lost on that terrible day, and what that meant to the families who lost them, the spouses who lost spouses, the parents who lost children, the children who lost parents, the brothers and sisters who lost brothers and sisters. In his elegy You’re Missing, Bruce Springsteen gives voice to this pathos.
*Pictures on the nightstand, TV's on in the den
Your house is waiting, your house is waiting
For you to walk in, for you to walk in
But you're missing, you're missing
You're missing, when I shut out the lights
You're missing, when I close my eyes
You're missing, when I see the sun rise
You're missing*
That trauma, that loss, never goes away.
The story is told of a man named Max Gelberg who was 70 years old when his beloved wife of more than 40 years, Goldie, passed away. After mourning her for a year, he decides he has to live in the present. He is only 70. Life must go on.
Does God act in history? If you look at the world, does it testify to the existence of a loving and powerful God who acts to make sure that God’s highest ideals are implemented?
Of course, even asking the question in this hot mess of a summer suggests the implausibility of the premise that God acts in history.
How could God act in history when floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, massive fires cause death and destruction on a massive scale to innocents too numerous to count?
How could God act in history when the Delta variant continues to rage?
How could God act in history when two suicide bombers exploded themselves at the Kabul airport killing 13 American service members and more than 100 Afghan citizens and seriously wounding so many innocent civilians?
In short, any honest assessment of the question would have to come down on the side that God does not act in history.
That assessment seems accurate. But there are two problems with it. It’s a problem for the world to be a hot mess and God-less. And it is a problem for our Jewish sources. The Bible’s signature voice is that God acts in history.
This week I found myself watching, and rewatching obsessively, 1 minute and 11 seconds of sheer human desperation, a video link on my iPad, of chaos and confusion at the Kabul Hamid Karzai International Airport. Throngs of Afghan citizens were so desperate to flee from the Taliban that they ran onto the tarmac and literally clung to the outside of an American military plane as it was moving. They continued to cling to the wings and to the fuselage as the plane began to take off, causing some of those desperate citizens to fall to their deaths. By all accounts, Afghan citizens who helped the American war effort, who translated for us, who believed in us, who trusted us, who served with us, who walked the minefields and took fire with us, were stranded, unable to board a plane to free them from slaughter at the hands of the Taliban.
How are we to understand this heartbreak?
“You’re gonna drown like that.”
I was standing on my tip toes, trying to hold a tarp above our tent while Solomon adjusted the rope tying it to the tree above. We were racing to get our camp set up before the rain.
It was 8 PM in late August of 2000. The subway car screeched into the 14th Street Station in Chelsea; Danny stood near the door with impatience. He was running late for dinner with his partner, Pete. It had been a big year for them. After nearly three years of dating, they had decided to move in together. It seemed like he had finally found his happily ever after. He didn’t want to let Pete down by making him wait.
He rushed off the subway and headed towards the stairs. Just as he began to dash up the stairs, though, dodging fellow travelers, he noticed something strange out of the corner of his eye. It looked like there was a doll swaddled and wrapped up under a bench. That was weird. His legs pumped automatically as he walked up the stairs thinking—what child would deliberately stash their baby doll under a bench like that? He looked back. The doll’s leg moved. He raced down the stairs and towards the bench.
He crouched by the bench and peered at the little baby.
This year, everyone is talking about Naomi Osaka. At 23, Naomi Osaka is one of the best tennis players in the world. Literally. She is a four-time Grand Slam champion and the first Asian player to be ranked number one in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association. In May of this year, Naomi made the bold decision to skip a press conference for which she accepted a $15,000 fine, and then to skip the French Open and Wimbledon all to protect her mental health.
At the time, Naomi explained that she has struggled with depression. She shared that questions at press conferences sometimes cause her to spiral into depressive states and harm her game. In response, the sports conglomerate explained how she was wrong. They fined, threatened her if she continued to refuse, told her they knew better than she what was best for her and claimed they are committed to supporting the mental health of their athletes.
In other words, because these officials and organizers don’t experience crippling mental health challenges, they assumed Naomi’s experience was just like theirs. They thought about what it would be like for them to attend a press conference, they thought objectively about what happens at press conferences, and they arrived at the conclusion that Naomi’s needs were excessive and in violation of her contract. They did not consider that her reality might be different. They just punished her.
What do we do about what happened to Rabbi Shlomo Noginski on Thursday afternoon? What do we do when a man, a husband, a father of ten, an idealist, a rabbi, a teacher, who leaves his home in Israel and comes to our home, Greater Boston, where we live, where we try to have a rich and safe Jewish community, he comes here to be a sheliach, an emissary, at the Shaloh House, a teacher of Torah especially to our beloved Russian Jewish community? What do we do when such a man is stabbed multiple times, after being held up at gunpoint? What do we do when this happened two miles from here?
A few weeks ago I was in Los Angeles on a family reconnection tour seeing relatives I had not seen during the pandemic. I was speaking with my niece Megan and her husband Randy, and they shared an improbable story about a dog. Randy and Megan and their children had loved their dog, a miniature schnauzer, named Kelsie, that was a part of their family for 15 years. That is a long life in dog years. When Kelsie passed away, it was a big loss, and they mourned her.
She died just as the pandemic was setting in. Pets became intensely popular during the pandemic. Cute little puppies were in great demand. Megan and her family would have wanted another dog to love, but given the great demand for puppies during the pandemic, they thought it would be a very long time until they had their new puppy.
Then one night something unexpected happens. Megan is preparing dinner, getting ready to put chicken in the oven. The phone rings. It is her mother-in-law Helene who says to her: If you want a really cute puppy, a Cavapoo, come to my house right now. Off to her mother in law’s she goes.
This week, I was speaking with one of our graduating seniors and he shared a story with me that I just can’t stop thinking about.
He was at a graduation party. During the festivities, he hears some kid opining about how Jews are the worst and Israel has no right to exist. His blood immediately boils, and he rushes to confront the offender. He asks the kid, “how can you say that? That’s so Anti-Semitic.” The room falls silent. Everyone is watching and listening. No one says anything. This other kid continues unperturbed. Our graduate argues with him and yells until he is so angry and so hurt that he leaves the party.
Another story. In May, during the worst of the violence in Israel, a young adult who is converting to Judaism reached out to me to talk about what was happening in Gaza. She told me her friends were all hateful quotes and videos on social media and she felt caught. She unfriended a few people she wasn’t close with who were posting terrible things, but some of her closest friends were also posting problematic videos and memes. It was making her sick. She told me that she tried talking to some of her friends about it, but she didn’t know enough yet to make a compelling case and the whole situation left her feeling anxious and stressed. She wanted to know, if she was going to be a good Jew and a good Zionist, what should she do?
I have these conversations all the time.
Some 45 years ago, in 1976, I saw an episode of a sitcom that I still remember today. It was an episode in the seventh and final season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show entitled “Ted’s Change of Heart.” Ted Baxter, the pompous news anchor played by Ted Knight, has a mild heart attack in the middle of delivering the evening news. After a brief stay in the hospital, he is restored to full health, a rephuah shelaimah, as we would say.
But while he emerges from his cardiac incident healthy and whole, he is not the same person. The trauma changed him. He is filled with an acute sense of wonder and gratitude for blessings that he had never noticed before.
I want to tell you an odd story, not well known. I’ll call it the case of the missing mitzvah. The Hebrew Bible relates two cases when important mitzvot were lost to the Jewish people. Jews just stopped doing them, in one case for 40 years, in the other case for hundreds of years.
We have all been thinking a lot about Israel the last two weeks. I want to talk to you this morning about an Israel story, and a human story, that you won’t find in the papers. It is about a kiss.
It is a kiss that many of us will give, and many of us will receive, in our lives. It is a kiss that we about this past Tuesday, on Shavuot, in the Book of Ruth.
Madeline always loved to sing. As a teenager, she had a gorgeous voice, a two-and-a-half octave range, and the kind of creative artistry that made people swoon. She and her friends would sing along to Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Judy Garland, and she took the stage at every wedding and bar mitzvah she could. In high school, won an adult talent contest at the Adams Theater in Newark. On her way out, comedian Joey Adams told her that she “had a very good voice and…should pursue it.”
That dream was tempting....but Madeline’s family was struggling.
We’ve known this for a while, but suddenly the realization that you only live once has taken on a fierce urgency. The acronym YOLO, you only live once, was popularized by the rapper Drake in 2013, but as we are emerging from the pandemic YOLO has a new energy as a call to action. Last week New York Times writer Kevin Roose authored a piece entitled “Welcome to the YOLO economy” about how many millennial workers, as they emerge from the pandemic, want to make real changes to their lives because you only live once.
