From The Bimah: Jewish Lessons For Life

How do you process a world in which doing the right thing, the kind thing, opening your doors and offering warmth and tea to someone in need, could result in someone holding a gun to your head and taking you hostage? How do you process a world in which synagogues around the country go through security trainings about evading shooters and deescalating terrorist attacks as a matter of course? A world in which our kids are so accustomed to active shooter drills, and so inured to the possibility of sudden violence, that they take news of this trauma in stride. They are not shocked. And how do you process a world in which someone could decide to fly across the world to find Jews to use as pawns for his hateful aim? A world in which someone is so stewed in antisemitic tropes that he believes that Jews run the world and would be able to pull some strings to make his hateful wish come true? How do you process a world in which Jews, who constitute less than 2% of the population in this country, are victim to almost 60

January 22, 2022

Last Saturday night Shira and I had friends over for dinner, a lovely couple we had come to know after Shira  had met the wife on a CJP mission to Israel.  They walked through our front door bearing gifts. A lovely bouquet of flowers. Very nice. And then something else. Something we had never before received from any guest ever.  The husband walked into our living room and presented me with this: a collection of gorgeously bound, all Hebrew, very religious looking, books, a five-volume set, the kind of books one would find in a yeshivah.

January 15, 2022

For the last thirty-one years, until last year,  January 6 had been tied for the very best day in our family’s calendar. Thirty-one years ago our son Sam was born on January 6. In addition, the birthday of our beloved colleague Joan Mael is also January 6. For years, before the pandemic, our colleagues would take Joan out to Legal’s for lunch. At home and at work, I just loved January 6. And then came last January 6, and the day obviously became a whole lot more complicated.

January 8, 2022

In 1949, David Schacker’s life was radically transformed.  Up until that point, he had been a healthy, bright-eyed, 10-year-old boy who loved running and playing tennis.  He had the kind of raw talent that promised opportunity.  Everyone knew he would get an athletic scholarship somewhere fabulous and looked forward to watching him succeed. But that dream was not to be. At ten, Schacker was diagnosed with Polio.  Instead of running outside and playing tennis, he spent the year cooped up in St Giles hospital in physiotherapy and treatment.

Please enjoy this Shabbat Sermon with our wonderful Rabbi Michelle Robinson!

Adam Grant, the teacher of organizational psychology at Penn, a noted Ted Talk speaker, and the author of best-selling books, was recently on NPR sharing two very different takes on the phenomenon of being wrong. The first take concerned Adam himself when he was a teen-ager. He and a friend disagreed about a particular song in a Broadway musical. Each thought he was right. Eventually his friend summoned proof that he, the friend, was right. Adam was wrong. Adam could see the proof. Knew the proof was irrefutable. But could not get himself to acknowledge the error of his ways. His friend said: Adam, admit you are wrong. Adam could not bring himself to do it.

Join Cantor Elias Rosemberg and Josh Jacobson as they discuss what you can expect at this year's Hanukkah Happens concert on Thursday, December 23rd, 2021.

The classic comedy “Miss Congeniality” has a montage of beauty pageant contestants, one after the other, answering the question, “What is the one most important thing our society needs?” They all give the same answer: “World peace.”  It is a long-running joke – that the notion young beauty queens can have anything to do with resolving long-standing geopolitical tensions is naïve, even slightly offensive. Enter this year’s Miss Universe. If you have been following the news this week, you may have heard that Israel is hosting this year’s Miss Universe competition. Of course, in the shadow of the unassailably ugly underbelly of antisemitism that Dara Horn captures so vividly in her book, “People Love Dead Jews,” greater than average controversy was expected – and delivered.

December 11, 2021

December 4, 2021

At the beginning of Thanksgiving, my dad and I spent hours combing through genealogical records, trying to find his grandmother.  During the pandemic, I read Dani Shapiro’s book The Inheritance and had opened a subscription on MyHeritage.com trying to uncover my own family history. My dad remembered that he called his dad’s parents Grandpa Loui and Grandma Becky. But he didn’t remember his grandmother’s maiden name or where she was from.  He told me that when they visited, they always showed up without announcing themselves and his grandma would prepare more food than anyone could eat in a week.  But strangely, you can’t search for a Grandma Becky who cooks too much and sometimes shouts in Yiddish on MyHeritage.com.  I found countless Grandma Becky’s in countless historical records but couldn’t find enough information to claim any one of them as my own.

November 27, 2021

It was only 17 years ago, but it feels like forever ago.  It feels like it was a different century when, in 2004, David Brooks wrote a book about America called On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense.  His main point was that Americans lived in the future tense, by which he meant that whatever problems we faced in the present moment were not really problems because we imagined a future that would be so much better. Our house is too small, but no matter. One fine day we will live in a big and spacious house. Our income is too small, but one fine day we will have a better job which will generate all the resources we need for the life we want to lead. My health is challenged now,  but one fine day I will find the doctor and get the treatment that will have me feeling better than ever. Our children have not yet found themselves, but in the future they will be living just the happy life they dream of living. The key to living in the future tense is this limitless se

November 20, 2021

Enjoy our Shabbat Sermon from November 20th, 2021 with Rabbi Michelle Robinson

The story is told of a woman who feels that something is missing in her life.  She has heard that there is a wise yogi, a spiritual virtuoso, who lives and radiates holiness on the top of a mountain in a remote part of India.  She is told that this yogi holds court, and that people from all over the world make a pilgrimage to see him.  It’s not easy.  You fly to India.   Then you take a three-day drive on crowded and unpaved roads.  Then you climb the mountain, and it is steep.  When you get to the top of the mountain, you wait your turn.  There is a long line of seekers ahead of you.  And here is the catch.  The yogi is so in demand, there are so many people to see him, and he is reputed to be so smart, he just intuits things from a few words, that you can only say eight words to him.  This woman, in search of something, desperate to find it,  flies to India; takes the three-day drive on crowded and unpaved roads; climbs to the top of the mount

November 13, 2021