From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

“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.” I...

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...

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...

From December 19th, 2020.

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...

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 peopl...

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 gu...

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...

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 dream...

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 tha...

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 pres...

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. &nb...

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 wh...

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...

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 re...

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...

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 theref...

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 h...

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...

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...

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/

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 no...

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 inj...

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 sta...

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 f...