From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

Why Are We Still Here? An exploration of the second day of Yuntif's role in keeping the Jewish people alive.We already celebrate a lot of holidays during the month of Tishrei, and on the second day of Sukkot, our tradition asks to add more limitations than was originally expected. The reason? It's an acknowledgement of a time gone by. Join Rabbi Ravid Tilles to explore how upholding of a second day of yuntif can teach us important lessons about how our thousands year old people has sustained ourselves. If you don't think we need to be practicing a second day of Yuntif, then you are exactly the person who should come!About Rabbi Ravid TillesRabbi Ravid Tilles is the School Rabbi and Director of Jewish Life and Learning at Schechter Boston. He and his wife, Yaffa, and three sons are members of the Temple Emanuel family.

More than 2,000 years ago, Hiero II, the ruler ofSyracuse, Sicily, was feeling frustrated. He had given a local goldsmith a nice piece of gold and asked for him to create a beautiful crown. However, when the craftsman delivered the final project, Hiero had the strong suspicion that he had pocketed some of the gold and made the crown out of a mixture of gold andother, cheaper metals. He asked the goldsmith, who of course assured him that the crown was entirely gold. But he couldn't shake the feeling that he had been cheated. So, he summoned Archimedes, a local physicist and brilliant scientist, and asked if he could figure out a way to test the composition of the crownwithout melting it down (which was the only way to ascertain composition at thetime).Archimedes spent weeks trying to devise a strategy. Every day, he would sit in his studyand ponder different scientific principles and approaches. And every day he returned home without answers. Finally, there was one day he was just exhausted. After hours of trying without luck, he decided to visit the bathhouse.It was there, as he sat down in the hot water, that he suddenly had an epiphany. Henoticed that his body entering the water displaced water corresponding to thevolume of his body. If that was true, he thought, then he could test the contents of the crown by placing the amount of gold Hiero had given for the project in water and then seeing if that gold displaced the same amount ofwater as the crown that had been fashioned. His mind was racing. I've got it! He jumped out of the bath, shrieking “Eureka, I've got it!” He was so excited, he couldn't wait. He took off running naked through the streets of Syracuseshouting “Eureka! I've got it!” Archimedes was right on the money. He performed his experiment and proved that the crown had indeed been constructed of a blend of metals, and the goldsmith had indeedpocketed some of the gold intended for the crown. And he didn't just solve the problem, he invented a principle which is still utilized today. Known as the Archimedes Principle, his discovery more than 2,000 years ago still helps us to design ships and submarines, to study fluid mechanics, and with important engineering and physics projects. Here's what I find so amazing about Archimedes' discovery. He went to the bathhouse not because he was intending to continue his research and when he sat down inthat water, it wasn't that he was trying to evaluate how much fluid would be displaced. However, somehow it happened that when he changed his physical environment, that change affected his internal environment and allowed him to expand his thinking and to solve the problem.We've all lived this. We've been in that struggle—trying to write a paper or solve a puzzle or figure out a plan for dinner. We too have found ourselves spinning wheels until we make the choice to do something else or go somewhere else and suddenly a dazzling new idea comes to us.

Please read the short story Basket of Trips in Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning collection called Olive Kitteridge. In a deep sense this short story moves us from Yom Kippur energy to Sukkot energy. A few questions to guide your reading:What is the Basket of Trips literally? What does the Basket of Trips represent?What human problem does this story speak to? How does this problem show up in your life?What prevents Ed and Marlene Bonney from taking their trips? Why do they accumulate brochures about trips that they do not take?This short story is not driven by plot—not much happens. It is the first day of shiva after a funeral.  Rather, the story is driven by character development. Several minor characters show up at the shiva. What is their significance?What is the message of this story? How does it connect with Yom Kippur and Sukkot?If you were to internalize the message of this story (and of the High Holiday season), what would you do differently?

September 21, 2026

At first blush, Bruce Feiler might seem like a curious choice for the climactic close of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of our year. After all, Yom Kippur is Judaism's most ritual-intensive day. We fast, pray, confess, reflect, seek forgiveness, and immerse ourselves in practices that have shaped Jewish life for centuries.Why, then, invite a speaker whose newest book, A Time to Gather: How Ritual Created the World—and How It Can Save Us, explores the creation of new rituals for life's modern transitions?A bestselling author and one of America's leading thinkers on family, faith, and meaning, Bruce Feiler began this project after he and his wife, Linda, dropped off their twin daughters at college on the very same day and suddenly found themselves empty nesters. Returning home, he found himself, as he puts it, “homesick in his own home.” What rituals, he wondered, help us navigate moments like these?In A Time to Gather, he explores both the weakening of many traditional rituals and the emergence of new ones: rituals surrounding fertility struggles, divorce, caregiving, LGBTQ+ weddings, empty nesting, and other major life transitions.His work raises a profound question, especially on Yom Kippur:What is the relationship between the rituals we inherit and the rituals we create?Can ancient rituals and new rituals strengthen one another? Do those who find meaning in the traditions of Yom Kippur also have room in their hearts for rituals crafted for modern experiences? And can newly created rituals deepen our appreciation for the wisdom embedded in inherited rituals?At Ne'ilah, our Rabbi Samuel Chiel Sanctuary is jam-packed with people standing for the last hour of Yom Kippur, approaching the open Ark, facing Torah scrolls, surrounded by love, pouring fourth their heart to their Creator. It is a space and time filled with feeling. Right before that moment, Bruce Feiler will invite us to consider not only the rituals that have formed us, but also the rituals we need for the chapters of our life that still lie ahead.What role does ritual play in your life? Which rituals have helped form you? And which rituals do you still need?

The story is told of a businessman whose company was failing. Creditors were calling. He was desperate for some move that would turn things around. He went to his lawyer. No help.He went to his accountant. No help. He hired a consultant. Nothing. Finally, in utter desperation, he went to the rabbi. "Rabbi," he said, "please give me one idea that could save my business."The rabbi thought for a long moment. Then he said, "All wisdom is in the Torah. Take a chumash and a folding chair to the beach on a windy day. Let the wind blow through the pages. When the wind stops, whatever page the Torah opens to contains the answer to your problem."Several months later, the rabbi sees the man walking down the street in a brand-new suit, smiling from ear to ear. "Rabbi," he says, "it worked!" The rabbi asks, "What page did the Torah open to?" The man smiles. "Chapter 11."I thought of that old joke this summer while reading Chapter 11 of a different book: Jim Collins's new book, What to Make of a Life. Chapter 11 contains two teachings that stopped me in my tracks. The moment I read them, I thought: I have to share these on Yom Kippur.The first teaching is what Collins calls the Mothershead Mantra. John Mothershead Jr. was a philosophy professor at Stanford. When Collins was an undergraduate, he invited Professor Mothershead, then in his late sixties, to dinner and asked him a question: "When you look back on your life, how do you sum up what you've learned from your long experience?"Professor Mothershead responded: "I reject your question." Then he explained:"There are two ways to go through life. The first is to ride through life sitting in the saddle looking backward. The second is to ride through life sitting in the saddle pointed forward. I'm the second. I have no interest in looking backward. I'm not done yet."There are two ways to sit in the saddle. Facing backward. Or facing forward.And on Yom Kippur, that raises a question for every one of us: How are you sitting in the saddle?

