From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

The story is told of the time that the Pope and the Prime Minister of Israel decided to deepen the relationship between the Vatican and the Jewish state by co-cohosting a friendly golf game that would be played by premier Catholic and Jewish golfers.  The Pope invited Jack Nicklaus to be the Vatican representative.  Jack Nicklaus is a devout Catholic and a great golfer.  After the g...

One day a fifth grader gets sent home from school for taking another student’s pencil.   When he gets home, his  father says why in the world would you take another student’s pencil? We don’t steal in this family.  Your mother and I have taught you better values than that.  We expect more from you than that. From now on, if you need a pencil, just tell me.  I’ll bring...

There is a preacher named T.D. Jakes, the pastor of a non-denominational megachurch in Dallas, who saw something in the book of Deuteronomy that I had never seen.   It comes from Moses’ poetic speech in parshat haazinu , in which Moses observes nesher yair kino , a mother eagle stirs its baby eagles who are happily at rest in their nest.  This is the climax of Moses’ life. This is t...

Four words.  They are just four words. They make up a simple sentence.  But how you say this sentence makes all the difference in the world. What can I do?  Emphasis on I.  Meaning that I am so small, the world is so large.  My energy is limited. The problems of the world are unlimited.  What can I do?  Not much.  A recipe for contraction. But then there is:...

I want to name a problem that is very common, perhaps almost universal, but we don’t talk about it.  If not now, at Yizkor, when? It is the problem of recency.  It looks like this.  Your loved one was fabulous when he or she was in the full bloom of their life.  And then, X years ago, they faced a serious health challenge. Follow this link to view the sermon on our website &nbs...

When I used to sing competitively, I remember there was always this moment. I would go with my vocal studio to various competitions, which they always held in some university auditorium far away. After months of practicing and preparing, we would pile 4 or 5 divas into a small beat up car for whatever number of hours it took to arrive at the competition location. In the car, we would be singing vo...

Host Cantor Elias Rosemberg interviews pianist Constantine Finehouse on how he got started with the Temple Emanuel Chamber Music Concerts. Plus, listen to a sneak peak of some of the music that will be featured at our upcoming concert on May 5th. Learn more about the event here   https://www.templeemanuel.com/event/chamber-music-concert-series/2019-05-05/  

I have a confession to make. I am a hopeless romantic. Starting when I was a little girl, I devoted endless hours to dreaming about what it would be like to meet my partner and fall in love and live happily ever after. I have journals from when I was 12 peppered with lists of what my ideal partner would be like because I was convinced that if I could imagine him clearly, he would appear.   Fo...

What a complicated time. Today is Shabbat Hagadol. We are supposed to prepare ourselves for the first seder next Friday night. But most of the big issues that one might discuss at our s’darim are even more fraught than usual. Follow this link to view the sermon on our website  https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/conviction-and-humility/  

 Help me finish this sentence.  You cannot be any happier than…your least happy child. The emotional life of a parent is deeply connected to the emotional life of their child. Perhaps that is why there is such a thing as a helicopter parent. Follow this link to view the sermon on our website   https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/helicopters-teacups-and-swimmer...

At the beginning of chapter two in the megillah, the talented heroine of Purim is introduced by two names. In the words of the megillah: [And he was the guardian of Hadassah, (that is, Esther) the daughter of his uncle] (sung) Why did she have these two names? The midrash explains that Esther was born green. Literally. Her skin had a sallow, yellowish-green tone and for this reason, she was named...

Every year the Oxford Dictionary comes up with a  Word of the Year, a word that captures the ethos and mood of our time.  For 2018 the word of the year is toxic.   Toxic was used widely to describe our natural environment, relationships, culture, politics, the state of our national conversation. The word of the year is toxic because all too often our world feels toxic. Here is...

I recently saw a film, and read an article, that made me realize we have all won the lottery.  No matter what issues or problems we have going on in our lives, and we all have issues or problems going on in our lives, we have still totally won the lottery.  The holiday of Purim is not just fun for the kids, it is super relevant to adults because it deals with the very real and adult them...

Sometimes I feel like a spiritual hustler (and I don’t mean I daven quickly). I meet young people in bars and cafes and ask them questions about their Judaism. Questions like, “what do you love about being Jewish?” and “do you feel it is important to live a Jewish life?”  But sometimes their answers catch me off-guard.  So many young adults are living Jewish lives for other people in oth...

I want to raise a large question with you today, which is this:  Is knowing more better?  Is knowing more facts about yourself, your history, your biology, your family history, better?  In our reading this morning, the High Priest, the Kohein Gadol, keeps in a pouch above his heart an ancient device intended to discern God’s will on hard questions.  It was called the Urim v’Tum...

Namely:  How should we think about the aspiration to be the greatest, the best?  Is thinking this way, is dreaming this way, is acting this way, I want to be the best, healthy?  What happens to our heart when we are focused on becoming the goat? I remember as a teen being drawn to the climactic line in the poem Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  “To strive to seek to find and n...

It was early in the morning. I had just sat down at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee, when I happened to look out the window and caught my breath. A deer stood there, ears erect, eyes darting around. I live in a condo in Boston, built along a busy street by VFW Parkway.  Where did that deer come from? How does it spend its days? Is it always wandering between scraps of forest, pockets of...

When you see somebody do something that you do not understand–perhaps it is puzzling, perhaps it is more than puzzling, it might even be offensive to you–how are you supposed to think about and respond to this challenging conduct?  Consider three vignettes. Read the full sermon here   https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardenswartz/their-battle-that-you-know-nothing-about/ &nb...

I was recently speaking with my son Sam about a book he was reading that he was raving about.  He said it was giving him so much to think about every day when he went to work and interacted with his colleagues.  The book is Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman. Have you ever read a book that articulates a concept that you have never quite heard that way,...

We knew it was coming, this report from an expert who had been spending a lot of time investigating, but when it landed, it really hurt. I am talking of course about the recent report that concluded that French fries are bad for you.  According to Eric Rimm, a professor of nutrition at Harvard, French fries are, in his cruel phrase, “starch bombs.”  He argues that French fries—even thoug...

There is a town in northern California called Paradise which was destroyed last month by fire.  Ninety percent of Paradise residents lost their homes.   What this meant for the people who lived in Paradise was brought home to me by an article I read about the Paradise High School football team.  Read the sermon here:   https://www.templeemanuel.com/rabbi/rabbi-wes-gardensw...

Tomorrow night we will be singing the song of a man who died 28 years ago.  Had he been alive, Leonard Bernstein would be 100 years old.  However he died relatively young, at the age of 72.  And yet, all these years later, we still think about Leonard Bernstein. Which raises the question:  do you have to be a musical genius for your song to play on after you are no longer here?...