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September 15, 2026

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Judaism in a Box – Rosh Hashanah 5787

We fill out lots of forms: a survey, an application, a purchase of some sort. The form asks for personal information: gender, age, household income.

And then it asks about “ethnicity.” That’s when I pause. What am I? Where do I fit?

For many years now, I have clicked the box marked “other” or “prefer not to say.” Even as a child, I never felt that the terms “white” or “caucasian” applied to me, despite my appearance. I always felt like I belonged in a different category, but there was nothing that fit.

What do you select?

Two weeks ago, the California Legislature passed SB 1387. Sponsored by members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus and supported by a wide swath of Jewish organizations in the state, it would require “Jewish” to be included as an ethnicity.

Under the law, race or ethnicity can include one’s ancestry, color, ethnic group identification, or ethnic background. There are about 50 recognized ethnicities in California. Beginning in 2030, “Jewish” will be added to that list. 

This will affect data collection involving public schools, unemployment, and prisons. The information could be used for research, to identify trends or disparities, and guide policy decisions. 

California, home to about 1.2 million Jews, will be the first state in the country to recognize Judaism as an ethnicity.

I don’t know whether this bill is a good idea or not, but I have to admit, when I first heard about it, it made me feel kind of queasy. Do we really want the government collecting lists of Jews? The data is supposed to be de-identified, but how reliable is that really? Do we really want outsiders, in this case the government, telling us what Judaism is?

I think about the long history of persecution which forced Jews to wear distinctive clothes, or live in ghettos, which saw us as demonic and evil, the quintessential “other.” The Nazis identified Judaism in racial terms: One Jewish grandparent was sufficient to render a person inferior by their blood. Jews from the Former Soviet Union were required to have “Jewish” listed on their identity cards under “nationality,” a classification which was used for persecution. At the same time, the Soviet government, as early as the 1950’s, was perpetrating a campaign to delegitimize and eliminate Israel, the nation of the Jewish people. And, it suppressed religion. So what exactly did it mean to label a person’s nationality “Jewish?” 

It should not be a mystery why this is happening now. The rise in antisemitic hate crimes has clarified the need for better data collection. I imagine that the debates over ethnic studies in schools may also have played a part into getting “Jewish” classified as an ethnicity.

This development has been some time in the making. Over recent decades, there has been a gradual shift towards seeing Judaism as something other than just a religion.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin. But it leaves out religion. So if Judaism is a religion, then antisemitic discrimination is not a civil rights issue.

But, haters gonna hate – for whatever reasons they choose. There are plenty of antisemites whose hatred of us has nothing to do with our religious beliefs and practices, but to some sense of Jewish “otherness.”

So, in 2010, the Obama administration expanded its interpretations of Title VI to include discrimination motivated by someone perceiving us as a race, ethnicity, or national identity. Building on this, in 2019, Trump’s justice department, defined Judaism as a race or nationality so that it could penalize universities for discriminating against Jews.  The government is defining what Judaism is to protect us rather than to discriminate against us. (What could go wrong?)

Who should get to decide what it is to be Jewish?

Part of the problem is that we do not know ourselves. In recent years, the question has become even more pronounced.

Let’s start with religion. The term religion refers to a system of doctrinal beliefs and practices. Is Judaism a religion, comparable to: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism? It turns out, it is a modern, Western perspective that sees religion as the freely held belief of individuals, separate and independent of a person’s political or national identity.

Through the middle ages, for the most part, Jewish communities were left to govern themselves. A typical Jewish person would go about their life following Jewish law on a daily basis. Jews tried as hard as they could to avoid the non-Jewish courts. And the non-Jews were generally happy to let them, as long as they paid their taxes. This changes in modern times, with the rise of the nation state. A great example of this occurs during the French Revolution. 

Article I of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen declares that “all men are born, and remain, free and equal in rights… No person shall be molested for his opinions, even such as are religious, provided that the manifestation of these opinions does not disturb the public order established by the law.” Throughout Europe, Jews were seen as the ultimate “other.” The National Assembly soon decided that its lofty principles would be meaningless if they did not also include the Jews of France. In 1791, it explicitly declared that Jews would be considered French citizens.