On the High Holidays, G-d judges and forgives us not only as individuals but as a community. Parker Palmer describes true community as “that place where the person you least want to live with always lives.” As we enter this new year, what does this mean for our relationships and for how we show up for one another?

Shira and I were in Israel this summer for two weeks. We had planned to spend our last evening having dinner with our dear friends Micah Goodman, who has been here so many times over the years, and his wife Zippy. For the last several years, we have had dinner with them at a restaurant in East Jerusalem, on Mt. Scopus. It sits high on a mountainside, with a gorgeous view of Jerusalem's city lights.The four of us sat down overlooking the city. We had so much to talk about. We had just begun our conversation when suddenly I did not feel right. Something felt off. I could not focus. I excused myself to go splash some cold water on my face and recenter. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground. I had fainted.Micah and Zippy, Shira, the restaurant owner and several waiters were standing over me. Someone had called an ambulance. I assured everyone that I was fine, no ambulance was necessary, and made my way back to the table.A few minutes later, while sitting at the table, I fainted again.When I woke up, Micah and Zippy, Shira, the owner and several waiters were gathered around me—this time with a Hatzalah crew. This time there was no debate. I was headed to Hadassah Hospital.The whole experience was embarrassing, to put it mildly. What was supposed to be a special farewell dinner with dear friends ended with me being loaded into an ambulance. It was a brush with mortality I had not seen coming. As they were putting me into the ambulance, Micah said: "Rabbi, it's not so bad. It's going to be okay. You're going to get a sermon out of this." And the sick thing is, I was thinking the exact same thing.Before getting to the sermon, let me just say: I am fine. The physicians at Hadassah did every test imaginable. Their diagnosis was simple: dehydration. Too much walking in the hot Jerusalem sun and not enough water. I was discharged that night and have had no issues since.But here is the sermon. As we approach the third anniversary of October 7, and think about all that has happened since, the Jewish people are living through an age of anxiety.Tal Becker, one of Hartman's great teachers, tells the story of walking through Paris with his family. One of his daughters, eleven years old, was wearing a Jewish star outside her shirt.Tal found himself caught in a dilemma. He did not feel entirely comfortable having his daughter identified publicly as Jewish. But neither did he want to teach her that being Jewish is something to hide. So he gave her a big hug. And while embracing her, he gently tucked the Jewish star beneath her shirt. Tal Becker—who has represented Israel before the International Court of Justice—found himself hiding his daughter's Jewish star in Paris. That is our age of anxiety.We worry about Israel.We worry about antisemitism.We worry about our own beloved country.We worry about our children and grandchildren.We worry about our health, our families, our future.And beneath all those worries lies a common question:What will be? Will everything be okay? What will be with Israel? What will be with the Jewish people? What will be with our beloved country? What will be with our own lives?

Earlier this summer, a book caught my eye because of its title. On the cover were the words, “worry cry argue fight”, all crossed out. Then, boldly circled: “pray first”. The subtitle promised to reveal “the transformative power of a life built on prayer”. Right up my alley, I thought; perfect. So, as I do with many books, I ordered it used. As soon as it arrived, I opened it, ready to begin reading, only to find an inscription on the inside cover: “You are one of my prayers. God listened to me and gave me the most wonderful man. My right one.” Signed and dated 12-24-2023.Which immediately led me to wonder how this book had traveled from one of the most beautiful attestations of transcendent love, “You are one of my prayers,” to the $2.99 discount rack. Had he died? Had they broken up? Had he read the book's title as a passive aggressive, “You need to pray more!”? I was suddenly imagining a whole domestic drama unfolding between the dedication page and the used book sticker. Of course, there's the more mundane possibility that he received the book, read it, then simply did some Marie Kondo-ing. Apparently, sometime between Christmas Eve 2023 and the used-book shelf in 2026, this answered prayer had stopped sparking joy.By summer's end, I realized I had spent more time mulling this mystery than I did reading the actual book. Something stuck in that inscription like a thorn. Maybe their love is flourishing and he simply ran out of shelf space! I hope so. But the less lovely possibilities had already raised a harder question that just wouldn't let go: What happens when we get what we prayed for – and life keeps happening? What do we do when our answered prayers don't stay answered?

Such an important question, “where is God?” It seems so basic, yet do we ever stop to ask ourselves this question? Probably only rarely, if at all. It must be at the same time the most basic of questions yet the one question we never really ask ourselves. We think we know the answer to the question. But do we ever think about it? Is God everywhere? Is God's presence something that is unrelated to what we do or not do? Can we help bring God's Presence to dwell among us? If so, what can we do?About Rabbi Israel de la PiedraRabbi Israel has been working with the sick, the old and the dying for the last fifteen years. He was the Rabbi and Spiritual Director at Miami Jewish Health (MJH), a large senior residential and rehabilitation facility in Miami, from 2014 to 2021. He was awarded the “Clergy of the Year” award by the Ministering to the Elderly Conference in Miami in 2021 for his work at MJH. After his return to Boston in late 2021, Rabbi Israel worked as a hospice chaplain at AccentCare Hospice and currently serves as the rabbi at Hebrew Senior Life's Simon C. Fireman Community in Randolph, MA. Rabbi Israel received his rabbinical ordination from Hebrew College in 2013. Prior to becoming a rabbi, he had a long career as an economist with the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC and in two African countries. Rabbi Israel and his wife Aliza are proud members of Temple Emanuel and keep homes in Kiriat Motzkin (near Haifa) in Israel and in Canton, MA.

August 15, 2026

This week's Torah portion offers us a list of forbidden and permissible foods, but Jewish tradition challenges us to look beyond what we eat and ask deeper questions about desire and limits, physical and spiritual hunger, gratitude and abundance, joy and responsibility.Join Rabbi Saltzman as we explore three powerful Torah stories: the forbidden fruit in Eden, manna in the wilderness, and the milk and honey of the Promised Land. What can these stories teach us about what it means to eat—and to live—as a Jew in the 21st century?About Rabbi Sonia SaltzmanRabbi Sonia Saltzman is currently serving as Rabbinic Advisor for Graduate Students at Boston University Hillel. She has taught at various synagogue communities, including Temple Emanuel (Newton), Kerem Shalom (Concord) and Newbridge on the Charles (Dedham). Rabbi Saltzman was Senior Rabbi at Temple Ohabei Shalom, Brookline from 2011-2018 and from 2008-2011 she served as the rabbi of Sha'arei Shalom, Ashland.Rabbi Saltzman was ordained in 2008 as part of the first graduating class of the Rabbinical School at Hebrew College. During Rabbinical School, she held student pulpits at Temple Emanuel in Newton and at Temple Aliyah in Needham, completed chaplaincy training at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and served as faculty for the Bronfman Youth Fellowship Program in Israel. Prior to entering the rabbinate, Rabbi Saltzman worked in the field of micro-finance at ACCION International as head of the Financial Services Department, extending credit to small businesses in the developing world. She also worked in Bank of Boston's Project Finance Department and taught in its Loan Officer Development Program. Rabbi Saltzman is a graduate of Tufts University (BA in Political Science) and holds a Masters Degree in International Affairs (Columbia University) and a Masters Degree in Bible and Jewish Thought (Brandeis University).She is married to Dr. Ned Saltzman, a urologist at Newton-Wellesley Hospital and has two grown sons, Benjamin and Gabriel.

