From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

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...

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 Assemb...

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...

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 li...

October 1, 2023

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...

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...

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....

September 25, 2023

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...

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 th...

            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!...

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 ex...

            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 ye...

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: Go...

“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...

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 l...

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 Bos...

August 19, 2023

August 12, 2023

August 5, 2023

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 differe...

July 22, 2023

July 15, 2023

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...