I want to tell you a story about a magic spoon. The story comes from a different time and place, the 1870s in a town in Romania called Stefanesti, where there was an illustrious Hasidic dynasty. The most famous of these Hasidic masters was Rabbi Avrohom Mattisyou Friedman, who became the Second Shtefaneshter Rebbe in 1869 and continued for 64 years. He was considered a hidden tzaddik who could effect miracles. The most famous of these miracle stories concerns a Hasid who comes to see the Rebbe because his daughter had typhus. She was desperately ill. She had very little time left. Rebbe, only a miracle can save her. What happens next is told in a history of this Hasidic dynasty:
I heard a story on NPR this week that kind of blew my mind. They were talking about how, since the start of the pandemic, requests for plastic surgery procedures have gone up something like 85%. Plastic surgeons shared that they are getting so many more requests that they have had to hire additional people just to field those phone calls. They are working overtime, late into the night, trying to accommodate everyone. And what is so interesting is they are getting requests for procedures that did not used to be so popular. People are looking to tighten their jawlines, adjust their nostrils, tighten their necks, and bodywork as well. And when people reach out, nine out of ten people share that they’re reaching out because of ZOOM. Because now that they’re on ZOOM all day long, they’re looking at their faces and they’re noticing the way they look when they talk, when they interact, when they work. They’re noticing places they never knew they wanted to improve.
You do not have to be Jewish to love Shtisel, the fabulous Netflix series about a Haredi family in Jerusalem. While this family is Haredi, their problems are human and universal. Anyone can relate to them. Season 3 was just released, and one vignette is so poignant it captures the complexity of saying Yizkor.
Shtisel, the family patriarch, has been a widower for seven years. One day he experiences heart pain. He calls the number of his kupat cholim, his medical network in Israel.
Again, while it’s about Israel, and the dialogue is in Hebrew, the story connects with any human anywhere who has ever been caught up in electronic phone hell and cold bureaucracy.
If you know teens who play hockey, you know how all important it is for them to get their time on the ice. That time is limited and hard to come by. Hockey parents are wont to drive their young hockey stars to the ice rink at 6 in the morning.
In a place like Seaforth, Ontario, the ice rink manager, Graham Nesbitt, had a quality problem. There was only one ice rink. But hockey in Canada is super popular. Far more kids want to play hockey than can comfortably skate in the city’s one rink. But Graham Nesbitt was committed to the idea that any teen who wants to skate can skate, and he would go out of his way to open up the rink early in the morning, to stay there and keep it open late at night, seven days a week. He would keep the rink open in the face of major snowstorms. When other businesses were closed, his ice rink was open for any young skater whose parents were willing to drive them through the storm to get extra ice time. Graham Nesbitt did not see his job as managing an ice rink but as nurturing teen athletes who dreamed of becoming hockey players.
Graham Nesbitt embodies a principle that is important to Judaism and eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. The principle is what my sister Lee calls the law of the radiator. What you radiate comes right back to you.
How are you? We’re conditioned to answer, “Good,” “Fine,” “Okay,” or, perhaps if you are like me, “Thank God.” When we are in person and someone asks you this question, the response comes automatically – a habit, a construct of polite conversation. But from the comfort of your own home or wherever you are, behind the privacy of a screen, let me ask you again. And let me invite you to pause before you answer. How are you?
Tom Ammiano struggled in high school. A teenager in the late 50s, he was gangly and effeminate, with a high-pitched voice. Even though he wasn’t out of the closet, everyone knew that he was different, and they bullied him mercilessly for it. Back then, homophobia legally enforced. Same-sex partnerships were criminalized. Being gay was seen as a mental health issue, and one deserving of ridicule and scorn. Tom knew there was no universe in which he could be his full self.
Nevertheless, he tried to fit in.
This week a member of our community told me something that was so interesting, so unexpected, so profound, and so previously unknown to me, that I have been thinking about it pretty much non-stop ever since.
From our earliest childhood days, we read a story – told through multiple characters in multiple ways – which always follows the same orderly and optimistic script: a young girl falls in love with a doting prince, who whisks her off to a gleaming castle where she lives in luxury and attendant joy all the days of her life. The princess lives “happily ever after.”.....Except when she doesn’t.
One fine afternoon I was listening to Fresh Air on NPR, and the interview totally drew me in. Terri Gross was interviewing a woman who did something out of her ideals and idealism. It was self-sacrificing. It took her time, a lot of it. It exposed her to danger, a lot of it. What was so compelling to me about the interview was that she had to explain that her mother, herself a person of high ideals and idealism, objected to what her daughter did, for reasons of her own principle. In fact, the mother loathed what her daughter did, and told her so.
We have heard about IQ, the Intelligence Quotient, a measure of our intellectual capability – our book smarts. More recently, we came to understand the critical complementary role of EQ – Emotional Quotient, or people skills. Now there is a new Q on the block – AQ, Adaptability Quotient, our ability to adapt to unanticipated changes in the landscape of our lives. Boy, do we all need a hefty helping of AQ right now.
There is a lively tradition of debate as to how much of our IQ, EQ, and AQ are innate, and how much we can grow along any of these tracks.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-michelle-robinson/aq/
Laughter Really is the Best Medicine
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/laughter-really-is-the-best-medicine/
If I had to pick a word that captures the place where many of us find ourselves, that word would be stuck. S-t-u-c-k. Stuck.
We are stuck in winter. We’ve been through December’s cold, January’s cold, this past week’s storm. It’s early February, still cold, still icy. In previous years we might go somewhere warm. But not this year.
We are stuck in month 11 of the pandemic. While more people are beginning to get vaccinated, we still have such a long way to go. We are so far from Israel’s experience with vaccines. The wisest counsel that our wonderful health advisors give us is: be patient. We are in for a long ride, not clear how long, but long. We are stuck for longer than any of us wants living a pandemic life. We are stuck without places to go and things to do. A quiet and isolated Super Bowl, to go with all the other quiet and isolated holidays of this surreal year.
This past Tuesday night, erev Inauguration, in a cold classroom with the windows open, and the January wind coursing through, I decided to get a sense of how our seventh graders felt about America. So I gave each student a sheet of paper that had a prompt on it, and asked everyone to think about the prompt and write their response which they would then share.
The prompt was: “America is the greatest country in the history of the world.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Please explain your reasoning.
That prompt came from me, from my heart and soul. I grew up believing it. I went to college in the late 70s and early 80s, majoring in American history. After studying American history, I still somehow believed it. Shira and I brought three children into the world, and I believed it. And taught it to my children. I told Nat, Sam and Jordana many times, while they were under our roof, America is the greatest country in the history of the world–because it welcomes immigrants from all over the world.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” In just a few words, Charles Dickens penned one of the most powerful and gripping opening lines in the history of literature. It is also, frankly, a questionable line. If you read the rest of the story, you will notice that A Tale of Two Cities does a glorious job capturing the grit and despair that Dickens describes as the “worst of times.” It is much harder to identify what makes it the best.
In the late 1990s, a young college student named Joshua Rothman caught the dot.com fever. So did two of his close friends. These three undergrads fancied themselves budding high- tech executives, entrepreneurs who were going to create some cutting-edge business in the new economy, sell it off for untold riches, and then do it again. They worked and worked, they hardly slept, and out of their dorm rooms they created an early version of an internet dating service and insurance business. Alas, having invested the better part of their college career in this business, the outfit that they hoped would buy it was not interested in it; they had no other suitors; they had bills they could not pay. It was their senior year in college, they were graduating, and their business dreams came to naught.
There is an amazing new sculpture on Commonwealth Avenue. Carved out of a tree trunk, in mid-stride is a magnificent runner confidently bounding up Heartbreak Hill. I pass him every day on my way to Temple Emanuel and am always struck by how he never seems to run out of energy. A little more than 10 years ago, I ran a marathon. Well, “run” is perhaps too generous a word. I jogged for a super-long time until I crossed the finish line in what I had hoped would be under six hours. To this day, I am still not entirely sure what possessed me to do this.
Every time I pass that tree trunk runner, I think back to my marathon. The tree trunk runner was carved to life in the middle of a global pandemic – at a time that the Boston Marathon has now been called off for a second season. The tree trunk runner is, by definition, rooted in place – stuck – on Heartbreak Hill, the hardest part of the route. Yet the sculptor filled him with eternal boundless positive momentum.
It is the Shabbat of Hanukkah, typically a time when we give and receive gifts. But this Hanukkah takes place in the tenth month of our pandemic. What is the right kind of gift to give in a pandemic?
In his book Morality, the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks contrasts the happiness that comes from the market with the happiness that comes from a moral dimension. When we try to find our happiness in the market, he puts it this way: we spend money we don’t have, on products we don’t need, for a happiness that won’t last. By contrast, the biblical and rabbinic traditions emphasize a moral dimension. Happiness is not what you buy or what you own. Happiness is what you do, living a moral life, being a force for good in the world.
We all know the old Jewish teaching that if you save a life, you’ve saved a world. We all know that each human on this earth is created in God’s image. We are all holy. And yet, all too often we forget the magic, the unique brilliance of every person around us. All too often, we see people only for the functions they perform in our lives. We see grocery delivery people and mail carriers, we see clerks and landscapers, we see employees and teachers, but we forget that within each person is a whole world of wisdom, life experiences, and love.
Today I want to share with you the story of someone you may have seen but may not have seen.