Fifteen years later, Emperor Napoleon, who saw himself as the defender of the ideals of the French Revolution, convened an Assembly of Jewish Notables. He gathered Rabbis and layleaders from all over France and put to them a series of 12 questions. Here are some of them:

  • “In the eyes of Jews are Frenchmen considered as brethren or strangers?”
  • “In either case, what conduct does their law prescribe towards Frenchmen not of their religion?”
  • Do Jews born in France consider it their native country? Are they bound to obey the laws and customs of the land?
  • “What kind of police-jurisdiction have the Rabbis among the Jews? What judicial power do they exercise among them?

The Assembly of Jewish Notables responsed that: We consider Frenchmen our brothers, and would treat them no differently than we would our fellow Jews. We would be loyal to French law alone.  As for Rabbis, they have no police or judicial jurisdiction. Any authority that they may have had “should be attributable solely to custom. Furthermore, “…the functions of Rabbis, wherever any are established, are limited to preaching morality in the temples, blessing marriages, and pronouncing divorces…” (Basically, they threw the Rabbis under the bus.)

Extremely satisfied with these answers, Napoleon instructed them to convene a Grand Sanhedrin, something that had not existed since the fifth century, for a formal endorsement.

For the first time in Europe, Jews were accepted, legally if not socially, as citizens of the land in which they resided. To gain this civil status, they had to give up their fealty to Jewish law. They had to reject any sort of national identity other than as Frenchmen. As one National Assembly delegate who avidly supported Jews had put it in 1791: “The Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted everything as individuals.”

Judaism had become, legally at least, a religion, and nothing more. This was the deal they made in exchange for citizenship. As the following two hundred years demonstrated (the Dreyfus Affair, the Vichy Government, recent violence), the promise of full acceptance never manifested.

In America, the deal worked more effectively. Thomas Jefferson famously referred to the “wall of separation between church and state.” This was great for us. We could be American, with our Jewish identity something that was personal and private. A prospective employer, or admissions officer, would not even know that I was Jewish. Why? Because Judaism is a religion, and nothing more.

It took until the second half of the twentieth century to fully realize this, but Judaism in America did very well. Now, it turns out, the tradeoff is breaking down. Conspiracy theories abound of Jewish control of the banks, the media, Hollywood, American foreign policy… take your pick. Non-Jews demand, as our price of entry, that we renounce support for Israel and Zionism – as if an outsider gets to set the litmus test for being a “good Jew.”

Alongside these external pressures, we are confused ourselves about what it is to be Jewish. In the most recent Pew survey of Jewish Americans, from 2020, only 21% of Jews said that “religion is very important to them” compared to 41% of all U.S. adults. 56% of all Americans say that they believe in God, but only 26% of Jews. And yet, 76% of Jews claim that being Jewish is at least somewhat important to them. When asked what being Jewish is mainly about, with the options being: religion, ancestry, culture, or some combination of the three, religion gets the fewest responses.

So now we are finding that outsiders and insiders both see Jewishness as something other than religion. So if it is not a religion, what is it?

One clue comes from language. What is the Hebrew word for religion? Dat. One of the splits in Israeli society today is between dati’im and chilonim. Religious and secular. Both dati’im and chilonim are Jewish. Nobody argues about that. In modern Hebrew, the term dat would refer to one’s commitment to observing mitzvot. Whether or not a person is dati, they are just as much of a Jew. And yet, when describing other world religions, dat is the only word we have. It is what comes up in the dictionary.

Dat is not even a Hebrew word. It comes from ancient Persian, appearing only in the late biblical books of Ezra, Daniel, and Esther. Its meaning there is “law,” that is to say, the law of the king. The most infamous example occurs when Haman (boo!) convinces King Achashverosh to allow him to kill all of the Jews in the empire. Listen carefully to his argument.