When we are inthe midst of our Bar and Bat Mitzvah season, our clergy team meets with the teen whose big day is coming up that Shabbat. We often ask some version of this question: As you are about to begin your Jewish adulthood, tell us some of your dreams. What do you want to do when you grow older? Who do you want to become?Appropriately enough, most often the answer is: huh? What? What did you say?They look attheir parents, who always say the same thing. "Don't look at us. Look at the rabbis. They're asking you the question."At which point the most common answer is: "I don't know." Or: "I have no idea."I plead guilty. I am usually the one asking that question. And I don't know why I keep asking it, given how fruitless it is and how dry the conversation goes.But once, Hashem rewarded me for asking the question. I said to a Bar Mitzvah student:"What do you want to do when you grow up?" With no hesitation, no looking at his parents, no helpless look, he declared: "I want to run a hedge fund.” Total clarity. I asked the obvious follow-up question: "Why? Why do you want to run a hedge fund?"He was thirteen. Too young for pretense or affect. So he said: "I want to make a lot of money." At which point I asked the obvious follow-up question: "Why? What would you do with all that money?" His answer was clear. "I would want to have a really nice life. A big house. Nice vacations. Nice cars.”I have been thinking about this inspiring conversation this week because I have been reading Jim Collins's new book, What to Make of a Life, and because of a famous teaching in our Torah portion this morning.This teen's unvarnished answer points to what Collins calls “the arrow of money.” We work hard. We make money. We use that money to build the life we want. Our home. Ourvacations. Our children's education. Our tzedakah. Our retirement. That arrow is familiar to all of us. Our work leads to our money leads to our life, the arrow of money. But Collins observes that many people who live deeply meaningful lives embody a different move. In his phrase, they “reverse the arrow of money.” They do not ask: "How can my work make me money?" Instead they ask: "How can I make enough money so that I can do the thing I most want to do?" One of the people he profiles, the historian Barbara Tuchman, did not write books in order to make money. She earned enough money so that she could write books. Collins argues that the deepest question is not how to make money but what do we do once we have enough. Remarkably, that is exactly the point Moses makes in this week's Torah portion: Lo al halechem levado yichyeh ha'adam. Man does not live by bread alone. We usually hear those words as a statement about spirituality. But in context, Moses is saying something quite specific.

Welcoming is an essential part of the Jewish tradition and a key to spirituality. I'll discuss my take on how I and so many others at Temple Emanuel work to create a welcoming – a hamish – community for our congregants and all who enter the shul. I'll look at Genesis 18 – what I've always considered the “ushers' parsha – and Abraham's response to seeing three angels outside his tent. A central theme will be one espoused by Rabbi Gardenswartz and others – that God lives in the space between us and thereby the importance of connection and creating a caring community. I'll also point to what I consider the seminal contributions made by Rabbi Ron Wolfson when he consulted here 15 or 20 years ago and literally wrote the book “The Spirituality of Welcoming.” Further, I'll bring my perspective on ushering at TE for the past quarter century, my 25 or so years on the Board of Directors and other shul roles, and my learning and practicing Mussar for the past seven years. And I'll make sure to thank my wife, Sandy, whose contributions to the shul dwarf mine in every respect.About Rick ThauAs descibed by Rick himself: Sandy and I joined TE in 1984 when she was pregnant with our first son, David. We started coming to services Friday nights and Saturday mornings about a decade later and haven't stopped. I said Kaddish for 11 months for two grandparents and my father, have kept coming to morning minyan (the best) virtually every day since my father died in 2017, have been part of the Elyse Friedman-led Bereavement Committee for about 15 years — leading dozens of shiva minyan services since — started the shul softball team about 20 years, cooked a gazillion hot dogs and burgers at the shul BBQ since the days of the old shul, ate more egg salad at Kiddish than any congregant ever, and a few other things, likely of little consequence. Basically, I help out as I can given my limited skills. I began ushering in the 1990s back in the days of the peerless Irwin Sydney and Haskell Shapiro, z'ls both, which adds up to well over 1,018 services on Shabbos, the Holidays, and the Chagim. Every day at TE has been a blessing. The place has provided me and, I firmly believe, anyone who enters the building the opportunity to grow, connect, and become a better person and better Jew. Along the way, I made my living as a writer, editor, and general nuisance in politics, government, and the tech and finance industries, ending with 22 years at Fidelity.

This talk traces Yuval's family's journey from Basra and Nasiriyah in Iraq to Israel in the 1950s. Through the story of his parents, his childhood in Be'er Sheva's Dalet neighborhood, a predominantly Mizrahi community, and his father's work in Gaza during the 1970s and early 1980s, he reflects on the intertwined histories of Jews and Arabs, memory, migration, and belonging. It is both a personal family story and a window into a chapter of Middle Eastern and Israeli history that continues to shape our present.About Yuval EvriYuval Evri is Associate Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Marash and Ocuin Chair in Ottoman, Mizrahi, and Sephardic Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. He is a cultural historian specializing in modern Sephardi/Arab-Jewish history. His book, The Return to Al-Andalus: Disputes Over Sephardic Culture and Identity Between Arabic and Hebrew, was published by Magnes Press in 2020. The English edition The Return to Sepharad and the Erasure of al-Andalus, is scheduled for publication by Indiana University Press in Spring 2027.

When the tribes of Gad and Reuben ask to settle east of the Jordan, Moses hears a threat to Israel's future. Together we'll discover how the Torah and the Book of Joshua model a framework for the people to remain bound by one covenant while living very different realities. In a time when Israeli and Diaspora Jews face different challenges but share one destiny, we'll learn what the Torah teaches about belonging, responsibility, and building a Jewish future together.About Rabbi KotlerRabbi Jamie Kotler teaches Torah and Jewish texts at synagogue communities in the Boston area and beyond. She has served as chaplain at Fireman House (Hebrew Senior Life), and has served on the Boards of The Rashi School, and Mayyim Hayyim, and on the building committee for Newbridge on the Charles at Hebrew Senior Life.Rabbi Kotler grew up in Brazil and Mexico, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, with little religious practice or knowledge. She began studying Torah as a young mother of three. Her desire to steep herself in the texts and traditions she had missed as a child led her to enter rabbinical school at the age of 54 and was ordained by the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College in June 2016. Before entering the rabbinate, she was a computer programmer (EDS, TX and Hewlett-Packard, CA), a financial analyst (Advanced Cardiovascular Systems, CA), and a consultant to small businesses.Rabbi Kotler holds a BA in Biology from Brown University and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. She is married to Harold Kotler, and together they have five grown children and six grandchildren.