Drake Thadzi was born in 1964 in Lilongwe, Malawi. The country had just been liberated from British rule and was settling into a new totalitarian state led by President Bandas which would last for the next thirty years. There were death squads that would kill dissidents and everyday citizens had to carry id cards to prove their affiliation with the proper political party before they could ride the bus or access groceries. Drake’s mother was murdered in front of his eyes and he became a fighter out of necessity. At that time, boxing wasn’t a sport, it was a survival tactic.
When Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks passed away earlier this month, he was arguably the most impactful English-speaking rabbi in the modern world: prolific, profound, patient, persuasive, powerful. His words of Torah touched and transformed countless lives.
If anyone was born to be a rabbi, it was Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks – though to hear him tell it, becoming a rabbi, let alone the spiritual guide of a generation, was not his plan.
In an interview this past summer with Tim Ferriss, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks tells a story about himself as a young 20-something. Young Jonathan thought he would grow up to be an accountant or a lawyer. The year, he says, was “1968, when Simon & Garfunkel were counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike and they’ve all come to look for America. In 1968,” he shared, “the end of my second year at university, at 20 years old, I thought to myself, ‘I don’t know much about Judaism, about religion, but I do know there are lots of distinguished, distinguished rabbis.’ And so I decided…to take a plane to the States and buy a Greyhound bus ticket — a hundred dollars, unlimited travel…I went around looking for America and counting the rabbis. Not the cars. And I met lots and lots of terrific rabbis.”
The great preacher in Atlanta, Andy Stanley, has recently given a series of sermons about a topic that is always relevant, especially now. What happens, he asks, when it is what it is, and what is isn’t great. You don’t love it, but you are stuck with it.
Your marriage is what it is. Your health is what it is. Your kids are what they are. Your financial situation is what it is. Your job is what it is. There can be so many areas in our life where it’s not great. We are not loving it. But there is no clear way to change it. No easy way to get out of it. What do you do?
That universal problem has a particular application in month nine of the pandemic, when the number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are all soaring— and all of us are suffering from Covid fatigue, social isolation and numbing routine. Our Thanksgiving this year is what it is: small, different, disconnected, not like any other Thanksgiving.
When life is what it is, when Covid is what it is, how do we think about it, what do we do about it?
Today, I want to share the story of a woman who stood in the shadows of history, but whose vision, whose courage, whose convictions have paved the way for generations. We always talk about Ruby Bridges. We never talk about her mother.
Lucille Commadore Bridges, who passed away this week at the age of 86, grew up in Tylertown, Mississippi. She was the daughter of sharecroppers and dreamed of a world where she could learn and grow and become everything she was meant to be. But that world was not her world, and though her parents dreamed of a better life for her, reality limited her opportunity. After the eighth grade, she was forced to leave school so that she could help her parents in the field. She grew up, hemmed in by Jim Crow and blatant racism. She became a housekeeper, married a mechanic, and saved away her dreams for her children.
Paradoxically, it turns out that we are the United States of America after all.
United in our insomnia. Both Republicans and Democrats report not being able to get a decent night’s sleep.
United in our fear. Both parties fear that if the other candidate wins, the very future of our nation is endangered.
United in our alienation from national unity. However you voted, the reality is that about half the country voted for the other candidate. United in not getting that fifty percent.
United in living with a pit in our stomach.
United in handling all this stress not well. We eat too much. We drink too much. We perseverate too much.
The United States of America. United in our dividedness. United in our 50-50 split.
In the face of this division, I want to raise a single question. For each person listening, here is the question: what can I do, what can I personally do right now, to make this grim situation a little better?
In her classic study of presidential leadership entitled Leadership in Turbulent Times, Doris Kearns Goodwin observes that Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Baines Johnson all shared something in common: each fell into a deep depression years before they became president, and each was able to recover to the point that they could become and function as president.
In our fast and furious news cycle with so many historic moments of upheaval and anxiety covered every day, in the middle of this past week came a report that was different from all the rest. Instead of division and despair, it noted that the current Pope had said supportive words about the LGBTQ community. “They are children of God and have a right to a family,” Pope Francis said. “Nobody should be thrown out or be made miserable because of it.” He continued, “What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered."
This was instantly met with backlash both from conservatives who railed at what they saw as a betrayal of Church doctrine, like Father Gerald Murray of New York, who said, “Pope Francis has overstepped his bounds,” and from liberals – too little too late.
Our Torah reading today is loaded with characters who get lots of press: God creating the heaven and the earth; Adam and Eve and the serpent in the garden of Eden; Cain and Abel. All these stories are well known. But the character who speaks most powerfully to us now, in our time—in month eight of the pandemic, in the last month before an epochally divisive election—the person who has the most to say to us now is the one person most of us have never heard of. His name is Seth.
Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. But Cain killed Abel. If we pause here, and take this epoch narrative seriously, imagine what it would be like to be Adam and Eve, the parents of this murderously dysfunctional sibling pair. One child is dead, murdered by your other child. The other child has blood on his hands and is sent away by God nah v’nad b’aretz, to wander the world.
Growing up, Ann Patchett dreamed of becoming one thing, and one thing only, a writer. “I wrote and read and read and wrote, ” she observes in the current edition of The New Yorker. She didn’t like sports. She didn’t like clubs. She didn’t like socializing. She liked books, reading them and learning how to write them. She fulfilled her dream. Her many books, like Bel Canto and The Dutch House, have become both critical and commercial successes.
Yet for all her acclaim as a writer, her father Frank never believed in her as a writer, and told her so, explicitly, painfully, and repeatedly.
On Tuesday, Solomon and I spent hours lugging wood and trellises up three flights of stairs to assemble the frame of our sukkah on the roof. At the end of the day, I asked Solomon to take a picture of me, in between the walls of our sukkah, in a power pose. I sent the picture to our family with the caption “we did it!”
דִּבְרֵי֙ קֹהֶ֣לֶת בֶּן־דָּוִ֔ד מֶ֖לֶךְ בִּירוּשָׁלִָֽם׃
On Sukkot, we read Kohelet and Kohelet has a lot to say here.
On Wednesday, I woke with a start. An ominous crash sounded on our roof. I catapulted out of bed, imagining that our sukkah had collapsed or was about to blow off the roof to cause who knows what damage. I ran up to the roof in my pajamas, dodging the plants that had toppled in the wind. Our sukkah was still standing, but barely.
A while back I was searching my bookshelf for Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” a philosophical masterpiece from the Holocaust era that has shot up Amazon’s bestseller list, a balm for our pandemic world. Frankl’s most profound point? That the answer to the question, “What is the meaning of life?” is, “To make meaning."
I love the book. I needed the book. I know I have the book; my copy is dog-eared from repeated reading. But I couldn’t find the book.
As I searched high and low, an entirely different book jumped out at me. Its spine read, “Not Quite What I Was Planning.” If ever there were a phrase that captured where we are right now, that would be it! I would wager there are not many of us who can say, “Yes, this is exactly where I thought I would be come Sukkot.”
When I first heard the story of Thom Brennaman, I knew that I had to talk about it on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of our year. Thom Brennaman has something to teach everyone of us.
Thom Brennaman was a sportscaster who called Major League Baseball games for 33 years. There are a 162 games in a Major League Baseball season, and at least nine innings per game. Thom Brennaman therefore called at least 48,114 innings of baseball over 30 years, not counting the many games that went into extra innings. He had a special relationship with the Cincinnati Reds, whose games he started calling 14 years ago. His connection with the Reds was generational. His father Marty Brennaman had also called games for the Reds, and the son took over the mantle when his father retired, m’dor l’dor.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/your-final-chapter-not-your-finest-chapter/
It was right after Erev Rosh Hashanah services that I heard the news. Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. Erev Rosh Hashanah. Happy. New. Year.
I wanted to cry and scream and panic all at once. My throat constricted. My breathing hitched. Tears threatened to burst from my eyes.
I was heartbroken. And I was furious.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/for-the-sin-of-being-an-arrogant-sheep/
December 30, 1983 was a freezing cold day in New York City. On that day a New York firefighter named Eugene Pugliese was fixing a broken pipe in SoHo. Just then a man comes running up the street shouting that there was a fire. Pugliese follows him, running towards the fire as fast as he possibly can. The firefighter can see that an apartment building is on fire. Smoke is billowing out from the sixth floor. He runs inside the building. Is anyone here? Is anyone here? He can see that an artist’s studio is engulfed in flames. Pugliese sees a woman crying hysterically. My baby! My baby! My baby is in the fire.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/infinite-good/
With four children schooling from home last spring, people would often ask me how things were going at our house. I would smile and reply, “It’s one part Little House on the Prairie, one part Lord of the Flies.”
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-michelle-robinson/lord-of-the-flies/
If you had to pick the single most essential personal quality to be working on right now, what would it be? Let me place this question in a context by sharing three recent conversations.
One was from a beloved long-time member who really misses coming to services on Shabbat morning. She misses it so much that she has counted exactly how many Shabbatot it has been since she was last in shul. At the time we spoke, she had not been in shul for 25 Shabbatot.