There is a certain people (am echad), scattered and dispersed among the other peoples (ha’amim) in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws (dateihem) are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws (dato); and it is not in Your Majesty’s interest to tolerate them.

Haman does not even name them. They are an am, a people, who have their own datim, laws. The accusation is that they are disloyal to the king. This is not referring to what we would call religious ritual. It is about the civil and criminal laws of the land. 

What is am in this context? It could mean something like ethnicity. The Jews of Esther are really ethnic Israelites, who were exiled from the kingdom of Judah in the year 586 bce, where they had their own political structures, laws, and a state-sponsored ritual-belief system centered around the Temple. Although the Book of Esther does not identify what makes them unique, am would probably indicate a shared language, culture, geographic origin, and ritual practices. These are the same features that would have distinguished each of the other amim in the Persian Empire. Haman’s lie is that the Jews are politically disloyal. His antisemitism has nothing to do with religion. Some things don’t change.

In medieval Jewish philosophy, dat comes to encompass both external behavior as well as internal belief. Being Jewish is both a commitment to following Jewish law as well as believing in the central tenets of Jewish faith. Dat conveys both dimensions. Of course, we never seem to be able to agree on what those central tenets of faith are, but there is widespread agreement that to be a Jew is to believe them.

We have seen Judaism described as a religion, a law, a series of beliefs, and a national identity. A final way to explore identity is to examine what it takes for an outsider to join the group. What can conversion teach us about Jewish identity?

It is a religious ceremony, is it not?  A person cannot ethnically or culturally convert. Right?

The most ancient conversion ceremony that we have appears in a second century Talmudic passage. (BT Yevamot 47b) When a non-Jew seeks to become Jewish, the first thing the Jewish court is supposed to ask them is 

What did you see that motivated you to come to convert? Don’t you know that the Jewish people at the present time are anguished, suppressed, despised, and harassed, and hardships are frequently visited upon them? If they say: I know, and  I am unworthy…

The court accepts that person for converstion right away. They then teach them about some of the serious and less serious commandments, along with the concept of reward and punishment in the world to come. The Talmud is emphatic that the court should not overdo it by going into too much detail.

Interesting that the only question that is asked, the gateway question, is about peoplehood. Specifically, it is about how hard it is to be a Jew, not because of all the religious obligations, but from a social and political standpoint. The convert has to buy into peoplehood before belief or practice. So perhaps becoming Jewish is an ethnic conversion after all. 

We have been trying to fit Judaism into a definitional box, when the reality is far more complex. Even if we do not have the language to express it, we understand the complexity at our core.

Today is Rosh Hashanah. We are here today to celebrate Creation. Our services are filled with religious rituals. The prayers in our maḥzor express theological statements about the nature of the Divine, and affirm our obligations to serve and follow God’s commandments. It is a religious holiday

Then again, many of our Rosh Hashanah observances are not religious in nature. We bake our challot into round loaves, like a crown, symbolizing God’s kingship. We dip apples in honey for a sweet new year, and eat other symbolic foods to represent our hopes for safety and prosperity. We wear new clothes. Around the world, all Jews pray in Hebrew, the language of the Jewish people for more than three thousand years. We have a rich culture of Jewish traditions that gives our lives meaning, that connect us to family and each other.

Here in this room, we are gathered from all over the world. And yet there is a sense of shared experiences and history that transcends our different places of origin. Another big component of our holiday is simply seeing each other. We fill the synagogue to be together. When we come in, whether we are Sephardi, Mizrachi, Ashkenazi, a Jew by Choice, or some other kind of Jew, we all experience a sense of belonging. 

Judaism, with its aspects of law and belief, culture, language, peoplehood. All of these are essential components of Jewishness. Judaism cannot be put into a box.

So when I am filling out a survey and it asks me about my ethnicity, and I see “Jewish” as one of the options, I am going to pause and think. And then I’ll (probably) check the box.

