From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

Do you rememberthe classic Lay’s potato chip ad— you can’t eat just one ? That line came back to me on our recent flight to San Francisco, because once I picked up a new novel, I simply could not put it down. The book, Good People , by Patmeena Sabit, tells the story of Afghan immigrants who come to America after the Soviet‑Afghan war. At the center is one family: Rahmat and Maryam Sharaf and thei...

Allegra Goodman recently published a collection of short stories called  This is Not About Us.  The irony is that the book is very much about us. She describes the Rubinstein family of Greater Boston. The kids went to Maimonides. Much of the action takes place in Brookline. There are stories of day-to-day life in Boston, and in Jewish Boston, that will feel deeply familiar. I felt I was reading ab...

For the last two weeks, I have been wearing this tallit. At Kiddush, both weeks, I have discovered that our congregation is very generous when it comes to offering feedback. People had opinions about the tallit which they shared promptly and candidly. Comments like: “What’s with that new tallit? What is it? It doesn’t really look like a tallit. Is it a shawl? Is it a scarf? Is it a new shawl, scar...

One of the hardest things in the world is to come up with something new to say about a subject that has been amply covered by other writers. A new biography of Abraham Lincoln, a new history of the Civil War, a new take on the New Deal—is a new insight even possible on topics that have been written about so extensively? In that spirit, can there be a new Haggada that comes up with a new take that...

Cantor Elias Rosemberg and Temple Emanuel member Evan Falchuk discuss Evan's family roots in Venezuela and the current political situation.  

If you have ever had back surgery, you know what a shlepped-out ordeal it can be. You have back pain. You go to your doctor who wants to try a conservative treatment plan. Pain medication. Then you try heat. Then you try cold. Put your legs up in bed on a stack of pillows. Lie this way, lie that way. Then comes physical therapy. All those appointments. All those exercises. Still have the pain. The...

What text can best take in the challenge of American Jews at this moment who love America, who love Israel, and who face the daily torrent of news about the war? The text that comes up for me is Homer’s classic  The Odyssey,  in which Odysseus and his crew must navigate between  Scylla and Charybdis . Both fierce and fearsome monsters are  lethal .   On the one hand, we have Scylla, a war against...

If you have ever been married, or if you have ever walked an adult child down the aisle, think back to the energy, the electricity, the excitement of the wedding day. All that love in one sacred place. Pure magic. There was a young, bright, beautiful Israeli couple looking forward to their wedding day. The bride and the groom were getting married in the backyard of the bride’s parents. Joyful and...

Rabbi Elan Babchuck  serves as the Executive Vice President at Clal ( National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership ) and the Founding Executive Director of Glean Network, which partners with Columbia Business School.  He has published in  The Atlantic ,  The Guardian ,  Washington Post , and  Religion News Service , writes a column for  The Wisdom Daily , contributed to  Meaning Making – 8 V...

What do we do with what we remember? How does what we remember cause us to act? This question comes from two places.   It is Shabbat Zachor, the special Shabbat before Purim when we remember Amalek that hated us, that tried to kill us, and that inspired commands to  never forget  that hate, and to  respond in kind .   And it is the week of the US Men’s Hockey Team’s first Olympic gold in 46 years....

The Torah offers more than one account of what was revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai. This week’s reading, Terumah, suggests that the Ten Commandments were not the focus of revelation. What are the implications for us of the different portrayals of Moses’ experience? About Rabbi Peretz Rodman Rabbi Rodman is a Jerusalem-based writer, translator, and editor. A native Bostonian, he has studied and taug...

There is a depressing news story that won’t go away. There are fresh chapters every week. The story goes something like this: People who were preeminent in their field—law, business, finance, real estate, professional sports, entertainment, higher education, medicine, health and wellness, spiritual counseling, politics, government—were emailing with a registered sex offender. What is that? So many...

Even before she stepped into her ski boots to compete in Cortina, Lindsey Vonn’s story was profound. To be a top contender at the age of 41, after six years of retirement, after a partial knee replacement and countless serious injuries, is remarkable in and of itself. But Vonn wasn’t just competing 24 years after her first Olympic games, and she wasn’t just competing on a body which had recovered...

Transformation. We were one thing. Now we are different, and better. How does transformation happen? Do our sources believe in the effectiveness of  a transformational experience , that we are wowed and inspired and changed by some profound moment? Or are our sources skeptical that a single experience, however powerful, can sustain long-term personal growth?   The Book of Exodus has a definite poi...

Over the last 30 years, Adrian Gonzalez met and married his beloved, Leslie, joined Temple Emanuel, raised four wonderful children, and celebrated their bnei mitzvah right here on the Rabbi Samuel Chiel bimah. For all of this time, Adrian has been on his own spiritual journey. This year, he made the decision to officially join the Jewish people. Adrian shares his journey and about the love that br...

Inertia is super strong. What, if anything, is stronger?   My late father-in-love used to say, “ more than people know what they like, they like what they know.”  People like what they know. They like certainty, clarity, predictability. They don’t like being rattled. They don’t like uncertainty. They don’t like unpredictability. They don’t like staring into a murky future.   The address in our sac...

January 31, 2026

Suzanne was happily married to her first husband, with whom she had two daughters, and four grandchildren. All lived happily in Baltimore. He died. At the age of 70, she was blessed to find love a second time with a man whom she married. Suzanne and her second husband went to Israel, and they loved it. She writes to Abigail Shrier, an advice columnist for  The Free Press . Now age 74, Suzanne shar...

The surge of antisemitism has left many of us unsettled, confused, and struggling to understand what type of Jewish future is possible in the Diaspora. In fact, we can have a large hand in shaping our future, but to do this we first need to better understand the challenge before us. About Robert Leikind Rob Leikind has been director of AJC New England since 2008. A child of parents who survived Hi...

What is the difference between the Exodus story we encounter in the spring in the Haggadah and the Exodus story we encounter in the winter in the Book of Exodus? One common answer is that Moses is hardly mentioned in the Haggadah and is obviously a major protagonist in the Torah’s telling. But there is another important difference.  The Torah has a lot to say about the Israelites taking silver and...

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was courageous beyond measure. He walked with clarity and conviction in the face of menacing dogs, water cannons, angry mobs, and violent police and never seemed afraid.  What gave him this courage? In this sermon, we will hear his own testimony from his book Stride Toward Freedom: the Montgomery Story , as Dr. King shares what enabled him to move from paralyzing fear to...

What would you think about a nephew marrying his aunt—his mother or father’s sister—and starting a family together? It feels creepy, gross, incestuous. In fact, the Torah not once but twice bans nephew-aunt unions. Do not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is your father’s flesh.  Leviticus 18:12 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or of your father’s sister...

TE Teen, Maya Afergan, delivers a special guest sermon as part of our Youth Shabbat Morning service on January 10th.

Why does Boston need a new Holocaust museum now? Jody Kipnis, Co-Founder and President & CEO of the Holocaust Legacy Foundation, shares the ways the museum (opening in late 2026 across from Boston’s historic Freedom Trail) urgently confronts the rise in antisemitism today, and how its exhibits teach about democracy, choice, and moral courage.

December 27, 2025