A second was from a wonderful couple that told me how much they used to love the energy of coming back to services on Rosh Hashanah. They have had the same seats, in the same pews, near the same friends, for years. It just won’t be the same this year, they observed.
A third was with a high school parent who shared their teen-age daughter, upon hearing that the Newton high schools will be all virtual this year, lamented that her high school experience has been, in her words, “ruined.” She points to all the things that she used to do, has not done since March and will now not be able to do again for a full year, including not seeing her friends every day. Hence her dark verdict, ruined, and her father is at a loss for how best to love her through it.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/stamina-when-you-are-in-the-shadows/
100% of us share the same problem. 100% of us will be experiencing the same problem next week on Rosh Hashanah. 100% of us experience the same problem in different ways every day. Here is the problem. I’ll use the language of the High Holidays. When God calls on Abraham, Abraham says: Hineni. I am here. Our problem is, how do we say I am here, when I am not here?
How does the Newton North or Newton South high school student say I am here for their new school year, when they are not here? The learning is remote.
How does your college sophomore or junior say I am here for my college experience, when they are not here? They are in their high school bedroom.
How do you say I am here for my office or workplace environment when there is no office or workplace environment?
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our websitehttps://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/block-out-to-dial-in-a-strategy-for-hineni-in-the-age-of-covid/
The new NFL season begins next week. For the first time in 20 years, Tom Brady will not be playing for the New England Patriots. He will be playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. If you are not a football fan, here is some background. Tom Brady is widely regarded as GOAT, the Greatest quarterback Of All Time. In a league in which most players play a short time, get injured, and are replaced by a younger, healthier player—NFL stands for Not For Long—he has played 20 years and counting. In a league set up to promote parity, where every team has the chance to win the Super Bowl, and no one team is supposed to dominate year after year, Brady has led the team to an unrivaled dynasty. In his 20 years, he has led the Patriots to 17 playoffs, 13 Division titles, 9 Super Bowl appearances, 6 Super Bowl victories. His sustained excellence over two decades is literally without precedent. But instead of retiring as a Patriot, or playing another year for our team, he is going to start for another team. And my question is: how should we regard that?
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/ours-for-now-not-forever/
I want to talk to you about something that is very pleasant and productive at the same time. You hear a lot about it from creative types, from artists, singers, composers, writers, athletes—but it is not limited to these fields. It is the feeling of having flow. F-l-o-w. Here is how having flow is defined by dictionary.com:
In positive psychology, a flow state, also known colloquially as being in the zone, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.
When you have flow, when you are in the zone, you are doing something that you are really good at, something that you have been trained to do, something that evokes the 10,000 hours Malcolm Gladwell taught us it takes to get really proficient at our chosen craft, and you are gushing forth with your creativity. The hours go by. Time melts away. You don’t even notice. The writer writes, the pianist plays, the singer sings, the athlete competes, and before they know it, several hours have passed.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/flow/
I am about to violate three cardinal rules of giving sermons. One: Don’t talk about sin. That’s too old-school. Two: Don’t talk about punishment. That’s too draconian. Three: Don’t talk about God. That goes whoosh, over peoples’ heads. Too many folks are not God people.
So in view of those three cardinal rules, here is my question: Do you believe in a God who punishes you for your sins?
Why bring up this heavy topic now, on a late August summer weekend? Two reasons.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/do-we-believe-in-a-god-who-punishes-us-for-our-sins-a-question-for-the-elul-of-covid-19/
In our American milieu, we pride ourselves on individualism. We believe in the power of the American dream—the ability of every person to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, to make of themselves something great. Because we believe so much in the power of every individual, we tell stories of success as if each person were fighting against the current of the world, we talk about how they did this and thought that. Rarely do we remember to include in their stories the people that helped them along the way.
It’s true that each one of us has the potential to live our American dream. But that dream doesn’t just come because we’ve got talent or because we work hard. More often than not, our dreams come true because there are people in our lives who care about us and support us, and who help us to open the doors to our future.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/whats-cooking/
I want to speak to you today from the heart about something that is very important to me, I care a lot about it, yet I have never before in 23 years spoken about it from the bimah: BDS, the movement to boycott, divest and sanction Israel, the movement to single out Israel, from among all the nations in the world, not China, which imprisons its Muslim minorities, not Turkey, which stifles its dissenters, not any of the number of countries where being gay is a capital offense, but BDS focuses only on the Jewish state for special boycott, divestment, and sanctions. BDS does not say boo, does not raise a peep, about all these countries that violate basic human rights, but it saves 100% of its anger, 100% of its energy, only for the Jewish state. Why is that? Is there some agenda here?
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/bds-boycott-divestment-and-sanction-of-only-one-state-the-jewish-state-hateful-ideas-have-hateful-consequences/
The latest symbol of the American culture wars is a can of beans. In case you missed the political scuffle, last week Robert Unanue, the CEO of Goya Foods, the largest Hispanic owned company in the U.S., stood next to the President in the Rose Garden and declared his support.
The response was swift and severe: a massive outcry that took social media by storm with clips of Hispanic celebrities flushing Goya beans down their toilets, tweets of tutorials for how to hand-soak beans, calls to boycott Robert Unanue and Goya Foods for what he had said. No question of why he was there or what his words meant to him.
A similarly swift response came from the right – a “buycott.” No question of why so many were so hurt.
Boycott or buycott, one thing was clear. Goya had just taken center stage in what has become the template for how we in America engage with each other today – through what is colloquially called “cancel culture.” The concept of “cancel culture” is a political flashpoint, often attributed only to liberals on the left. But the truth is that both on the left and the right, we in America today are quick to “cancel” those with whom we disagree.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-michelle-robinson/cancel-culture/
Is it possible to be at peace in the middle of a pandemic?
Every morning we hear the grim statistics, how many infected, how many hospitalized, how many died. Every morning, these numbers keep growing. Is it possible to be at peace while hearing these numbers?
And while statistics convey one kind of truth, individual stories convey a deeper truth. Like the story of Charles Hiser. Charles Hiser was an 82-year old widower. He had been married to his beloved wife Shirley Mae for 43 years. When she passed, he was all alone. His main source of human connection was the Graystone Baptist Church in West Virginia. For several months, while the church was closed, he saw nobody. The only human contact he had was with his daughter who would drop off groceries and talk to him over the phone. At last his church reopened. He could not wait to get back. He chose not to wear a mask. He contracted the virus. He died. Is it possible to hear that story—the pathos of his loneliness, the urgency of his need to be with people, the tragic ending—is it possible to hear that story and somehow be at peace?
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/is-it-possible-to-be-at-peace-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic/
In honor of the Fourth of July, I want to tell you a true story about our beloved nation in a hard season on its finest day.
Our story begins in Aleppos, Syria, where a young boy named Abdulkader Hayani left school at the age of 9 to learn the craft of tailoring. He got to be a master tailor and came to own his own tailor shop in Aleppo, overseeing six employees and ten sewing machines. But when the Syrian civil war began, Aleppo was reduced to ruins, and his tailoring business was no more.
Together with his family, Abdulkader Hayani fled to Jordan. They applied for refugee status to come to America. They wait and wait, in limbo, for five years. Finally they are given papers. They arrive—husband, wife, four young children—in 2017. Volunteers from Temple Beth Elohim help them settle into their new life: rented home in Framingham, child care, clothing, technology, job interviews, transportation, and navigating a whole new language and culture.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/pivot/
This week, I had the most interesting conversation with one of our now-7th graders. I asked her what advice she would give to incoming 6th graders about how to succeed in middle school. I thought she would say something about the importance of doing homework on time or paying attention in class; something she had learned which helped her academically. Instead, immediately and without hesitation she said, “sometimes it’s hard to fit in, but if you try really hard, maybe you can.”
Her answer pulled at my heartstrings. I remember that feeling, of being in middle school and knowing there was a crowd of cool kids I wasn’t a part of. I remember all the ways I contorted myself, thinking that if I behaved in this way or joined that club, then people would like me and I would fit in. I remember being bullied mercilessly. And with shame, I remember watching other kids being bullied and thinking Thank God for once it’s not me. The idea of doing something that would alienate me further from my peers was horrifying. And while that fear has quieted over the years, that little inner 6th grader is still very much a part of me.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/lessons-from-a-6th-grader/
Since the murder of George Floyd, I have heard two voices from the members of Temple Emanuel.
By far the more common voice is moral outrage at the structural racial injustice that the murder of George Floyd revealed. I knew, but I didn’t know. I saw, but I didn’t focus. I should have done more. I am complicit. But now I am awakened. What books can I read? What films can I see? Where can I get an education around my own implicit bias? What can I do to help?
That is the first reaction, and the more common. In the last two weeks both Michelle and Aliza have delivered powerful sermons channeling and responding to this voice.
