From The Bimah: Jewish Lessons For Life

I must tell you that whenever I have entered this sanctuary, I am reminded of the Starship Enterprise of Star Trek….and now I have the honor of speaking from the Control Room, And I flash to Spock communicating “Beam me up Scotty”… For me, this is a metaphor of how we use the spiritual power of this Sanctuary to create a Place For Healing. A true story. When my 40 year old son Adam Goldman-Yassen was in second grade, they brought the class to the Temple Emanuel sanctuary…and they showed them around and said of these chairs back here, “ These is where the rabbis sit. And Adam, having been brought up the the Newton Centre Minyan, the precursor of Minyan Ma’Or, A LAY-LED CONGREGATION, raised his hand and asked :“What’s a Rabbi?” I share that story with you because I believe Psychotherapy is the attempt to create a secular clergy to supplement what the religious clergy can offer. We are ALL the Purveyors of Hope.

For Talmud this week a different kind of move, in two ways. First, we are actually going to study a page of Talmud, tractate Megillah 14a. Second, we are going to examine a halakhic question: why do we not say Hallel on Purim? We say Hallel on Pesach, when we were rescued from Egyptian slavery. We say Hallel on Hanukkah, when we were rescued from the Syrian Greeks. We say Hallel on Yom Haatzmaut, when we established the State of Israel. Why do we not say Hallel on Purim, when we were rescued from genocide in the Persian Empire? And what does this halakhic conversation teach us about how traditional Jewish sources value Israel and value the diaspora as places for Jewish living?

I want to start with something lovely, a little bit of serendipity. I meet from time to time with a good friend to catch up. This friend has a tradition, after our conversations, of giving me a book to read. He is a big reader, a person of ideas. So often he gives me a new book, usually hard cover, that just came out, and that he had read right away. But on this last occasion, for reasons I do not know, he gave me a book off his shelf, a used book, a paperback that he had read long ago. The book is called Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom, who had achieved fame with Tuesdays With Morrie. I love the title. I would love to have a little faith. At first I wondered whether this book could possibly speak to our world today. It came out in 2009. That is not only 15 years ago. That is a different universe ago. All the places that I love: America, Israel, Harvard, the Jewish community in North America, were so different back then. Could a book written before October 7, before Israel’s longest war, before

A hypothetical based on a real-world situation, not at Temple Emanuel, but at another Jewish organization: Imagine you are on the rabbinic search committee for some institution near and dear to your heart: shul, Hillel, federation. You read the resume of a candidate. Superb. Excellent education. Deep experience at Jewish summer camp. Has lived Judaism in a rich journey. Doing exceptionally well in rabbinical school. You go into the interview very favorably disposed. At the interview, you like this candidate. You feel a connectivity. Chemistry is good. Then you ask this candidate about Israel. The candidate responds: I am not anti-Zionist. I am just not into Israel. I want to teach Torah, mitzvah, Shabbat, chagim, tikkun olam, a Torah of love and bridge-building. And I can’t do that with Israel. Israel is just too divisive. Israel does not build bridges. It creates rallies and counter rallies. So I am not against Israel, it’s just not part of my religious identity nor will it be a part of my rabbinate. Shou

The IDF has an intelligence unit whose name does not exactly roll off the tongue. It is called Terrain Analysis, Accurate Mapping, Visual Collection and Interpretation Agency. As Dan Senor and Saul Singer point out in their new book The Genius of Israel, which came out on November 7, 2023, the job of this intelligence unit is to analyze millions of details in millions of images gathered by Israeli satellites, airplanes and drones For example, if the war in Lebanon happens, Israel would need to send paratroopers into enemy territory. How do they get resupplied with food and other essentials? Israeli technology has captured millions of images which have to be interpreted for the light it sheds on where food and drink might be found. While this unit uses computers and algorithms to help process all this big data, computers only get you so far. Human beings need to read and analyze the data. The challenge is that this work is extremely tedious and painstaking. Another word might be boring. It takes an unusual