What does it mean to be blessed without knowing it, especially in a period permeated by suffering and perceived meaninglessness? Today, reading these two parashot together yields some incredible insights into how we can reframe our perspectives, cultivate gratitude, and actively build a better reality for ourselves.About Michael RosembergMichael Rosemberg is a rising senior in the Joint Program between the Columbia University School of General Studies and List College of Jewish Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is pursuing bachelor's degrees in Economics-Political Science at Columbia and in Jewish Ethics at JTS. His academic interests include political theory, American politics, Jewish pluralism, Jewish theology, and Jewish relations with non-Jews. At Columbia, Michael is a member of the Honor Society of the School of General Studies and the Mu Chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society. At JTS, he is a List College Fellow and will be completing an undergraduate thesis that explores the Latin American Jewish community's response to the surge in antisemitism following October 7th. He has completed a selective fellowship for promising Jewish leaders in Columbia/Barnard Hillel's Alexander Jewish Leadership Institute. He has also taken part in the Shalom Hartman Institute's Jewish Teen Fellowship. Beyond his academic pursuits, Michael is deeply involved in Jewish communal life and leadership. He serves as the co-president of the Challah For Hunger student group at Columbia/Barnard Hillel, and he frequently leads services for various minyanim, most notably leading this past year's High Holy Day Services at Temple Emanuel. Michael feels humbled and is very grateful for the opportunity to share Torah with all of you.

I need all of you to join me on a sports-nerd journey, for a second, because the Knicks just won their first championship since 1973. I'm aware this may not be the right crowd for this, but my parents are from New York, and as the famous song says, “I was born a Knicks fan, it's genetic.” To say this championship meant a lot to New York and the Knicks would be an understatement, but what really made this championship so special was not just that the Knicks won, but how they won.

We all love closure. We would all love to know that a danger we had worried about has passed, that we can exhale. All good. All safe. Peace. Nothing to worry about anymore. Open a bottle of wine. Rejoice.Sometimes that happens. And other times, perhaps most times, it does not.How do we do life when the closure we wish for is not to be had? That is a question for us in our personal lives. That is certainly a question for Israel and the Jewish people now.No Israeli commentator or thought leader that I have heard or read believes that the existential threat posed by Iran's nuclear regime has passed. The war was begun because Iran's nuclear ambitions and repeatedly stated desire to destroy Israel were an existential threat. The ceasefire that was announced this week does not resolve that existential threat. How do Israelis, and the Jewish people, and all who would oppose nuclear annihilation of a people, do life without closure—with the threat still unresolved?For our last Talmud class of the year, we are going to examine the tractate Ta'anit, which deals with an existential threat to ancient Israel: drought. No rain meant no water to drink, no water to support vegetation, no produce, no food. Drought meant famine. Drought meant hunger.How to handle this ancient existential threat to life? Ta'anit, which means fast (as in Yom Kippur) offers us two models for living when we cannot exhale, for life without closure. The threats (drought/famine and Iranian nuclear ambition) are different. But our limited options for living with them are the same.

Singing God's Words: The Meaning and Experience of Chanting TorahDrawing from his book, Singing God's Words: The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism, the first in-depth study of the meaning and experience of chanting Torah among contemporary American Jews, Rabbi Summit discusses how and why a growing number of American Jews see the chanting of Torah as one of the most authentic expressions of their religious identity.About Rabbi Jeffrey SummitRabbi Jeffrey A. Summit, Ph.D. holds an appointment as Research Professor in the Department of Music and Judaic Studies at Tufts University. He is the author of Singing God's Words: The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism (Oxford University Press) and The Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Music and Identity in Contemporary Jewish Worship (Oxford University Press). His CD Abayudaya: Music from the Jewish People of Uganda (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings) was nominated for a GRAMMY award. His CD with video Delicious Peace: Coffee, Music and Interfaith Harmony in Uganda (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings) was awarded Best World Music CD by the Independent Music Awards. His research and writing focus on music and identity, music and spiritual experience, music and advocacy, and the impact of technology on the transmission of tradition. Rabbi Summit holds emeritus appointments at Tufts as Emeritus Neubauer Executive Director of Tufts Hillel and Emeritus Jewish Chaplain.

The many aspects of the prayer AleinuThere's no other prayer in the entire Jewish liturgy as fascinating as the Aleinu with its rich history and meaning on one hand, and melodies and Mi Sinai tunes on the other.This Shabbat we'll exam a very ancient prayer that in the Middle Ages caused our people persecution and censorship for the famous line that we no longer recite.But Aleinu is not just that. It is a prayer we recite with multiple melodies that were written in different centuries by composers with very little in common.And then, as you know, every evening minyan whether at Shul or at a house of morning congregants join in unison for the recitation of this prayer like no other prayer.Everyone knows the music…. Why? We'll examine the concept of what Brain Scientists call  “earworms”.

What is your word cloud? What are the leading words that take in how you feel about your life? Our reading this week reminds us of the very intimate connection between word and world. The words we speak create the world we live in. Our word cloud becomes us, who we are. The Israelites' word cloud: “Why did you take us out of Egypt? We used to eat fish for free in Egypt, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. Our gullets are shriveled. Nothing but manna.” Their negative energy word cloud reinforces and deepens their negative energy world. Our complaints are not costless but spread negative energy to the people in our life. Moses is driven to a meltdown. “I cannot carry all this people by myself, for it is too much for me. If You would deal thus with me, kill me rather, I beg You, and let me see no more of my wretchedness!” There is a straight line from their negative energy this week to their negative energy next week in refusing to enter the promised land.  But what are we supposed to do with our negative energy if we feel it, especially if we feel it for a good reason, if our negative energy is well earned? What if we are depressed or anxious or worried for good reason? Surely Judaism does not counsel us to repress and suppress hard emotions. We will look at an old friend, one of the prayers that is most familiar to us, which suffers precisely for its familiarity: Ashrei. The Talmud teaches that if we say Ashrei three times a day, every day, we gain a portion in the world to come. Ashrei is an alphabetical acrostic poem about abundance, blessing, generosity, goodness, radiant positive energy. Say it every day, three times a day, every day, and we begin to feel it. But is it even possible to offer a positive energy Ashrei word cloud if we feel anxious, depressed, worried? What is an example of a real person with real worries, eschewing the negative word cloud of the Exodus generation for the positive world view of the psalmist? Can we do that?

I want to talk to you this morning about a pivotal moment, a fork in the road moment, faced by the greatest rabbi who ever lived, Maimonides. And while we are not Maimonides, and we live in a very different time and place, we all face our own version of Maimonides's moment. His story has so much to teach us.