But there is a second voice as well. Less common. Often spoken with a bit of trepidation. Often framed with words like: Of course George Floyd’s murder was terrible. Of course racism is a problem. After these preliminary framings, there is always a but. But Black Lives Matter as a movement is anti-Israel. Many of the activists demanding racial justice are openly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. Why can’t you be honest about black anti-Semitism? So today I would like to talk about black anti-Semitism.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/but-what-about-black-anti-semitism/
I want to speak to you today as a millennial.
As a millennial, people tell me I don’t understand—that problems take time to resolve, they take nuance, they take patience. But I know that just because things have been a certain way, doesn’t mean that’s how they need to stay. As a millennial, I know that often we do not have the luxury of time. If we want to make our world conform to our values, we may have to upset industries, we likely have to forge new paths, and we can’t always rely on the systems that existed for our parents and those before them. As a millennial, I know that often the greatest obstacle to the evolution of the planet is the common human aversion to change. As long as we are more attached to the certainty of what is known than the uncertainty of change, progress will remain elusive.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/time-to-drag-out-our-mattresses/
When the coronavirus first hit and schools around the world shut down, Israeli mother Shiri Kenigsberg Levi rose to internet stardom, sharing her displeasure with the world in a hilarious homeschool harangue. A few weeks later she was at it again – this time in honor of Mother’s Day, reflecting on the super-power of one word.
She begins: “I realized something that if not for the coronavirus I would not have paid attention to – that the children say one word without adding anything, and I already know what they need…Ema.” Mom.
“There’s this…‘E-maaah’ [deep voiced] which is a teenager who hasn’t eaten in 10 minutes and is already starving.”
“There’s this…‘EE-MAAAAHHHH!’ [annoyed]…which is a teenager who’s been fortressed in her room for fifty days…and one of her brothers dares to open the door for a second.”
She goes on for several minutes, sharing lots of ways “Mom” is called out in tones that any mother, in any language, immediately understands.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-michelle-robinson/somebodys-baby/
In the 70s, Walter Mischel began the experiment that we all know and love, and which became one of the most famous psychological experiments of all time. At the time, he wanted to explore the relationship between a child’s patience and ability to wait and their success later in life. To conduct the experiment, he sat four-year-old children in front of a marshmallow and told them they had a choice. They could eat the marshmallow right away, or, they could wait 15 minutes at which point they would receive an additional marshmallow.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/abra-kadabra/
In case we did not have enough to worry about, earlier this month news broke about a whole new out-of-left field threat: murder hornets. If their name itself does not do it, the description of these vicious insects is enough to send shivers up the spine. The nearly 2-inch predators can singlehandedly destroy the entire population of a honeybee hive in a most gruesome manner within the span of just a few hours.
So far, the American honeybee population, which was already waning (remember the “Save the Bees” campaigns of previous years?), have absolutely no recourse. The so-called murder hornets are impervious to their stings. The bees cannot flee far enough or fast enough, and they cannot protect their queen.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-michelle-robinson/murder-hornets/
I realized I had a problem last Friday when I was doing our weekly shopping for Shabbat at Whole Foods—when I saw, and could not resist buying, this large package of 16 toilet paper rolls that we definitely do not need.
One of the glories of the Whole Foods where I shop is that often they have large packages of toilet paper available, one per customer. I go there once a week, and whenever they happen to have the toilet paper available, I buy it. The lockdown has been 8 weeks. Five of those 8 weeks they have had toilet paper. Which means that in the past two months I have bought 80 rolls of toilet paper. That’s enough toilet paper. It’s just Shira, Sam and me. We are good. We don’t need another roll.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/bigger/
A few months ago, when I would send an e-mail to the congregation, I would get scores of bounce-backs – out-of-office replies like, “Thank you for your e-mail, I’m travelling for business and will get back to you as soon as I can.” Or, “I’m on vacation. I’ll be offline with limited access to e-mail. If you need something, call someone else.”
I sent an e-mail last week and received exactly one bounce-back. What does it mean for our days (and nights) that while most of us are home, almost none of us are “out of office?” What is the impact of waking up every day in the same place with the same limited range of options before us, plugged in 24/7 on the same screens, and no clear end in sight?
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-michelle-robinson/unflattening-time/
There is a very poor neighborhood in Cape Town, South Africa that is regularly terrorized by two rival street gangs. These gangs literally kill each other and extort, harass, and intimidate townspeople. Police could not stop the violence. Preachers, pastors, counselors, star soccer players could not stop the violence. You know what did stop the violence? The Coronavirus.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/more-is-more/
There is a nurse in Florida who lives in a town that is blessed not to have much Covid-19 activity. When she heard about the surge happening in our Commonwealth this week, she decided to help. She left her husband, her children, and her home in Florida and got right to work in one of our hospitals treating those infected with the virus. She leaves all she knows behind to run towards the population that the rest of us are running away from. She was asked by an NPR reporter whether she was worried about getting infected. No, she said. She will take all proper precautions—but what she is worried about is whether she is doing her part.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/lord-please-help-me-be-gentle-with-myself/
[sung] My life flows on in endless song, above earth’s lamentation. I hear the real, though far off hymn, that hails a new creation. Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear that music ringing. It sounds an echo in my heart, how can I keep from singing?
Every year when we read the Passover story, and every time we sing the Song of the Sea, I wonder what it would have been like to be an Israelite passing through those tumultuous waters. I imagine them exhausted after weeks of not sleeping because of the plagues and because of the Egyptians crying in the night. I imagine them worn tired by the journey to the sea. I imagine the way their heartbeats must have thundered in their ears as they crossed through the waters, the way they must have panicked with each squelchy step, turning to see Egyptians approaching from behind.
And that moment, the ultimate moment, when they reached the other side and watched the waters crash down on their pursuers. What did they feel?
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/how-can-we-keep-from-singing/
One of the consequences of our surreal season has been greater clarity about what really matters in life. I hear that again and again—what really matters—from people in various stages of life.
There was a bride and groom who were going to get married this summer. It was to be a glorious venue, with a stunning view of the water, in a historic villa, uber elegant, with hundreds of guests. The tables were going to be set with the finest linens, china and flowers. Now all of that is up in the air. When I asked them how I could be helpful, they said: simple. Just hold the date. We want to get married. The venue, the view, the villa, it doesn’t matter. The linens, the china, the flowers, it doesn’t matter. What really matters is our love and our marriage. If we have to do it privately, virtually, so be it.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/what-really-matters-a-contemporary-coronavirus-dayeinu/
Last year, I made a Passover parody playlist to help our family get in the holiday spirit. This year, a friend sent me a coronavirus playlist with songs like, “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” “U Can’t Touch This,” and “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” Or my personal favorite for this Pesach: “From a Distance.”
Last night, many of us connected with our loved ones from a distance via Zoom, FaceTime, and other virtual platforms. In Israel, there’s a new Pesach move: ochlim b’nifrad, shirim b’yachad – eat separately and sing together.
Last night, all over Israel, with the entire country on lockdown and not allowed even to leave their homes, people took a page out of two other major Jewish holiday playbooks. Apartment-dwellers channeled Hannukah, moving their tables to their front windows. Those with more outdoor room channeled Sukkot, setting their tables out on balconies or in backyards, so they could join neighbors in song. Eating at separate tables, singing together.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-michelle-robinson/do-what-you-can/
It was 2012. I was standing on the sidewalk of Emek Refaim holding a blindfold, ready to begin the simulation.
I put the blindfold on, feeling excited for the challenge. I was determined to be the best temporarily blind person ever. But as the darkness set in, I was surprised by how quickly my excitement fizzled in the face of anxiety. Without the ability to see, I was paralyzed by fear. Even the classmate posted next to me, whose job it was to protect me and prevent me from stumbling, didn’t relieve my anxiety. I slid my feet along the sidewalk slowly, checking for bumps and trying to feel my way along the path. In the end, though I was determined to be the best temporarily blind person ever, the only award I could have received that day was “most anxious”.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/blind-faith/
Mazal Tov Lily on your Bat Mitzvah! And mazal tov to your parents, David and Melissa, to your sisters, Tove and Emma, to your grandmother Lee. Lee, we are so happy that you now live at Evans Park, so close to our shul. And mazal tov to your aunt and uncle, Jessica and John, and to your cousins, Hannah, Noah and Olivia. This is not the day that any of us would have envisioned, but it is a deeply beautiful and meaningful Bat Mitzvah in its own way.
Which leads to the obvious question: what is the meaning that we are supposed to make of the fact that your Bat Mitzvah Lily has coincided with a pandemic? Years from now, you will be able to tell your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren that your Bat Mitzvah took place just when the world was contending with Covid-19. What is the meaning we are to make, what is the meaning you are to make, of this fact?
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/your-finest-hour/
A story is told about Rebbe Zusha of Anipoli, a beloved Chasidic rabbi who lived in Northern Poland in the 1700s, a place that was not particularly friendly to its Jewish residents. One night, Reb Zusha left his house and began to walk. Two big, burly, policeman stopped him and asked: “Where are you going?” Zusha took a breath and replied, “I don’t know.”
“That’s ridiculous. You must know where you’re going,” one policeman growled. “Tell us now or there will be severe consequences.” “I don’t know,” Zusha again replied.