No good options. All options are bad. There is a hard-to-understand Bible story, 2 Samuel 24, about what do we do when there are no good options. King David commissions a census. How many soldiers are there in Israel and in Judah? The text assumes, without stating why, that this is a grievous sin. King David’s general Joab knows this is a sin but does it anyway because the King has commanded it. What makes the sin particularly puzzling is that God incited David to do the census. God punishes David and Israel for the very census that God instigated. What is that? Once King David has the answer to how many soldiers he has, he learns from the prophet Gad that God is furious with him. Punishment is coming, and King David gets to choose from among three horrific options: a 7-year famine, a 3-month military defeat, or a 3-day pestilence. The pestilence that follows claims the lives of 70,000 perfectly innocent citizens of Judah and Israel. To King David’s credit, he owns that he has made a mistake, and he seeks

Dronme Davis tells a powerful story.  She was nine.  At the time, she had developed the habit of biting her nails until they were raw and sometimes even bleeding.  A teacher told her, in all seriousness, “if you keep biting your nails, one day you’re doing to meet a boy and you’re going to want him to date you and he’s going to be holding your hand and will look down and see how disgusting your hands are and he’s not going to want to date you.” Even as a nine-year-old, Dronme knew that there was something very wrong with this picture.  How could it be that her teacher didn’t see the pain that she was holding, the pain that was pushing her to self-harm in this way?  How could it be that at nine, she is getting the message that her relationship to her body should be predicated on the perception of a potential partner?  That her body exists to make someone else happy?

Please look at this iconic photograph of a chair at the Constitutional Convention. The chair has a sun which is ambiguous. Benjamin Franklin famously wondered out loud, is the sun rising or setting? https://files.constantcontact.com/d3875897501/094c58c3-688a-4ef0-a325-c75a886b067a.png Now please read this evocative article entitled “The New American Judaism” by Shira Telushkin published recently in The Atlantic. https://files.constantcontact.com/d3875897501/abe8a1a9-3ebd-45aa-b776-e060145674b6.pdf?rdr=true The presenting problem is the great rabbi shortage. There are not enough rabbis to serve the congregations that need them. In Rabbi Chiel’s day, the Seminary ordained 60 rabbis a year. In my day, 35 rabbis a year. Today, between LA and New York, the Seminary and Ziegler ordain 12. Ziegler sold its campus and its few rabbinical students meet in the religious school classroom of a local synagogue. So too HUC is ordaining fewer and fewer rabbis, as a result of which it closed its Cincinnati location, its

This week we enjoy the reflections of Sonia Saltzman, Noah Rivkin, Rhiannon Thomas, Michael Gardener, and Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz on their Mitzvah Mission to Israel.

The Temple Emanuel 50-person mitzvah mission to Israel last week experienced the confusing reality that diametrically contradictory truths can both be true. Normal or not normal? Is Israel a nation in mourning, as Rachel Korazim taught? Or is Israel getting past October 7, not in mourning, trying to live a normal life, as Donniel Hartman taught? Yes, and yes. Returning the hostages? Is it absolutely essential that Israel do everything possible to bring the hostages home? Or will it undermine the success of Israel’s war effort if it has to fight with one hand tied behind its back in order to secure the release of the hostages and free terrorists who will jeopardize the lives of Israelis in the future? Yes, and yes. Unity? Is Israel’s unity post October 7 real, or beginning to seriously fray? Yes, and yes. Is there a diplomatic or military solution? Do Israelis believe a two-state solution is possible after the betrayal of October 7? No. Is a military solution possible meaning that war will go on and on gen

February 17, 2024

When her son was diagnosed as Autistic at age 3, Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman dove into the neurodiversity movement to understand Autistic culture from the inside. What she learned there changed her life. As her son blossomed into a proud Autistic identity, Rabbi Shoshana discovered she was Autistic, too – and that the radical reimagining of normal that benefitted her child could also transform her wellbeing. Interweaving personal narrative with classical Torah, Rabbi Shoshana will speak on the liberatory message of Autistic culture, not only for Autistics but for all of us. Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman is a late-diagnosed Autistic writer, activist, mother, and passionate creative. Her essays have been published in many venues including The New York Times, Tablet Magazine, WBUR’s Cognoscenti, as well as several anthologies. Her first picture book, The Tide Is Rising, So Are We: A Climate Movement Anthem is forthcoming (Beaming Books, 2025). Rabbi Shoshana is co-founder and director of The Artist Beit Midras