Please do yourself a favor. Listen to the commencement address that country star Eric Church recently gave at the University of North Carolina. It's 18 minutes—and very much worth our time.Church offers that there are what he calls "six strings" to a life well lived. If all six strings are properly tuned, our life can be a beautiful song. If any one of those strings is not properly tuned, the song of our life is off.  We can hear it. The people in our life can hear it, too. Take a good look at the list. What strings of ours need tuning? Church observes that the need to tune our strings is never-ending. At every age and stage some string or strings needs our attention. Which makes sense. Faith is an important string, but events like illness, death, and loss rock our faith. Family is an important string, but families are ever-changing. Loved ones die, loved ones are born, people grow up and out. Marriage is an important string, but every marriage has its different chapters. And so on for all the strings.On Shabbat morning we are going to look at three Jewish values—listening (shema), focusing (kavanah), and returning (teshuvah)—that can bring our strings into attunement.Church's commencement address has gone viral because it is artful and true. Matching his six strings with our three Jewish values will add beauty and meaning to our song and our life.

May 23, 2026

Last week, we cut Eder's hair for the first time in celebration of his third birthday. As he grows, Solomon and I find ourselves thinking more intentionally about the kind of parents we hope to be. How do we offer the scaffolding and boundaries that help a child to flourish? What does it mean to guide with love, clarity, and presence? What does it mean to be a good parent? As it turns out, Shavuot has something to say about all of this. Revelation wasn't a single moment or a single style. God didn't give Torah once, in one voice, with one emotional tone. Instead, revelation unfolded gradually — sometimes with thunder, sometimes with quiet, sometimes through story, sometimes through relationship. Each moment was shaped so the people could actually receive it. In this class, we'll explore Torah's revelation stories and midrashic portraits of divine communication alongside different models of parenting. But beneath the texts lies a deeper question: How do we share wisdom, values, and truth in ways that can truly be heard — by our children, by our communities, and by the world we're trying to build?

Author and social entrepreneur Joshua Foer is the co-founder of several initiatives to make Jewish learning and cultural exploration accessible worldwide, including Sefaria, the open-access library of Jewish texts, Lehrhaus, a community hub in Somerville, the Jewish film and TV production company Leviathan, and the design competition Sukkah City. He is also the co-founder of Atlas Obscura and author of Moonwalking with Einstein, an international bestseller published in 37 languages. Josh was recently named one of the 50 most innovative Jews of the last 50 years in Moment Magazine.

Best-selling author Bruce Feiler joins Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz as they discuss Bruce's new book, A Time to Gather.

May 16, 2026

In 1290, Jews were expelled from England, only to return in 1656, three-and-a-half centuries later. William Shakespeare published his works between 1589 and 1613. Except for perhaps a smattering of crypto-Jews, 275 years prior to his birth, 40 years past his death, there was no Jewish presence in England. Dr. Stephen Greenblatt, in his introduction to the Norton Shakespeare, notes that Elizabethans were fascinated by Jews and Judaism. We are going to explore the bard's roll in this phenomenon, the inordinate number of Talmudic and Mishnaic references in his writings, along with his possible Jewish roots. More importantly, let's address the phenomenon of why a nation that never encountered a Jew was so intrigued, and what that might mean for us today.

May 9, 2026

Last week, toward the end of our recorded class together, Elias asked the question, “In the past 45 minutes of talking to each other, have any of us changed our minds?” The answer was a clear, “No.” While we had conducted a respectful conversation, the truth is, that each of us remained committed to the same positions and principles with which we had begun the conversation. Which got me thinking… what does it look like to be influenced by another's position and actually change your mind? Given that earlier this week we celebrated Lag Ba'Omer, an obvious Talmudic text jumped out: the story of Shimon Bar Yochai and his son.  At the start of the story, Shimon and his son hold one position – learning is the most important thing, anything else is an infuriating waste of time.  By the end, they are both transformed.  But through the middle of the tale they are not on the same page at all.  How do they get on the same page?  And what might their trajectory teach us about holding open the possibility of change in our own interactions today?

Aliza, thank you so much!!Through the Years is so beautiful. It gives voice to a yearning so many of us share—a longing for love that lasts.We want our relationships with our spouse, our children, our grandchildren, our siblings, our friends, our work and our community, to last through the years: enriched—not eroded—by time.We value through the years. We want it. But can we live it?

Out of the driest halakhic dispute comes the juiciest of questions. The dry halakhic dispute: If you miss counting the omer one night, can you count the omer the next night with a blessing? One side answers this question no. If you miss a night, you blow the opportunity to do the mitzvah. The other side answer this question yes. Let it go. You have nothing to apologize for. Just count the omer the next night. Both sides have technical bases in how they read the framing texts. But at the heart of their dispute is a larger and juicy question. How do we balance the need for rigorous standards with the need for grace? What are the costs and consequences of insisting rigidly on standards? What kind of human emerges from a system that focuses on rigid adherence? Is that a healthy and happy system? What are the costs and consequences of invoking grace and giving people second chances to fix their failures? What kind of human emerges from a grace-based system? Is that a healthy and happy system? Is this a case where we can say “yes and,” doing a synthesis that combines standards and grace, or not?

Several months ago my wife Shira shared that she was concerned that I was not getting enough protein or fiber in my diet. Her concerns were valid. I am basically a vegetarian, so I am a bit protein-challenged. And I had no idea what fiber is, or how to get enough of it.So Shira connected me to a new AI best friend: ChatGPT's Nutrition Tracking Assistant. Every day I would log everything I ate, everything I drank, and all my daily exercise, and this omniscient source of knowledge would tell me all I needed to know—and would suggest helpful tweaks for how to get more protein and fiber.It was all going just fine. I was logging every day, ChatGPT was responding with helpful suggestions, and I was eating healthier. Then we went on a family vacation withour adult children and our granddaughter, who was sixteen months old at the time. One night we volunteered to put our granddaughter to bed so that our adult children could go out together for dinner.By the time we had finished the evening ritual—feeding her, bathing her, changing her, giving her one last bottle, and finally getting her to sleep—we were completely wiped out. We had no idea how we had once apparently had the energy to raise our own children. And we were far too tired to cook or eat dinner ourselves.So I did the next best thing. I had my two favorite foods: scotch and potato chips. Then I went straight to sleep.The next morning I had to log what I had eaten, and for a moment I faced a moral dilemma. Should I lie to ChatGPT? Should I report that I had eaten four ounces of cooked salmon, one cup of roasted broccoli, and one cup of blueberries for dessert? I was tempted. But then I remembered: garbage in, garbage out. So I told the brutal truth. I had two scotches and two bowls of potato chips, and then I went to sleep.I was surprised by what happened next. I had kind of been expecting a reprimand. After all, there is not all that much protein or fiber in scotch and potato chips—even in two helpings of scotch and potato chips.But to my surprise, ChatGPT could not have been more lovely, more gentle, more understanding. I will never forget what she wrote in response. She said that I had had a “human evening.” I am not sure what other kind of evening I could have had. But I will take it.This was a human evening. Chat GPT added: There was nothing to recover from. Nothing to apologize for. Just begin logging the new day.ChatGPT's kind response left me with a question not about nutrition but about love. When we think someone we care about is on the wrong track, what does love demand from us? Should we love our neighbor the way my ChatGPT loved me? Should we be as positive, as gentle, as affirming, and as reluctant to offer critique?

