From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

December 17, 2022

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 t...

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: “...

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...

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 wide...

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...

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 i...

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...

Learn more about Rick here !

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 o...

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 ha...

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...

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...

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 Noa...

October 29, 2022

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 invo...

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 the...

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). Me...

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...

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.

Serendipity. When was the last time that you personally experienced serendipity? Serendipity is defined as something good happening to you accidentally .  The classic case is finding a twenty-dollar bill in the pocket of a coat you haven’t worn in a while. When you find that twenty-dollar bill, you weren’t looking for it, you just find it, it sparks joy, maybe even the feeling that there is s...

Let’s draft off the energy of Yom Kippur. We are back in person on Shabbat morning. Please join us for coffee, conversation, and community as we discuss a Norman Rockwell Sukkot. One of Norman Rockwell’s classic paintings—it commands its own room in the Norman Rockwell Museum in the Berkshires—is a family Thanksgiving feast entitled Freedom From Want. Follow this link . A family gathered...

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...

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 g...

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....