Have you ever said yes to a commitment without knowing what that yes would mean to your life?  If you have taken a new job, moved to a new city, gotten married, had children, or nurtured a loved one through a rough patch, you have said this type of yes.   The address for saying yes without knowing what yes means is the famous phrase “na’aseh v’nishmah” in Ex. 24:7 in our reading this week. That is what the Israelites say after receiving the Torah at Sinai and then the supplemental civil and cultic laws and statutes in this week’s portion. This phrase is translated in different ways. “We will do and we will obey.” “We will faithfully do.” And “We will do and we will understand.”  What often gets lost in the story is four verses earlier the Israelites, having been given a full report on all of God’s commands and rules, proclaimed: “All the things that the Lord has commanded we will do.” Na’aseh without any nishmah. Ex. 24:3  What is the difference between “na’aseh” in verse 3 and “na’aseh v’nishmah” in verse 7?

Rabbi Michelle Robinson sits down with Annette Miller to discuss her role as Golda Meir in 'Golda's Balcony,' a play opening in Boston on February 23. They discuss inhabiting the iconic figure and what her legacy can tell us about the events of today.

The holy grail in Jewish education is “transformational.” An Israel trip like Birthright or any of our Passport experiences are supposed to be “transformational.” Going to any of our wonderful day schools is supposed to be “transformational.” Jewish summer camp--24-7 immersion, lifelong friends--is supposed to be “transformational.” The idea of a “transformational” experience is that the person is different on the other end. But the two big salvation stories in Exodus suggest that “transformational” experiences may not transform. That the very notion of a transformational experience may be an illusion. You might think that the splitting of the Sea of Reeds would be transformational. “When Israel saw the wondrous power which the Lord had wielded against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord; they had faith in the Lord and His servant Moses.” (Ex. 14:31) And yet three days later the afterglow of the miracle has already dissipated as “the people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’” (E

January 27, 2024

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” Mark Twain I think of the Mark Twain quote whenever I ponder a signature piece of wisdom of my late mother that I resisted as a teen, but that I agree with as an adult. My mother used to say: “Lower your expectations.”  My mother’s rationale: If we go through life with high expectations, there is a higher likelihood we might be disappointed. If we go through life with lowered expectations, there is a higher possibility we might be pleasantly surprised.   I thought of my mother’s wisdom when hearing the sobering, indeed searing Israel at War Podcast with Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi. They confront the reality that 100 plus days later, Israel is scaling back its military operations in Gaza without having accomplished the aim that more than 90% of Jewish Israelis all agreed to on October 8: Wage war in order

I have been thinking a lot about something that many of us—not all, but many—have in common: brothers and sisters.  I have been in a deep brother and sister place this week for two reasons. I am the youngest of six children.  My five older siblings live in different places. Two live in Los Angeles, one in New Jersey, one in Denver, and my sister Jill and I live in Newton.  This past Monday night, for a brief, incredibly sweet, totally-to-be-cherished nano second, we were all in the same place together, Brooklyn, for the wedding of Jill and Steve’s son Ari to his wife Esther.  Between geographical challenges, health challenges, Covid, and life, the six of us don’t get a chance to see one another altogether in the same place nearly as much as we would like.  The last time all six of us were together was at another nephew’s wedding in Denver before the pandemic.  So it felt incredibly special, and rare. And, just as we were dancing at Ari and Esther’s wedding, my brothers on Shira’s side of the family, Ari in Je

There is a Jewish holiday that few know, Tu B’Shevat, the new year of trees, celebrated next Wednesday night and Thursday, January 24-25. If Passover is the most broadly observed holiday, Tu B’Shevat is among the least observed—a holiday about trees in the dead of winter. To prepare ourselves for the holiday next week, we are going to study three stories about trees: A story about a tired and thirsty traveler who is nourished and renewed by a tree’s shade and fruit and gratefully offers the tree a blessing. Taanit 5b-6a. Shel Silverstein’s classic children’s story The Giving Tree (1964) is the antithesis of the first story. In Silverstein’s tale, the human has no gratitude and just keeps using the tree, taking and taking until reducing it to a stump. Why is a story about an abused tree and an abusive human a bestseller? What does this troubling story teach us, and how are we to understand its apparent popularity? The story about a person who plants a carob tree that will not yield fruit for 70 years b

January 13, 2024