Usually, in the Jewish calendar and in the Jewish canon, redemption comes top down. In the Exodus story, God brings about redemption with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, with ten plagues and signs and wonders. In the creation of the State of Israel that we marked with Yom Haatzmaut this week, the Israel Defense Forces brings about the creation and the continued existence of the Jewish state. Tomorrow morning we are going to examine an odd redemption story. Redemption comes not from God, kings, prophets, leaders, or armies, but from four lepers whose names we do not even know. The story, from 2 Kings 7, takes place during war. The Northern Kingdom of Israel was attacked by Aram, that had laid siege to it. There was no food. People were starving. It was as grim as grim could be. In that dark time, four lepers, who are outside the gates of the city, who are not welcome in the city, who have no prospects, bring salvation to Israel. We will do a close textual read of an odd redemption story for what it teaches us about us now.

What does Jewish history—its incredible heaviness (Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron) and its incredible inspiration (Yom Ha'atzmaut)—ask of me? Does the passage of time affect the answer to that question? We are 81 years from the Holocaust. We are in the midst of yet another war with Iran and its proxies. What is our current responsibility to the Shoah and to the State of Israel? If we choose to disengage from all this heaviness, if we choose to not make Jewish history our problem, if we choose just to live our lives in Greater Boston, send out kids to school, do our jobs, come home, call it a day, that choice is tempting. That choice is understandable. What is the cost of that choice? To grapple with these hard questions during this season of the three Yoms, we will examine two Talmudic stories from Ta'anit 23A. The first is the story of Choni who sees a man planting carob trees and asks how long it will take for the carob to be ready to eat? 70 years. Will you still be here in 70 years? No. But I inherited a world that had carob trees that had been planted by my ancestors, and I want to leave a world that has carob trees for my descendants. The second, on the heels of the first, has Choni waking up from a deep sleep of 70 years. When he wakes up, he goes to his old haunts, his home, his shul, his study hall, and no one recognizes him. He cries out: “I am Choni.” But he is invisible. Unseen. Unrecognized. Everybody he knew is dead. Nobody alive knows him. He dies of a broken heart, prompting the climactic rabbinic teaching: oh chavrutah oh mitutah. Give me community or give me death. So many questions:What is the meaning of each story?How do these two stories connect? The editors of the Talmud intentionally connect them.What do the two stories mean to the three Yoms and to our personal connection to Jewish history and to Jewish destiny?Can we plant for a future that we will not see?Can we live in a future in which we are not seen?

From the very moment the downed airman landed in Iran after ejecting from his plane, he knew the clock was ticking. He knew that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would be hunting for him. He knew that local tribes might find him first. He knew that if he were caught by the enemy, it would dramatically complicate an already complicated war. He was concussed. He was injured. And he was trained for just this moment.As has been widely reported, he somehow summoned the strength to climb a steep, treacherous mountain and to hide himself in rugged terrain, knowing something else as well: that the US Army would leave no stone unturned in order to find him. And thank God, they did. His rescue was breathtaking. It put the lives of other elite soldiers at risk. It required extraordinary planning and coordination deep in enemy territory. It involved airpower, helicopters,and equipment costing millions of dollars—some of which was damaged or destroyed in the effort. All of it was done in service of one overarching purpose: leave no soldier behind. Abandon no one. As I followed this story of rescue and redemption, I could only think of a teaching I once heard on Andy Stanley's leadership podcast which was entitled “The Catch with Purpose.” Andy noted thatwe all want purpose. But purpose comes with what he called a “catch.” Purpose exacts real costs. The things we care most about, the causes to which we give our heart and soul, make demands upon us. We lose sleep. We sweat out the details. And caring so much and giving so much are precisely what give our lives meaning.

What do you want to be known for? That is a question only you can answer. What are you known for? That is a question you cannot answer. That is a question that can only be answered by other people. The difference between what we want to be known for, and what we are known for, is the work we are called upon to do to become ever better versions of ourselves. That is the Torah of a thought leader named Jeff Henderson in a recent Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast. In other words, there are times when other people's opinions about us matter. In fact, after the sin of the golden calf, when God threatens to destroy the Hebrew slaves and to create a new people, Moses argues that God should not destroy the people of Israel and start over again:Let not the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that He delivered them, only to kill them off in the mountains and annihilate them from the face of the earth.” Exodus 32: 12.Why should God care what the Egyptians think? The Egyptians were slave-owners. The Egyptians were oppressors. What kind of moral compass could they have had? The classic rabbinic answer, embodied by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, is that God's reputation matters. Having chosen to intervene in history by freeing the slaves from Egypt by dint of signs and wonders and plagues, the meaning of this narrative in the world at large does matter. What people say does matter. But are there limits to whose views about us matter? In the Andy Stanley podcast, Jeff Henderson invites us to think about the groups whom we are for, and whose opinions about us therefore matter. The work we need to do can sometimes only emerge by asking others what they think of us—unsettling but true.

Please enjoy this special Shabbat morning sermon with Amy Schectman, CEO of 2Life Communities. Amy teaches us about optimal aging and the liberation that is possible when we orient ourselves around living in and building community.About Amy SchectmanAmy has served as the CEO of 2Life Communities for over a decade where she successfully launched an aggressive expansion campaign to fill gaps in the senior housing affordability marketplace, managed the creation of a quasi-endowment to support agency innovation, and has more than doubled the number of communities built and supported by 2Life. She brings over 30 years' experience in housing and economic development policy, government, and nonprofit sectors.

On the Shabbat of Chol Hamoed Pesach (April 4), we encounter a curious reading: Shir Hashirim, Song of Songs. If you have never really studied it, you might think, “Oh, that is the Bible's famous love story. On the festival of Passover, a springtime of renewal, we read about love. How lovely.” You would think that only if you haven't read the book. If you read Shira Hashirim, it is not a happily ever after love story. To the contrary, it is a story of lovers who seek but do not find, who knock on the door only to find an empty bedroom, who yearn but whose yearning is not fulfilled. It is taken by rabbinic Judaism to be an allegory for the love relationship of God and Israel—anything but a simple love story. Yearning unfulfilled. And we chant it during the holiday when we celebrate God taking us out of Egypt through miraculous signs and wonders. Complexity. In Talmud we are going to examine two broken love stories: Shir Hashirim, and a story in Allegra Goodman's brilliant book This Is Not About Us entitled Deal Breaker. Both are stories of broken love. What do broken love stories teach us about love? What do broken love stories teach us about us?

