From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

July 1, 2023

Shabbat shalom. As we say in Brooklyn on Pride Shabbat, chag sameach. I’m so jazzed to be back home as Temple Emanuel’s gay-in-residence this Shabbat.  Growing up at Emanuel, Schechter, and Ramah, I was frequently asked the same question: am I a Jewish American or an American Jew. Twenty years later, I can safely say…its a really odd question for a 5th grader. The real problem with the question is...

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. T...

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, rea...

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 messa...

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...

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 c...

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 secti...

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...

May 20, 2023

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...

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, an...

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...

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...

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 la...

Join Rabbi Michelle Robinson and Jill Ebstein as they discuss Jill's book, "Alfred's Journey to be Liked". Find the book here !

April 29, 2023

Join Oren Kessler as he discusses his book, Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict.

For some reason--I don’t know why it happens, I just know that it happens--tensions seem to rise in a family before a big milestone or family simcha. People tend to argue. To bicker. To get into negative energy patterns. The classic example of weird negative energy preceding what should be a happy family time is a wedding. If you have ever planned a wedding, you know this. As the day draws near, a...

When I was home for Thanksgiving this year, my mom and I were going through some old boxes at the bottom of a closet when we came across a bag of colorful fabrics.  “What’s this?” I asked my mom. With a funny look on her face, my mom took the bag and started looking through it.  “This is the quilt I was going to make you when you were a baby.” Apparently, when I was born, my mom didn’t want to jus...

For those of you hearty enough to come to shul on the seventh day of Pesach, I want to share with you a love story—in fact a Pesach double love story.  But to appreciate this double love story, we need first to talk about halakha , Jewish law.  When was the last time that happened in a sermon?  The Torah commands us to have no chametz in our possession during the holiday of Pesach.  Chametz is  de...

I recently heard a teaching that I experienced as an epiphany. The context was the Spark mission to Israel to celebrate its 75th anniversary leaving in a few weeks. Three hundred people from Greater Jewish Boston are going on nine buses. Marc Baker, the CEO of CJP, was speaking to the folks who were leading each of these buses. He shared that when he was still at Gann Academy, he was hired by CJP...

Lhakpa Sherpa grew up impoverished in the shadow of Mount Everest.  Her father worked as a shepherd and her mother raised her along with her ten siblings.  They were dirt poor.  So poor that they couldn’t afford to buy shoes for the children, let alone to send Lhakpa to school.  Instead, she spent her days wandering barefoot through the mountains. Ever since she was little, Lhakpa has had one drea...

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 mi...

“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  (Mar...