Bibliography

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/13/us/california-jewish-ethnic-identity.html

https://www.sourcesjournal.org/articles/defining-judaism-religion-law-nation-and-our-current-moment

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September 6, 2026

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Lashevet or Lashuv? – Nitzavim/Vayelekh 5786

It’s been twenty nine years since I was an undergraduate, and more than nineteen years since I last had to take a final exam in Rabbinical School.  But I still have the dream.

You know it, I am sure. The one where I show up to class, go to my seat, sit down, and then realize that I didn’t attend a single class all semester, didn’t bother to buy, much less read, any of the assigned books, and failed to withdraw before the add/drop deadline.

For some reason, it is always seems to be this time of year when I have dreams like that. Any ideas why that might be?

Rosh Hashanah is in a week, the beginning of our High Holidays. The High Holidays are kind of like a year long course. We cannot just show up on the High Holidays and expect to pass the final. There is homework, preparation.

For this exam, our tradition has us get ready for the entire month of Elul. There is a lot to do. Throughout this month, Jews are getting ready. We organize guest lists for holiday meals, shop for the special foods that will be served. We buy clothes for the new year.

Here at the synagogue, the office goes into high gear, preparing and sending out High Holiday packets and tickets, printing the Yizkor book and organizing all of the programs and services that are taking place.

As stressful as all this can be, there is an additional preparation that is far more difficult. We call it teshuvah.  Teshuva, which literally means “returning,” is the process of working on our flaws, repenting for our sins, and fixing our relationships with other people and with God.

We have a number of practices, beginning at the start of Elul, to help us get ready. We recite Psalm 27 during morning and evening services. We blow the shofar every morning. Starting tonight, we recite Selichot, penitential prayers that kick the intensity up a notch, kind of like cramming during the final week before the exam.

It is not only we who are getting ready. Our tradition teaches that God is also preparing to receive our teshuvah. God is eager to grant us atonement, to wipe away our sins on Yom Kippur — but only if we have prepared. A lot of us feel a sense of holiness and mystery that we do not experience at any other time of year. This season gives us a unique opportunity to be close to God.  

This idea, this opportunity really, to spend time every year taking stock of our lives, reviewing our priorities, examining our actions and working on our relationships, is truly one of Judaism’s most important. It acknowledges that we are all imperfect. We all make mistakes. And, we can all improve. So we force ourselves, or perhaps, allow ourselves, to spend time every year turning our lives around.

For such an important idea, it is strange that teshuvah is never explicitly mentioned in the Torah, and certainly not in connection with the High Holidays. Atonement for sin is dealt in the context of Yom Kippur. But through sacrifices and rituals performed exclusively by the High Priest in the Tabernacle, and later the Temple. Nowhere in the entire Tanakh is Rosh Hashanah connected to teshuvah or atonement. Or is it?

Every year, we read parashat Nitzavim on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah. This year, as in most years, it is combined with the following portion, Vayelekh. Moses assembles the entire nation together to reaffirm our covenant with God. He is deliberate in mentioning everyone: leaders, men, women, children, strangers, everyone “from woodchopper to water drawer.”

And us too. Moses specifies “I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here this day.”

He goes on to describe what will happen when someone breaks the covenant. We will be kicked out of land, which will be laid desolate. Future generations will look at the destroyed land and know that it was because previous generations were unfaithful to God and the covenant. All of that leads up to the beginning of chapter 30.

The Sefat Emet, the leader of the Gerrer Chasidim in the second half of the nineteenth century, calls this ten-verse paragraph Parashat teshuvah, the section of return. Finding itself scattered and dispersed across the world in exile, Israel will experience an awakening. V’hasheivota el-levavecha. Literally – “you will return to your heart.”

V’hasheivota is from the same root as Teshuvah – return.

Moses describes a process, or a journey, in which Israel remembers the covenant and returns to God. God, meanwhile who has been waiting for Israel in love, welcomes them and brings them back, restoring them to the land. This paragraph includes the root lashuv, to return, 7 times. Seven being a highly significant number in our tradition. The Sefat Emet sees this section as one of reassurance.  Even when it seems that everything has fallen apart, the Torah assures us that we will eventually do Teshuvah. And when we do, God will be waiting.