Do you rememberthe classic Lay's potato chip ad—you can't eat just one? That line came back to me on our recent flight to San Francisco, because once I picked up a new novel, I simply could not put it down.The book, Good People, by Patmeena Sabit, tells the story of Afghan immigrants who come to America after the Soviet‑Afghan war. At the center is one family: Rahmat and Maryam Sharaf and their four children, struggling in a cramped one‑bedroom apartment. Fellow immigrants tell Rahmat to accept low‑wage work—work at Walmart 40 hours a week 12 dollars an hour for the rest of your life—and hope the next generation does better. He refuses. After many failures, years of seven‑day weeks, and very little sleep, he builds a successful business, sells it, and reinvests, moving his family from poverty to a multimillion‑dollar home in Virginia.But the heart ofthe story is their daughter, Zorah—beloved and gifted. At 18, she dies in a single‑car accident after her car slides into a canal. Was it an accident? Was it a crime? We never know. What actually happened remains a mystery.The novel is told only through brief observations from others—neighbors, friends, journalists. We hear about the family. We never hear from the family. And each observer reveals far more about themselves than about the Sharafs—and there is a lot of negative energy.The religiously observant complain that the Sharafs weren't observant enough.Those nostalgic for Afghanistan complain that they were too American.Some parents critique the Sharafs for being too lenient.Some teenagers critique the Sharafs for being too strict.Threaded through it all is something harsher: schadenfreude—a perverse pleasure in someone else's pain. People carrying their own disappointments and losses look at this family and judge them. Many characters have hard lives—economic pressures, cultural dislocation, broken dreams. Their hardship makes them hard. Understandable. Human. But hard.

Allegra Goodman recently published a collection of short stories called This is Not About Us. The irony is that the book is very much about us. She describes the Rubinstein family of Greater Boston. The kids went to Maimonides. Much of the action takes place in Brookline. There are stories of day-to-day life in Boston, and in Jewish Boston, that will feel deeply familiar. I felt I was reading about us. One of those stories, Redemption Song, is about how a family does Passover together where they have very different approaches to the holiday. The patriarch, Irving, was a Holocaust survivor and ran a stern, joyless Maxwell House seder that scarred his young sons, Dan and Steven. When they grow up, both living in Brookline, they have very different approaches to the seders. There are vegans and pot roast lovers. There are Maxwell House adherents—just read what is in the Haggadah—and innovative voices that put oranges, bananas, and other objects on the seder table to represent various oppressed peoples. There are family members who don't believe in instrumental music, and others who love to sing and play guitar. There are people who love deep conversation about deep topics, and others who just want to get on with it. The title of the story comes from the last song that Bob Marley composed, Redemption Song, while facing his own mortality, contending with advanced cancer. His song tackles this question: how we can achieve freedom from the forces that constrain us? How do we achieve redemption? Allegra Goodman's story ends with the younger generation singing this song. Please read the story. Please listen to the song. What do the story and the song teach us about how we can achieve our Redemption Song at our upcoming seders and in the world at this hard time?

For the last two weeks, I have been wearing this tallit. At Kiddush, both weeks, I have discovered that our congregation is very generous when it comes to offering feedback. People had opinions about the tallit which they shared promptly and candidly.Comments like: “What's with that new tallit? What is it? It doesn't really look like a tallit. Is it a shawl? Is it a scarf? Is it a new shawl, scarf type of tallit?”Or: “Rabbi, it doesn't sit right on you. It's lopsided.”Or a very generous offer of help: “Rabbi, can I give you a signal that your tallit is off, and that way, mid-sermon, you can make an adjustment?”Or: “The tallit must be a war tallit. That's it. It's dark. It's blue. This is a war footing tallit which you are wearing to show solidarity with the IDF and our American troops in combat.”So first of all, thank you. Thank you for noticing and offering your feedback. The truth is, the tallit is not new. It is an old tallit renewed. Many years ago, my in laws were on vacation in Hawaii. My father in love saw this fabric, it was a white fabric with bright blue stars. It was not a tallit. He just imagined that it could be. So he bought the fabric and took it back to Minneapolis, where he was a rabbi. He gave the fabric to a local tallit-maker and asked her to make it into a tallit. He used it as a specialty tallit, wearing it only on Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot, because it was fun, it was different, it was Hawaii, it was celebratory, it captured festival energy.When my father in love retired in 2004, he gave this tallit to me. I loved it so much, because it reminded me of him, that I wore it every Shabbat, every holiday, including the High Holidays. It was the one and only tallit I ever wore. Every Yom Kippur Shira and I would walk home and she would say: “My father's starry Hawaii tallit is not the right energy for Yom Kippur.” But I wore it anyway. At last the tallit got so tattered, torn and frayed beyond repair that I reluctantly concluded it was time to let it go. But Shira had heard of a local woman who is a tallit wizard. Shira gave this tallit wizard the tattered tallit and asked: Is there anything you can do with this? She worked on it for several weeks, and this is the result.The new tallit is different from the old tallit. It is not as big. It is a different color scheme. It is blue and blue instead of white and blue. But the core of the old is still in the new. It still has the bright stars that first captured my father in love's attention. And it is still a gift from my father in love, a generational and emotional connection.The truth is that all of us are on the verge of our own moment making something new out of something old; making something that is ours out of something that we inherited from our parents and grandparents.

One of the hardest things in the world is to come up with something new to say about a subject that has been amply covered by other writers. A new biography of Abraham Lincoln, a new history of the Civil War, a new take on the New Deal—is a new insight even possible on topics that have been written about so extensively?In that spirit, can there be a new Haggada that comes up with a new take that no one else has ever seen before in thousands of years of Haggadot? Apparently, the answer is yes. Last week Danny Gordis referred his readers to a new Haggada that just came out from Israel, entitled Echoes of Egypt: A Haggada, written by Joshua Berman, a professor of Bible at Bar-Ilan University, who did his undergrad at Princeton, spent eight years at Yeshivat Har Ezion outside of Jerusalem, and got his PhD in Bible at Bar-Ilan. This Haggada is a revelation. Small wonder that Danny Gordis highlighted it. I have been studying Haggadot my adult life, and in reading Joshua Berman's work, I learned things that I never knew before—basic things, important things, that once you read them seem indispensable to understanding Passover. Egyptian artwork adorns every page of this Haggadah. Professor Berman shows that both the Torah and the Haggada take Egyptian themes, rituals, artwork, cultural motifs, appropriate them, and turn them on their head in order to express core Jewish values. There is a constant dance between the Egyptian reality and the Hebrew/Jewish appropriation of that reality. As just one example: a leading motif in ancient Egypt was the Pharoah's strong hand and outstretched arm ready to whack enslaved people. The Torah and the Haggada apply this iconic Egyptian language of strong hand and outstretched arm to God as God liberates an enslaved people. Egyptian reality. Hebrew language. Jewish values. All invite us to ask ourselves: how will this year's seders be different from any other seders now that we know we cannot understand the Exodus until we more deeply understand Egypt.

Cantor Elias Rosemberg and Temple Emanuel member Evan Falchuk discuss Evan's his family roots in Venezuela and the current political situation. 

