From The Bimah: Jewish Lessons For Life

Sivan Kotler-Berkowitz (he/him) is a rising sophomore at UMass Amherst studying Special Education and Psychology. He is passionate about transgender youth advocacy, working with kids with disabilities, and making the world a better place. As an advocate, Sivan shares his story as a thriving transgender teenager to help replace misinformation about transgender youth. Through his advocacy, he has appeared on national television, worked with Nike, met with officials in the U.S. Department of Education, attended events at the White House, and even spoken to the President and Vice President. 

One of the best parts of being a rabbi is sitting down with a young couple that has just become engaged and is now beginning the exciting journey of planning their wedding day. That initial conversation always involves the sharing of the proposal story. Almost always there is an element of surprise. One partner does not know it’s coming or coming then. There is usually a photographer hiding in a bush taking pictures or a videographer hiding in a bush capturing the whole thing on video. There is often a room somewhere strewn with roses or flower petals and bottles of champaign. It is not uncommon for the person planning the proposal to have arranged for both sets of parents and siblings to be at a cool restaurant to celebrate. Betrothal energy is unique, and uniquely beautiful. It happens once, and the couple remembers it forever. What do we make then of the end of the Haftarah from Hosea: I will betroth you forever; I will betroth you with righteousness and justice, And wit

June 1, 2024

We could all use a booster shot of hope. Where do we find it? Tomorrow we are going to examine two very different models for finding hope in dark circumstances: Rabbi Akiva in the Talmud, Makot 24 A and B, and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his epic Morality, published shortly before he passed away in 2020. Rabbi Akiva’s approach to hope seems to be about a new lens: Look at reality differently. Rabbi Sacks’s approach to hope seems to be about a new action plan: Act differently. What is the relationship of these two approaches to each other, and to us now?

What, if anything, lasts forever?  What is impervious to the ravages of time? What can we do today that will still be talked about a hundred years from now? I have been thinking about these questions since May 13, which is the day that a great writer named Alice Munro died.  Alice Munro won the Noble Prize in Literature in 2013.  She was an absolute master of the short story genre.  I had never read her work before her death, so I started reading a collection with the title Too Much Happiness, published in 2009.  As you might imagine, the title Too Much Happiness is ironic.  The characters in this collection do not have too much happiness. One story is about a recently widowed woman named Nita.  She had been married to a man twenty years older named Rich.  They expected she would be the first to pass, because she was fighting cancer, and because he had gotten a recent clean bill of health from his doctor. But soon after the doctor’s appointment, he passed suddenly and unexpectedly while on the way to the hard

Kohelet famously teaches us that there is a time for everything under the sun. Does that extend to both moderation and extremism? Is there a time for moderation? Is there a time for extremism? What do our sources have to say about how we might think about the different appeals of moderation and extremism? We will consider two sources. The first is a famous love story between Rabbi Akiva and his wife Rachel. It feels like an extreme story. They fall in love, get married, and then spend two periods of 12 years apart from each other so that he can learn Torah and be a great scholar. She wants this, encourages it. The second is a teaching from Maimonides about how we should eschew extremism. Shoot for the mean. The greatest rabbi in the Talmud, Rabbi Akiva, seems to live a life that is at variance with the wisdom of our greatest medieval sage, Maimonides. How do we understand this creative tension, and what does it mean to us today?

Dr. Michael Oren served in the IDF as a Lone Soldier in the paratroopers and then as an IDF Spokesman. He was Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2013, where he was instrumental in fortifying the US-Israel alliance and in obtaining U.S. defense aid, especially for the Iron Dome system. After his time in Washington, Oren served as a Member of Knesset and Deputy Minister of Diplomacy in the Prime Minister’s Office. He spearheaded efforts to strengthen Israel-Diaspora relations, to develop the Golan Heights, and to fight BDS. He has authored several New York Times bestsellers including Six Days of War, Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israel Divide and Power, Faith, and Fantasy and is the founder of Israel Advocacy Group. Ambassador Oren’s latest writing can be found on his Substack, Clarity.