While Moses describes this journey of exile and return in national, collective terms, it pertains to each of us, individually.  And so it is not a coincidence that we read this parashah every year on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, says the Sefat Emet. There is hope for all of us, even though the test is in one week.

There is a further connection that I would like to illustrate. This one is between Parshat Nitzavim and Psalm 27, which we have been reciting for the past three weeks in preparation for the HH. It is a linguistic connection.

Perhaps the key line, and the reason that we recite it to prepare for the High Holidays, comes in verse 4.

Achat sha’alti me’et adonai, otah avakesh: shivti b’veit adonai kol y’mei chayai, lachasot b’noam adonai ul’vaker b’heichalo. “One thing I ask from the Lord, only that do I seek:  to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to frequent His temple.”

Shivti, meaning “to dwell.”

Shivti sounds and looks a lot like lashuv. But in fact, it is a different root entirely. It comes from the root yashav, or lashevet, which means “to sit” or “to dwell.” With its complicated rules of conjugation, it can often be difficult to tell these two Hebrew words apart.

In this Psalm, the poet describes being harrassed by enemies, abandoned by his mother and father. God’s face is hidden. The one thing that he begs for is to dwell in God’s house. But maybe what he wants is not lashevet, to dwell, but lashuv, to return to God’s house.

We are born into an imperfect world. A world in which there are forces, human and otherwise, arrayed against us. It is a constant struggle to overcome those forces, to strive to reach the next level.  We strive for a perfection that will never come.  We long for the completion of the journey marked by dwelling in the house of God, beholding the Divine all the days of our lives.  We want to literally sit, lashevet, in God’s Presence.

On the other hand, maybe we have had glimpses of perfection. We have experienced moments when we felt complete, when we experienced God’s Presence. Times when we sat with God. And so it is to return, lashuv, to that wholeness that we seek. To return to the House of God.

This may sound kind of abstract. In more mundane terms, we sent out the High Holiday tickets a couple of weeks ago to all of our members and guests. You hopefully have received yours. These tickets assure each of us that we have a makom, a place to sit. Many of us seek out the same makom, the same seat every year. Some may like to mix it up, and experience the High Holidays from a different perspective. 

This is a serious question: every year, when you come to shul for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, do you sit in your makom or do you return to your makom?

What is the difference? Sitting is passive. We just have to show up. When services are over, we leave. Returning is active. We have to plan for it. This implies a journey, and requires hard work.

It is not enough to show up with our tickets and sit down. We should be striving to return. The bad news is that the month of Elul is three fourths done. The good news is that we still have one week left to cram. In fact, there is a Chasidic teaching that this last Shabbat can count for the entire previous year. So let’s make it count, so that when we come to shul next week to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, we will be returning to our makom

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September 24, 2025

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The Highs and Lows of Jewish Identity – Rosh Hashanah 5786

On Sunday mornings and Tuesday afternoons the last few weeks, this place has been hopping. I am really thrilled to share that there are more children coming to learn in our religious school than ever before. It is wonderful, but it carries with it a tremendous responsibility.

I ask myself constantly, “what we are doing to build a sense of Jewish identity and peoplehood in our kids?”

These are some of the questions I have been discussing with our staff: How would someone who has just celebrated becoming B’nei Mitzvah explain what it means to be Jewish? How would they describe what belonging to the Jewish people feels like, and the responsibilities that come along with it? Could they offer a simple definition of Zionism and discuss how the existence of the State of Israel plays a role in Jewish identity?

With everything that has been happening in the world these past few years, these questions seem particularly relevant.  In this environment, what are we doing to help the next generation, our children, form strong Jewish identities?

To explore that question, we must look inward. All of us here made a choice to gather with our community to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Many of us had to take off a day of work or school to do so.