If you have ever had back surgery, you know what a shlepped-out ordeal it can be. You have back pain. You go to your doctor who wants to try a conservative treatment plan. Pain medication. Then you try heat. Then you try cold. Put your legs up in bed on a stack of pillows. Lie this way, lie that way. Then comes physical therapy. All those appointments. All those exercises. Still have the pain. Then you try the shots. At last, you do surgery. Then comes the recovery. And then therapy. PT. OT. And then please God, at long last you feel hopefully better. Now, what is worse than back surgery? Answer: a second back surgery. You went through all this rigmarole, all the steps, and then you enjoyed a reprieve from pain. And then, again.One of the hardest words in the world is again. There is the pain of getting laid off--and the pain of getting laid off again.The pain of fighting addiction, of falling off the wagon--and the pain of falling off the wagon again.The pain of losing a loved one--and the pain of losing a loved one, again.Most of us will experience the pain of again in our personal lives. And the pain of again is what makes this such a fraught moment on the world stage. For Israel, it's not just that sirens are sounding, missiles are falling, buildings are being crushed, routines are shattered and nights of sleep are disrupted. It is that all this happened in June, and it's now happening again. Sirens sounding again, missiles falling again, buildings crushed again, routines shattered again, no sleep again. How do we think about the problem of again?

What text can best take in the challenge of American Jews at this moment who love America, who love Israel, and who face the daily torrent of news about the war? The text that comes up for me is Homer's classic The Odyssey, in which Odysseus and his crew must navigate between Scylla and Charybdis. Both fierce and fearsome monsters are lethal. On the one hand, we have Scylla, a war against a genocidal enemy whose mottos are “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”; which had a tower in Tehran promising the end of Israel by 2040 based on the then Supreme Leader's promise in 2015 “The Zionist regime will not survive the next 25 years.” Small wonder that 93% of Israeli Jews, even though they bear the cost of the war directly, even though their buildings are destroyed and their schedules shattered and their nights of sleep are ruined, they still support the war because the Islamic Republic has made destroying Israel its highest priority, more important than providing food, education, water, electricity and opportunity to its own people. On the other hand, we have Charybdis, the heartbreaking costs in blood and treasure and tremendous uncertainty of this war. After multiple days of war, and after the Supreme Commander was assassinated, the new leader is the son of the Supreme Commander. Is this progress? How will this end? And in the meantime, there is a growing narrative that Israel pushed America into this war, and real concern that an unpopular war that turns into a quagmire will inflame antisemitism and antizionism even more. So what do we do when navigating Scylla and Charybdis? In class we are going to examine Matza and Manna two foods that are more than foods. Two foods that embody truths for biblical Israel, for Israel today, and for the Jewish people navigating a tumultuous time without great choices.

If you have ever been married, or if you have ever walked an adult child down the aisle, think back to the energy, the electricity, the excitement of the wedding day. All that love in one sacred place. Pure magic.There was a young, bright, beautiful Israeli couple looking forward to their wedding day. The bride and the groom were getting married in the backyard of the bride's parents. Joyful and magical. Except for two small details.The date of their wedding was Thursday, June 12, 2025. The couple was getting married that night. Israel's war with Iran, what would become known as the 12-day war, would begin at dawn on Friday, June 13. And the groom is a fighter pilot for the IDF. He flies F16s. The groom knew the war was coming imminently. He knew that he would be flying an F16 into Iran. He was scheduled to be the first pilot of the first F16 into Iran. Which would have required him to be at the base at the time he was to be under the chuppah. So he asked the IDF if he could be the second pilot into Iran. The IDF said yes. That allowed him to stand under the chuppah with his bride. Before the chuppah, he had borrowed his grandmother's car. It was an hour's drive from where he would spend his wedding night to his army base. The car was packed and ready to go. The bride and groom got married. On their wedding night, a loud and scary siren reverberated throughout Israel that was the nation's signal that war with Iran was at hand; and that was the groom's signal that his wedding was over, it was time to take his grandmother's car to the base, to get into an F16, and to fly into Iran. Within mere hours of smashing the glass under their chuppah and kissing his bride, the newly minted husband was in the F16 flying into Iran. During the 12-day war, he would fly an F16 into Iran, and back to Israel, day after day. Roll the film forward. The couple, now newlyweds, moved to Cambridge. She is now a first-year business school student at Sloane, MIT's business school. And liking it. He is working for an Israeli start-up. And liking it. They are together, happy, happy. And then January, and the build up to the war with Iran, again. To be an Israeli fighter pilot, one needs to fly their F16 at least once a week. He was no longer certified to be a pilot, because it had been several months since he had last flown. He could have stayed in Cambridge. He could have stayed with his still newlywed wife. But he knew that if he did not fly the F16 into Iran, someone else would have to do it. He felt a duty to his country. He felt a duty to his people. He felt a duty to his fellow fighter pilots. So, again, he leaves his new bride, in mid-January he goes back to Israel, he gets back in his F16s, he gets recredentialed as a seasoned and qualified fighter pilot, and he has been flying mission after mission into Iran this past week. Meanwhile, she is living by herself, again, in Cambridge.Interrupted wedding night. Interrupted newlywed year. It just is.Why am I telling you all this? When the war broke out, I had thought that American Jews, certainly the ones I know and love at Temple Emanuel, would be uniformly and unambivalently in support of this war. Of course war is hell. Of course we prefer peace. Of course we pray for peace. Of course war unleashes unpredictable and uncontrollable outcomes, so many of which are destructive. And yet, the Islamic Republic of Iran is, and has always been since its very inception, openly and unapologetically genocidal. Its motto “Death to America” is genocidal. Its motto “Death to Israel” is genocidal. What it did in Argentina in the 90s, killing innocent Jews twice, is genocidal. What it did through its proxy Hamas on October 7 is genocidal. The clock in Tehran promising the end of Israel by the year 2040 is genocidal. Given all this, I had expected uncomplicated support of American Jews for this war. Boy, was I wrong.

Rabbi Elan Babchuck serves as the Executive Vice President at Clal (National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership) and the Founding Executive Director of Glean Network, which partners with Columbia Business School.  He has published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Washington Post, and Religion News Service, writes a column for The Wisdom Daily, contributed to Meaning Making – 8 Values That Drive America's Newest Generations (2020, St. Mary's Press) and is the co-author of Picking Up the Pieces: Leadership After Empire (2023, Fortress Press). His newest book about Shabbat, Sacred Time, is coming out in 2027.He also serves as a Founding Partner of Starts With Us, a movement to counteract toxic polarization in America, and is a founding Research Advisory Board Member of Springtide Research Institute.

What do we do with what we remember? How does what we remember cause us to act? This question comes from two places. It is Shabbat Zachor, the special Shabbat before Purim when we remember Amalek that hated us, that tried to kill us, and that inspired commands to never forget that hate, and to respond in kind. And it is the week of the US Men's Hockey Team's first Olympic gold in 46 years. Poignantly, the team's victory picture included the #13 jersey of their teammate, and hockey super star, Johnny Gaudreau, who was killed along with his brother Matthew in August, 2024 while they were riding bikes by a drunk driver at the wedding weekend of their sister. The team also featured Goudreau's young children in the photo. All of us move through life carrying all sorts of memories. Painful memories that evoke hurt, loss, indignation, grievance. Joyful memories that evoke triumph, accomplishment, blessing. We carry the memories of people whom we have loved and lost who were always there for us. And the memories of people who disappointed and wounded us. What do we do with all those memories? There is a special mitzvah in Jewish tradition to remember: zachor. There is a special Shabbat, tomorrow, to focus on remembering.  Remembering is the easy part. Where the rubber hits the road: what do we do with what we remember?