Madness.  We all feel the madness of our time. How can it be that at the Newton Public library, groups of Newton citizens shout at each other, locked in mutual hate? How can it be that students at Columbia have to hear encampments where they can hear from their bedrooms "We love Hamas" and "Burn Tel Aviv to the ground" night after night—and the administration lets this happen, hate unfiltered? How can it be that graduation ceremonies are interrupted by hate? How can it be that Jews feel so abandoned by so many? How can it be that Israel at 75 was (while it had been a tough year with the protests over judicial reform) basically robust and promising, while Israel at 76 feels so very different?  Madness was a big theme of Elie Wiesel. Tomorrow we are going to study a number of Hasidic parables that Elie Wiesel taught at Boston University that were reported in Ariel Burger's book called Witness. Elie Wiesel brought these parables to shed light on the madness of the 1930s and 1940s.  What l

It is 4:52 PM.  Our flight took off at 4:35 PM.  Eder has finished drinking his milk.  He’s done reading books.  He is not tired.  He does not want to sit still.  In seventeen minutes, he has already played with and discarded every toy in the diaper bag.  Now he’s screeching.  Solomon and I are passing him back and forth, trying in vain to appease him.  The good news is there are only four hours and twenty-two minutes to go. The woman seated in front of us turns around.  “You know, I think he’s hungry,” she says, “have you tried giving him some milk?”  Before I can answer, the woman next to me chimes in, “the problem is you fed him too soon. You should have waited.  Poor thing, his ears must be terribly painful. Put the pacifier in his mouth at least.”  There’s a tap on my shoulder.  A grandmother behind me disagrees.  “I think he has gas.  Did you try moving his legs—sometimes that helps to ease their tummies.”  Not to be left out, the woman across the aisle leans over.  “Did you pack any socks for him?  He’

At Sisterhood's wonderful donor event this past Sunday, a woman shared with me that she had had a large extended family in Europe before the Shoah. The family members who said in the 1930s it will all blow over, don't be alarmist, all perished in the Shoah. She said her parents were paranoid. They said it won't blow over. The alarm is real. They got out before it was too late. She said I am only here because my parents were paranoid, and they were right. There is an edge in the air. There is anxiety in the air. There is a lot of talk about the 1930s in Germany as a lens for today. How do we think about that? In a recent Israel at War podcast, Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi dismiss this lens as hysterical; that there is no basis for such a comparison; and that the Jewish community ought not to be talking this way as it amps up anxiety in a way that is unwarranted. Are they right? Consider the liturgy for this solemn day. I believe there is zero chance that there will ever be an Auschwitz

When was the last time you changed your mind on a matter of deep principle? You felt one way on an important issue, and then you flipped and came down on the other side? If that has happened to you, what inspired your change of thinking? What changed your mind?   Pharaoh and his courtiers changed their minds not once but twice. For a long time, he was not going to let the people go. Then after the tenth plague he changed his mind. Not only can they go, they need to go now. ASAP. And then in the reading for the seventh day, they change their minds again. What did we do? Why did we ever let them go? Let’s get them back, now. Send out our finest soldiers and chariots to take back our slaves.  When we discussed these biblical texts at services, a number of people volunteered that they had indeed changed their minds on important issues. It was always a personal relationship that prompted the change.  I was against LGBTQ plus inclusion, but then a family member came out; now I am for it.  I did not understand trans

Yizkor sermons tend to be challenging for rabbis because we give a lot of them.  We say Yizkor four times a year.  If you do the math year after year, that is a lot of Yizkor sermons, and what is there new to say?  What is there to say that we haven’t said before?  That you haven’t heard before? I wish we had that problem again this year.  Unfortunately we don’t.  This is a Yizkor with an entirely fresh angle.  The last time we said Yizkor was October 7.  I don’t need to tell you that the months since October 7 have been, and continue to be, the most harrowing for the Jewish people, since the Shoah. What is the impact of this hard new chapter on our private Yizkor mediations now?

I want to ask you to imagine for a moment that you are one of the Israelites fleeing Egypt. And let’s be granular. I want you to imagine that you’ve been a slave for decades. That your life is dictated by the whims of a cruel pharaoh, that your days are spent lugging huge stones, that you’ve been separated from your family, kept apart so that you can work harder. I want you to imagine that after decades of hard work, you are tired. Your bones creak. Your muscles are sore. When Moshe tells you that God has heard you, that he’s going to get you out, you can’t even process that possibility. You can’t even catch your breath. You might have stayed in Egypt, and simply enjoyed a few days off, but during this past week, Egypt has become more miserable than ever. You’ve endured water shortages, frogs, lice, hordes of wild animals, disease, hail, darkness, and widespread destruction. There aren’t enough resources to stay. And so, even though walking is the last thing you want to do, you’re marching with 3 mill