That speaks to me of a strong commitment. Every one of us here has core memories that anchor our Jewish identities. Past moments for which the sights, sounds and emotions are most vivid. Core memories form the narratives of who we are. They define my essential self, affect how I view the world, and guide how I interpret new experiences. 

One of my core memories goes all the way back to when I was five or six years old. My family has recently joined a synagogue for the first time. We are attending Friday night services. The congregation is welcoming new members to the community, and my family is being honored.

A few details stand out. A warm light suffuses the sanctuary. The room is packed with people, and we are sitting on the right side of the room. There seems to be a lot of attention placed on a large piece of furniture up on the stage, but I don’t know why, or what is inside of it. It is mysterious.

Everyone stands up, and my parents, my baby brother, and I are invited to come to the front. There, we are presented with a basket. I think that there is probably a siddur, challah, and candles, and I know for sure that there is definitely a bottle of Manischewitz wine. That I remember distinctly. I feel really proud of my family in that moment.

When I think back, I still feel the warmth, mystery, and belonging. I suspect that the journey leading to my becoming a Rabbi began in that moment.

I invite us to take a few moments to turn to someone sitting next to, in front of, or behind us, introduce yourselves, wish them a “Shanah Tovah,” and in just one minute each, share a Jewish memory that still makes you smile. It could be something from childhood or adulthood, with family or strangers, at home, in synagogue, in Israel, or anywhere in the world. 

Let’s come back together. You’ve just named some of the moments that anchor us, the kinds of memories that remind us:  this is who I am as a Jew.” But if we are honest, not all of our core memories feel good. Some come out of pain, doubt, or disconnection, and those too shape us. 

Perhaps it was facing antisemitism or harassment. Maybe it was a feeling of exhaustion for being “different.” For some, moments of alienation come as a crisis of faith, the result of a deep personal loss or tragedy. Maybe it was the actions of other Jews, or (dare I say) the Israeli government, that led to such a moment.

For me, I stopped keeping strictly kosher for a while while I was in college. Specifically, it was the junior year that I spent in Israel studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. That year, and a little bit afterwards, is the only time that I have eaten non-kosher meat since I was twelve years old.

While I had lots of wonderful, life-changing adventures that year, I was surprised to find myself feeling religiously alienated. The American Judaism that I knew was built around Jews living in a secular society actively choosing to gather together with other Jews for social and religious experiences. I had gone to day school, was active in my synagogue and USY, worked at Camp Ramah, was a leader in Hillel. When I got to Israel, I found myself disoriented. The Judaism I encountered there felt very different from the Judaism I knew in America — and in my confusion, I let go of a practice that had long anchored me.

Ironic, isn’t it? I go to Israel and stop keeping kosher. 

When Dana (my wife) and I were speaking about this last week, she shared a similar experience. She showed up at Brandeis University, ready to be immersed in Jewish life. Within a month and a half, she had disenrolled from the kosher dining plan, stopped going to Hillel, backed off on her Shabbat observance, and found herself avoiding the East coast Jews in favor of the international students.

In the course of a person’s life, it is impossible to predict those moments that are going to be significant. But it is both the high and the low points that contribute to our journeys. Each of us can point to moments when Judaism felt far away, when community or practice felt alien, when being Jewish was complicated.  In fact, it is sometimes the case that the low points create opportunities for positive transformation.

The Haftarah that we read today gives us a striking example of this dynamic in the life of Ḥannah. She is someone whose deepest religious experience begins with humiliation and rejection.

Ḥannah is one of the two wives of Elkanah.  She is the beloved, but it is the other wife, Peninah, who has children. Every year, the entire household travels to the shrine at Shiloh to offer sacrifices. Every year, Peninah goes out of her way to taunt Ḥannah, making fun of her barrenness. Ḥannah takes it to heart, weeping and refusing to eat. 

At least Elkanah notices, “Ḥannah, why are you crying and why aren’t you eating? Why are you so sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?” The commentaries give him credit for trying, but a modern reader might see Elkanah’s attempt to tell her not to feel what she feels as gaslighting. In any event, he does not make her feel any better.