“That’s it!” the second policeman shouted, lunging forward to grab him by the shoulders. The two officers marched him roughly to the prison and threw him behind bars. “Now,” they roared, “answer the question – WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”
“I told you,” Reb Zusha replied, “that I didn’t know – and clearly I was right. I thought I was going to shul, but instead here I am in jail.”
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-michelle-robinson/where-are-you-going/
Tune in as Rabbi Michelle Robinson interviews Jonathan Ornstein, Executive Director of the Jewish Community Centre of Krakow. We look forward to hearing Jonathan speak at Temple Emanuel on Tuesday, March 17th.
Follow this link to learn more https://www.templeemanuel.com/event/building-a-jewish-future-in-krakow/
It was Monday morning. I had just parked in the Wegman’s lot, and was gathering my re-usable bags when the phone rang. I answered, and the familiar recording began to play, [robotically] “an inmate from the Donald D Wyatt Detention Facility would like to speak with you….” I settled back into my seat as I waited for the end of the recording. “This call is being recorded. To accept charges, press 0. Thank you for using Global Tel Link.” I pressed zero.
There was a pause, and then a voice filled my car. “You’ve got to help me. I just can’t take this anymore. Please, you have to get me out of here.”
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/dont-be-indifferent-make-a-difference/
Do you know somebody, or are you somebody, who walks around carrying a heavy weight? It could be a secret. It could be a regret. It could be a mistake. It could be a broken relationship. It could be a rift in the family. It could be some small thing—the Yiddish term is faribble—that grows into a big thing. And you don’t know quite how to deal with this heavy weight. You don’t know how to get rid of this heavy weight. You don’t know how to travel light. So you carry it around with you. Weeks turn into months turn into years turn into decades.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/talk-to-2/
Once upon a time there was a woman named Olivia who was married to her husband Lee. They lived in Los Angeles in a neighborhood known as Pacific Palisades. They were blessed to have two sons. The family joined a Conservative synagogue in west L.A. named Adat Shalom. Both boys went to the religious school, and they both celebrated their Bar Mitzvah there. There is a picture of the pious young lads, both wearing tallesim, flanked by their proud parents, in front of the aron kodesh, the holy ark. Both boys have Hebrew names. The older brother is Gedalia Yitzchak, the younger brother is Mendel.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/kvell/
On February 8, 2020, we celebrated a very special moment in the Torah, a very musical moment in Jewish biblical history. On Shabbat Shirah we read the Song of the Sea and our service included extraordinary music to celebrate Moses and Miriam leading the Israelites across the Sea of Reeds (The Red Sea) and out of Egypt.
Cantor Rosemberg delivered the Shabbat Sermon. His topic was Jewish Italian Music and Traditions and his teaching explored the rich history and different musical traditions of the Italian Jews.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/shabbat-shirah-sermon-cantor-elias-rosemberg/
What do the late Philip Roth, one of the greatest writers of our time, and Steph Curry, one of the greatest basketball players of our time, have in common?
Philip Roth was once asked by Robert Siegel, an NPR host, how he was able to write so many award-winning novels. Roth answered that there is no secret. Rather, he works all day, every day, six or seven days a week. He offered that many times he will look at what he has written, in a ten-hour day, and he does not like anything he wrote, he throws it all away. Robert Siegel asks him: how do you feel on a day where you end up throwing away everything you wrote, and his answer is: “You wouldn’t want to have dinner with me.” But the next morning he is at it again.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/daily-page/
On September 26th, an officer from the Los Angeles Police Department was walking through the Wilshire-Normandie subway station in Koreatown, when a beautiful voice caught him off guard. Ahead stood a slight, middle-aged woman. Her shoulder-length blond hair was tied up in pigtails, her clothes swallowed her tiny figure. Her right-hand rested on a pushcart, filled to the brim with personal belongings and covered with a blue plaid blanket, while her left-hand juggled bags and tubs of belongings as she sang an aria from Gianni Schicchi.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/lapdhq/
Jon Levenson, a professor of Bible at Harvard, offers a rich hypothetical that I have shared with you before, and which I share again now because it goes to the heart of the meaning of the holiday of Thanksgiving.
Imagine you are driving to the airport on the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving. It is 4:00, bumper to bumper traffic. You are in the tunnel and, oh no, your car dies. Just dies. You turn on and off the ignition, you pray, you start sweating profusely. People are honking, cursing at you. It is already one of the heaviest traffic days of the year, and now it is even more jammed because your car is stuck. You are stuck. You have no idea what to do. OK, you’ll call AAA. You reach for your phone, but it is out of juice, it is one of those days, the honking gets louder and louder. Help!!
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/gratitude-is-not-just-a-feeling/
I want to play a new game with you this morning, Jewish trivial pursuit. I am going to ask you two simple questions about the Hebrew Bible, and the winner gets a free bagel at kiddush this morning.
First question, what character in the Hebrew Bible is most associated with blessing? The word blessing, berakhah, is prominently and repeatedly associated with his story?
Second question, what character in the Hebrew Bible, more than any other, is tested? This character is tested so frequently, and so painfully, that there is a midrash speaking to the ten tests, or ten trials, or ten ordeals, of this character?
The answer to the first question is…Abraham.
The answer to the second question is…Abraham.
The answer to both questions is Abraham. The blessed one is also the tested one. The tested one is also the blessed one.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/the-tested-one-is-also-the-blessed-one/
Years ago, when I was living in Israel, I remember going to visit the Tomb of the Patriarchs (Ma’arat haMachpelah) in Hevron. I remember feeling totally overwhelmed by the sheer number of visitors and by all the sounds. There were tourists snapping their cameras and talking loudly about the history of the place and about plans for lunch. There were what felt like hundreds of Orthodox Jewish men praying in blocs, Hebrew prayers racing fluently through their mouths as they turned pages in unison. There were Hassidic Jews swaying and crying out, tears literally streaming down their faces as they poured out their souls to God. There were so many people there, it was hard even to move through the site.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/beyond-the-hashtag/
Do you remember where you were when you first learned of the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh last year, a year ago tomorrow, October 27, 2018? I remember exactly where I was. I was right here. It was Shabbat morning, in the middle of services, and from the bimah I could see a restless energy, an edge, in the people in the pews that I had never seen before. Soon enough I would learn that people’s cell phones were going off, telling them that the massacre had happened, during Shabbat morning services, at a sister Conservative shul, in Pittsburgh. Here we are, a year later. We are on the eve of the first yahrtzeit of the Pittsburgh massacre, the worst bloodshed of American Jews in American Jewish history.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/when-suffering-and-blessing-are-inexplicably-intertwined-reflections-on-the-first-yahrtzeit-of-the-pittsburgh-massacre/
Is it a good thing to go through life always feeling that you have something left to prove? Or do you ever reach a point where the healthier move is to say: you know what, I have nothing left to prove?
You are a tenured professor in your chosen field for 20 years. You have authored definitive works in your field. You cannot get fired except for moral turpitude. When you go to your classroom on Monday morning, what is the healthier mindset: I have something left to prove, or I have nothing left to prove.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/something-left-to-prove/
Next time you are hungry, next time you need a quick pick up, consider eating a protein bar known as an Rx Bar. It comes in a variety of attractive packages and delicious flavors. Blueberry, Maple Sea Salt, Mango Pineapple, Chocolate Sea Salt, Chocolate Chip, to name just a few. I live on them, though I am not getting a commission from the Rx Bar company for this sermon.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/overnight-millionaire/
A rabbi once heard about a preacher who gained notoriety by giving the world’s longest sermon. Not wanting to duplicate that feat, and, perhaps more importantly, not wanting to put everyone in shul to sleep, the rabbi decided to preach the world’s shortest sermon instead.
In the weeks leading up to the holidays, he shared the big news with the congregation in e-blasts, social media, and in person. Come to shul – and hear the shortest sermon ever! Sitting down to write, though, he realized the task was harder than it sounded. How to say something meaningful, something impactful, something true, while at the same time making it short? As Rosh Hashanah drew closer and closer, he found himself living iconic mathematician Blaise Pascal’s words that he would have written a shorter letter, but he didn’t have enough time.
Follow this link to the view the sermon on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-michelle-robinson/love-2/
Pastor Jeremy D. Battle, from the Western Avenue Baptist Church is a third-generation pastor hailing from Brighton, Alabama. Pastor Battle lives by the personal mantra, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Tune in to hear more about Pastor Jeremy Battle in his own words and hear him on Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 4:00pm.
Once, there lived amongst us a man with the stature of a prophet, a man with the moral vision of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. His name was Elie Wiesel, and he taught for years just a few miles from here at Boston University.
In his book Witness, which is about Elie Wiesel’s teaching at BU, Ariel Burger, his student for 25 years, tells a story that Elie Wiesel shared in class. The story concerned a man named Isaac Babel, who was both a Jew and a lieutenant in the Russian cavalry. That cavalry was a fierce fighting force conquering a lot of areas where Jews used to live in the Pale of Settlement. Isaac Babel himself had a reputation for being a fierce, even bloodthirsty, fighter. He embodies this enigma. He is Jewish. And at the same a Russian military man who is about to conquer Jewish towns.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/rebbe-please-give-me-fervor/
I want to talk about two words I have never uttered from this bimah. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is dramatically germane to the moment in which we now find ourselves.