Abe and Sarah have been happily married for more than 60 years. They share children, grandchildren, great grandchildren.  One fine day, Sarah says,  Abe: I’d like a banana sundae.  Would you please go to JP Licks?  Of course! It would be my privilege! What kind of banana sundae do you want?  Abe, write it down.  A banana sundae has a lot going on.  Would you please get me three flavors: chocolate chip, Oreo, and cake batter. Then whipped cream. Lots of hot fudge. With a cherry on top.  Abe, write it down.   I don’t need to write it down.  I’ve got it.  Off he goes. Thirty minutes later, he comes back, smiling and triumphant.   Sarah, I got you just what you wanted! A dozen hot, fresh bagels. And delicious plain cream cheese, which you always love. Abe, I told you to write it down. I told you you’d forget.  I don’t want plain cream cheese.  I want cream cheese with scallions. This is an old joke that my father in love used to tell, but the older I get, the more I realize that this joke is no joke.  This joke h

This year, on the 8th day of Pesach, we will say Yizkor. In a recent clergy conversation as we were planning out this class, Michelle asked the simplest and most profound question, one I had never thought about before. Why do we not say Yizkor for fallen ideas and ideals? For broken hopes and dreams? If we did, there would be so much to say Yizkor for this year. Think of all the ideas and ideals that have fallen since October 7. Think of all the hopes and dreams that feel utterly vanquished. Michelle’s question shined the light on a simple fact: we only say Yizkor for dead people, not for dead ideas and ideals. We say Yizkor for parents, spouses, children, siblings, friends—people. We don’t say Yizkor for a peace process that feels terminally derailed; for a sense of pre-October 7 normalcy in Israel; for the rise of eliminationist Jew hatred on college campuses throughout our country; for the golden age of American Jewry that is either over or seriously threatened; for democracy in our own country and throu

April 23, 2024

Do you remember where you were last Saturday night when we learned that Iran was firing more than 330 drones and cruise missiles into Israel? Shira and I spoke to several Israelis, and they used three words to describe last Saturday night. One word was apocalyptic. We spoke with an Israeli woman living in Boston who spoke to her Israeli sister living in Tel Aviv, and the sister said the sirens are blaring, we are going into the bomb shelter, and I do not know what will be on the other end of this attack, whether Israel will be, whether we will be. Please know that I love you. The Israeli sister who received this called it apocalyptic. Can you even imagine what it would be like to make or to receive a call like that? Thank God, Israel and Israelis survived. Thank God, there were no fatalities from Saturday night. But the Israeli sister who went with her three young children and husband into the bomb shelter did not know that at the time, nor did the Israeli sister in Boston. Then there was a second word

Within the last few weeks, something has happened to give me a new lease on life. A new glide in my stride. We are all looking for hope and energy, and I got mine from an unexpected source: the release of Beyonce’s new album of country music, Cowboy Carter, in particular one incredible song, a duet with Miley Cyrus called II Most Wanted. I have listened to this song easily 100 times in the last few weeks. I listen to it in the kitchen when I am doing dishes. I listen to it in the family room when I am folding laundry. I listen to it in the gym when I am working out. I listen to it in my bedroom when I am getting dressed. Shira thinks that listening to the same song 100 times is excessive. Can you believe that? Every time she walks into a room where the song is playing, she says: again? I love this song for so many reasons. Beyonce’s voice is beautiful, Miley Cyrus’s voice is beautiful, and their voices together are beyond gorgeous. I love this song because the melody is also gorgeous. But mostly I lov

What happens to love in a world of not love? Consider this past Sunday at Temple Emanuel. In the morning Shai Held was in dialogue with Marc Baker about his new book Judaism is About Love. It was a truly inspiring conversation. After their dialogue, I heard many people offer some version of the following statement which, to my mind, is the single greatest compliment any rabbi could ever earn. “Shai Held inspires me to want to be a better human being.” Totally beautiful, and totally well earned. There is only one catch. In their dialogue, there was no mention of October 7; Gaza; the hostages; the war. Their dialogue did not explicitly deal with the mess that is—and raised the question, can we deal with the mess that is, and still be inspiring? After Shai and Marc’s dialogue, there was a robust TE contingent at the rededication of the wall at the home of Jeff and Miriam Kosowsky, the wall whose photos of the hostages were blacked out, faces blotted out, names blotted out, and “Free Gaza” written on their wal

This Shabbat, we hear reflections from two visiting members of Brothers for Life. Since October 7, Amit Gilboa has served 155 days of active duty in the IDF and is currently participating in a workshop to facilitate support groups for newly wounded soldiers. Shahaf Segal, who served in the Golani Brigade, volunteers with Brothers for Life visiting newly wounded soldiers, showing them there can be a better future.