As you know, Taylor Swift is one of the best-selling, most popular singer songwriters of all time. She has sold more than 50 million albums. She has won 10 Grammy Awards. Her first five albums were all huge, runaway hits, full of simple and catchy tunes that dealt with universal themes like falling in love and fear of rejection.
Then came her sixth album, Reputation. That is where things got very interesting.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/be-like-taylor-swifts-seventh-album-not-her-sixth/
Tune in as Rav-Hazzan Aliza Berger interviews Rabbi Becky Silverstein on his upcoming Parshat Nitzvaim “Entering into a Brit Hashem, Together,” and his journey to becoming a Rabbi. Rabbi Becky will be joining us on Shabbat morning, September 28th. You can learn more here https://www.templeemanuel.com/event/entering-into-a-brit-hashem-together/
Recently I came upon an article in the New York Times which took my breath away titled, “He was shot and paralyzed 37 years ago. That’s not how the story ends.”
Thirty-seven years ago, thirteen-year-old Jeff Williams was hanging out with his brother and a friend, Maury, in the Bronx when the unthinkable happened. Maury got out his uncle’s gun and started showing it off: spinning the chamber and pointing the it around the room. Jeff’s brother, Reggie, tried to convince Maury to put the gun down. But Maury insisted it was perfectly safe, pulling the trigger to prove the point. It wasn’t safe, though. The gun was loaded. Jeff collapsed.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/take-your-best-shot/
Tune is as Rabbi Michelle Robinson interviews Robert Mnookin, author of "The Jewish American Paradox: Embracing Choice in a Changing World." Robert Mnookin is an American lawyer, author, and the Samuel Williston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He will be kicking off our year of adult learning at Temple Emanuel on Sunday, September 15th. Check out his book and join in on a lecture and Q&A with Mnookin himself! Learn more here: https://www.templeemanuel.com/event/adult-education-opening-lecture/
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin authored a book called Jewish Humor: What the Best Jewish Jokes Say About the Jews. In a section about parents and children, he shares the following:
Two Jewish women who haven’t see each other in twenty years run into each other on the street.
“How’s your daughter Deborah?” the first woman asks, “the one who marriedthat lawyer.”
“They were divorced,” the second woman answers.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“But she got married a second time, this time to a surgeon.”
“Mazal Tov!”
“They were also divorced.”
At this point the first woman decides to keep her mouth shut. “But now everything is all right,” her friend goes on. “She’s married a third time, now to an architect—and he’s very successful.”
The first woman shakes her head from side to side.
“Mmmm, mmmm, So much nachus from one daughter!”
Now in some ways this joke is obviously dated. The gender norms, the premise that the job of a daughter is to get married off to a successful professional, is not only dated but offensive. And yet, for all that, there are two truths about this joke that are not dated. Two truths that are timeless.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/nachus-a-reinterpretation/
Whenever there is a mass shooting in our country, including last Saturday in El Paso and Dayton, there is this civic ritual where leaders of both parties say that they are sending thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families. How are we to understand this? Is this helpful?
There is a cynical read. We send thoughts and prayers in lieu of action. We send thoughts and prayers in lieu of fixing the problem, which is why the nightmare of mass shootings in our country continually recurs. I get the cynical read. It has a certain plausibility.
But this morning I want to try to make the case for a non-cynical read. I want to try to make the case that thoughts and prayers are not only helpful, but essential.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/sending-thoughts-and-prayers/
The other day, I was listening to an episode of This American Life titled “Save the Girl,” documenting all sorts of crazy stories of people swooping in to save damsels in distress, when I heard the most unbelievable story. Yong Xiong grew up in Laos, part of the ethnic Hmong minority. A few years ago, she met the man of her dreams at a New Year’s party. They fell in love. They decided to get married. Because the love of her life is a naturalized US citizen living in Minneapolis, their love story involved lots of government appointments and official paperwork. After months and months of proving their relationship, filing all of the correct forms, and waiting for the appropriate government officials to grant them permission, Yong received a fiancé visa and found herself on a plane to meet her beloved.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/believe-me-when-i-tell-you-who-i-am/
When I was still swiping for dates, I had a strict no-fisherman policy. Any time I saw someone posed with a large, freshly caught fish, I swiped no. No matter how cute they were, no matter how smart or Jewishly engaged, I was convinced there was no way I would ever fall in love with someone who liked to torture small, scaly animals for sport.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/go-fish/
Sergei Rachmaninoff was arguably one of the best pianists ever. He was a virtuoso, with giant hands that could easily grasp complex harmonies and move with lightning speed up and down the keyboard. He was not only a performer but also a compositional genius; he could coax the most nuanced sounds from the piano. Maybe because his own internal landscape was filled with dramatic ups and downs, or maybe just because of his musical brilliance, he had a special ability to write music that creates emotional experience.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/piano-concertos-and-prophecy/
Growing up, my Aunt Vanessa was my hero. Whenever we saw her, it seemed like she was just coming back from some herculean triathlon or from an epic marathon through the Colorado mountains. She was fearless. Every year, she would take us to the amusement parks and would gladly ride all the scariest rides with my sister and younger cousin. (I never had the guts to join them.)
In the kitchen, she had this sixth sense. She could coax the most incredible flavors out of fresh ingredients and made the most gourmet foods with seeming ease. And she was super mom. She went back to school as she was mothering her first child and pregnant with her second. And even though she was running around with her son all day and just studying at night, she graduated with honors, first in her class, and went on to become a stellar labor and delivery nurse. She would wake up before the sun and spent her days at the hospital, helping women to find their own strength and capacity to bring new life into the world. It wasn’t long before Vanessa was asked to teach nursing and to mentor new nurses as they began their careers.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/shavuot-the-spiritual-assignment/
Ugandan Human Rights Activist, Qwin Mbabazi, Celebrates One Year of Political Asylum in Boston. Join Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz and Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger as they sit down with Qwin who shares her story of life as a LGBTQ activist in Uganda and how she found refuge in America. She was persecuted as a child because she was born left-handed in a culture where left-hand dominance is considered the work of the devil. She was persecuted as a teen and as a young adult because she was born gay in a country where being gay was legally a death sentence until 2013. Uganda remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be LGBTQ. And despite this persecution, Qwin had a clear sense of self and a clear sense of purpose from an early age.
Read the press release here: https://www.templeemanuel.com/in-the-news/temple-emanuel-fetes-ugandan-activists-year-of-political-asylum/
The story is told of the time that the Pope and the Prime Minister of Israel decided to deepen the relationship between the Vatican and the Jewish state by co-cohosting a friendly golf game that would be played by premier Catholic and Jewish golfers. The Pope invited Jack Nicklaus to be the Vatican representative. Jack Nicklaus is a devout Catholic and a great golfer. After the golf game, Jack Nicklaus goes to the Vatican to report.
Your Holiness, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I played the best golf I have ever played. God was with me like never before. My play was inspired from above.
Then what is the bad news?
The bad news is that I lost by three strokes to Rabbi Tiger Woods.
Unfortunately, today, relations between Jews and the non-Jewish world are no laughing matter.
Follow this link to view the sermon and watch the live streaming version on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/linden-tree/
One day a fifth grader gets sent home from school for taking another student’s pencil. When he gets home, his father says why in the world would you take another student’s pencil?
We don’t steal in this family. Your mother and I have taught you better values than that. We expect more from you than that. From now on, if you need a pencil, just tell me. I’ll bring them home from the office!
This story is told by Dan Ariely, an Israeli, and a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University who wrote a book with an evocative title: The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves.
Ariely argues that there is a creative tension within everyone of us. On the one hand, we want to be decent, honest human beings. We want to be mensches. That’s the father who wants to teach his child not to steal.
On the other hand, it is human nature to want more, which can lead us to get close to the line or to cross the line. When we cross the line, we rationalize our decisions in order to justify them. That’s the father taking pencils home from work.
Follow this link to view the sermon on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/the-real-yous/
There is a preacher named T.D. Jakes, the pastor of a non-denominational megachurch in Dallas, who saw something in the book of Deuteronomy that I had never seen. It comes from Moses’ poetic speech in parshat haazinu, in which Moses observes nesher yair kino, a mother eagle stirs its baby eagles who are happily at rest in their nest. This is the climax of Moses’ life. This is the end of the Torah. This is Moses’ closing argument. Why is he talking about nests?
Pastor Jakes’ answer is that while nests are comfortable, that baby eagle cannot soar until it leaves the nest. This is not only a problem for baby eagles. It is a problem for all of us.
We love our nests. We love our safe spaces. We love our comfort zone. But comfortable can become too comfortable. Familiar can become too familiar. Safe and secure can become too safe and secure in ways that prevent us from soaring, from becoming who we are meant to become.
Follow this link to view the sermon on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/pushed-and-pulled/
Four words. They are just four words. They make up a simple sentence. But how you say this sentence makes all the difference in the world.
What can I do? Emphasis on I. Meaning that I am so small, the world is so large. My energy is limited. The problems of the world are unlimited. What can I do? Not much. A recipe for contraction.
But then there is: What can I do? I cannot do everything. But I can do something. What can I do to make our world a little more decent. A recipe for doing something.
Which way do you say it? Are you a what can I do person? Or a what can I do person? What life are you living? What life do you want to live?
In the spirit of these questions, and in the week of San Diego and Yom Hashoah, I want to tell you two stories about a man named Rabbi Herschel Schacter who died six years ago at the age of 95. He never said what can I do? He made his troubled world a little more decent.
Follow this link to view the sermon on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/in-the-wake-of-san-diego-what-can-i-do/
I want to name a problem that is very common, perhaps almost universal, but we don’t talk about it. If not now, at Yizkor, when?
It is the problem of recency. It looks like this. Your loved one was fabulous when he or she was in the full bloom of their life. And then, X years ago, they faced a serious health challenge.
Follow this link to view the sermon on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/the-problem-of-recency/
When I used to sing competitively, I remember there was always this moment. I would go with my vocal studio to various competitions, which they always held in some university auditorium far away. After months of practicing and preparing, we would pile 4 or 5 divas into a small beat up car for whatever number of hours it took to arrive at the competition location. In the car, we would be singing vocal warm-ups, or blasting out musical theater tunes, or perseverating about which song we should sing first. (The way these competitions work is that each singer gets to choose their first piece, and if they choose wisely and the judges like it, they can ask for additional songs.) And after the anxious ride, and a quick change of clothes and a dash to the stage, I remember the feeling walking out in front of those judges. If you were lucky, they would let you sing your first full song, and then another. Sometimes, a judge would interrupt with a curt “thank you” and then leave you worried about what they didn’t like it.
Follow this link to view the sermon on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/half-hallel-our-passover-challenge/
Host Cantor Elias Rosemberg interviews pianist Constantine Finehouse on how he got started with the Temple Emanuel Chamber Music Concerts. Plus, listen to a sneak peak of some of the music that will be featured at our upcoming concert on May 5th.
Learn more about the event here https://www.templeemanuel.com/event/chamber-music-concert-series/2019-05-05/
I have a confession to make. I am a hopeless romantic. Starting when I was a little girl, I devoted endless hours to dreaming about what it would be like to meet my partner and fall in love and live happily ever after. I have journals from when I was 12 peppered with lists of what my ideal partner would be like because I was convinced that if I could imagine him clearly, he would appear.
Follow this link to view the sermon on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-aliza-berger/beyond-linens-n-things/
What a complicated time. Today is Shabbat Hagadol. We are supposed to prepare ourselves for the first seder next Friday night. But most of the big issues that one might discuss at our s’darim are even more fraught than usual.
Follow this link to view the sermon on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/conviction-and-humility/
Help me finish this sentence. You cannot be any happier than…your least happy child.
The emotional life of a parent is deeply connected to the emotional life of their child.
Perhaps that is why there is such a thing as a helicopter parent.
Follow this link to view the sermon on our website https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/helicopters-teacups-and-swimmers/
At the beginning of chapter two in the megillah, the talented heroine of Purim is introduced by two names. In the words of the megillah:
[And he was the guardian of Hadassah, (that is, Esther) the daughter of his uncle] (sung)
Why did she have these two names? The midrash explains that Esther was born green. Literally. Her skin had a sallow, yellowish-green tone and for this reason, she was named Hadassah—myrtle. As a little one, she looked like the plant. But as she grew older, God made a miracle for her. God concealed her green skin and made it so that anyone who saw her experienced her as the most beautiful woman in the world. That’s why she was named Esther—Esther for hester—the Hebrew word meaning hidden.
The miracle of Purim is not just that Esther saved the day. The real miracle of Purim is that Esther found the courage to be herself no matter what.
Purim is over. Let’s take off our masks. No more Esther syndrome. It’s time to be you.
Every year the Oxford Dictionary comes up with a Word of the Year, a word that captures the ethos and mood of our time. For 2018 the word of the year is toxic. Toxic was used widely to describe our natural environment, relationships, culture, politics, the state of our national conversation.
The word of the year is toxic because all too often our world feels toxic.
Here is my question for you. If the world is toxic, do you have a counter world to which you can retreat where you feel safe and sound, seen and heard, loved and valued?
I recently saw a film, and read an article, that made me realize we have all won the lottery. No matter what issues or problems we have going on in our lives, and we all have issues or problems going on in our lives, we have still totally won the lottery. The holiday of Purim is not just fun for the kids, it is super relevant to adults because it deals with the very real and adult theme that luck happens and has a huge impact on our day to day lives. How should we respond to the importance of luck as an important driver of our lives?
Sometimes I feel like a spiritual hustler (and I don’t mean I daven quickly). I meet young people in bars and cafes and ask them questions about their Judaism. Questions like, “what do you love about being Jewish?” and “do you feel it is important to live a Jewish life?” But sometimes their answers catch me off-guard. So many young adults are living Jewish lives for other people in other times. We are so committed to safeguarding what we received that we’ve forgotten why Judaism exists in the first place—as a way for us to connect with God, with ourselves, and with our larger Jewish community.
I want to raise a large question with you today, which is this: Is knowing more better? Is knowing more facts about yourself, your history, your biology, your family history, better? In our reading this morning, the High Priest, the Kohein Gadol, keeps in a pouch above his heart an ancient device intended to discern God’s will on hard questions. It was called the Urim v’Tumim. Let’s say there were a vexing question the Israelites could not answer on their own. The Urim v’Tumim was an instrument of decision that only the High Priest could use that would enable him to ascertain God’s answer to this hard question. He kept this instrument in a pouch above his heart.
Namely: How should we think about the aspiration to be the greatest, the best? Is thinking this way, is dreaming this way, is acting this way, I want to be the best, healthy? What happens to our heart when we are focused on becoming the goat? I remember as a teen being drawn to the climactic line in the poem Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. “To strive to seek to find and not to yield.” Is this a good thing? How does the goat beat the ram? With a lot of help from our friends. That is true for Tom Brady. That is true for all of us.
It was early in the morning. I had just sat down at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee, when I happened to look out the window and caught my breath. A deer stood there, ears erect, eyes darting around. I live in a condo in Boston, built along a busy street by VFW Parkway. Where did that deer come from? How does it spend its days? Is it always wandering between scraps of forest, pockets of grass and trees? Does it miss just running through the woods, without having to dodge cars and hide from people? Where does it go during the day? And as I pondered the deer’s predicament, I began to see the ways in which we are all like that deer. Our lives are hemmed in on all sides with work and obligations. So many of us wake up extra early to nibble at that patch of grass—the 5 minute meditation app, the chance to drink a cup of coffee sitting down, to read the paper—and then we’re off, darting from task to task until late at night.
When you see somebody do something that you do not understand–perhaps it is puzzling, perhaps it is more than puzzling, it might even be offensive to you–how are you supposed to think about and respond to this challenging conduct? Consider three vignettes. Read the full sermon here https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/their-battle-that-you-know-nothing-about/
I was recently speaking with my son Sam about a book he was reading that he was raving about. He said it was giving him so much to think about every day when he went to work and interacted with his colleagues. The book is Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman.
Have you ever read a book that articulates a concept that you have never quite heard that way, but it totally captures reality? You say yes! O my God, yes! I never saw it before, but what she writes is so true. And helpful. It is going to help me take up my game!
Read the Sermon here: https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/becoming-a-multiplier/
We knew it was coming, this report from an expert who had been spending a lot of time investigating, but when it landed, it really hurt.
I am talking of course about the recent report that concluded that French fries are bad for you. According to Eric Rimm, a professor of nutrition at Harvard, French fries are, in his cruel phrase, “starch bombs.” He argues that French fries—even though they are made out of potatoes, and even though potatoes are a vegetable, that grows from the ground, and even though vegetables that grow from the ground are usually good for you—in the specific case of French fries, they are not so good for you.
Read the full sermon here: https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/after-the-crash/
There is a town in northern California called Paradise which was destroyed last month by fire. Ninety percent of Paradise residents lost their homes. What this meant for the people who lived in Paradise was brought home to me by an article I read about the Paradise High School football team.
Read the sermon here: https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/love-in-paradise/
Tomorrow night we will be singing the song of a man who died 28 years ago. Had he been alive, Leonard Bernstein would be 100 years old. However he died relatively young, at the age of 72. And yet, all these years later, we still think about Leonard Bernstein.
Which raises the question: do you have to be a musical genius for your song to play on after you are no longer here? Let’s say that you are an ordinary person who works and loves and lives and gives and passes, with no soundtrack attached to your name. Is it possible that 28 years after you pass people will still remember and celebrate you?
Read the full sermon here: https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/a-song-that-plays-on/