One year, during the annual pilgrimage, Ḥannah gets up to spend some time alone. She begins to pray silently, with only her lips moving. Eli,the priest in charge, sees her, and immediately jumps to conclusions. “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Sober up!”

This surely must have been a low point in Ḥannah’s life, forming a negative core memory. Her household has rejected her, and her husband has failed to bring comfort. Now the priest, that is to say, the religious establishment, has compounded the injury. There is no safe place for Ḥannah.

To her credit, she stands up for herself against the most revered religious leader of the day. She objects that she is not drunk, but has been “pouring out her heart to the Lord” out of her “great anguish and distress.” Eli, unaware of what, specifically, Ḥannah has been praying for, wishes for God to grant her request.

The household returns home, and we are told that God remembers Ḥannah.  She conceives, a baby is born, and Ḥannah names him Shmuel, meaning “I asked the Lord for him.” In fulfillment of the vow she had made, she dedicates him to God as a Nazir. She turns Shmuel over to the very institution that had once rejected her.

He goes on to transform it, just as, in rabbinic tradition, she herself transforms prayer itself. Ḥannah’s turning to God in her lowest moment is held up as the ideal model for prayer. Out of her despair, she creates a new model for religious life: one that is intimate, vulnerable, and honest.

Ḥannah’s story of humiliation and transformation has a surprising parallel in modern times. Franz Rosenzweig was born in 1886 into a thoroughly assimilated German Jewish family. Although culturally Jewish,he was increasingly drawn to philosophy and the promise of universal redemption offered by Christianity. 

Particularist Judaism, in contrast, was like a fossil, valuable as an ethnic heritage perhaps, but not as a living faith. Rosenzweig later wrote that he saw Judaism at that time as “merely a stubborn survival, a religion without life.” In his mid-twenties, Rosenzweig decided that he would convert to Christianity. His friend, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, issued a challenge, if Rosenzweig was going to convert to Christianity, he should do so “as a Jew,” like the first Christians — entering the new faith through Judaism.

On September 13, 1913, Franz Rosenzweig entered a Berlin synagogue on Yom Kippur evening, intending it to be his last time as a Jew. This would be his final farewell to his ancestral faith.

Something happened to him that night, something he never described in detail. Was it the haunting melody of Kol Nidrei? The poetic beauty of the piyyutim? The experience of standing with a congregation dressed in white?

Whatever it was, he emerged transformed. Conversion to Christianity was no longer possible. He referred to that service as a wendung, a “turning point” in his life, the moment he entered “the gates” of Judaism. From then on, Judaism became a living religion to him. The Jewish people, by following their covenantal traditions, modeled for the world the ultimate redemption for humanity as a whole. 

Rosenzweig dedicated the rest of his life to Judaism. While serving on the Balkan front as a soldier in the German army during World War One, he wrote a series of postcards home to his mother that formed the outline of his grand philosophy of Judaism, the Star of Redemption, which he completed in 1919. He translated the Hebrew Bible into German with his friend, Martin Buber. He founded the Lehrhaus, a school of advanced Jewish studies for adults in Frankfurt. 

Rosenzweig died in 1929 of ALS at only 43 years of age. By the end of his life, he was unable to speak or move. He and his wife Edith developed a system whereby he would blink his eyes to indicate letters and words, which she would type. Using this technique, he composed his final communication:

“And now it comes, the point of all points, which the Lord has truly revealed to me in my sleep, the point of all points for which there—”

Just then the doctor walked in for a conversation. Rosenzweig never returned to finish his final sentence. Perhaps that is fitting. His life’s work passes the task to us: to continue the story, with our own Jewish memories, commitments, and transformations.

Like Ḥannah thousands of years earlier, Rosenzweig’s experience of alienation from Judaism led to his transformation and growth. It is the high and low points of their lives that led to such growth and bequeathed such important legacies to us.  Like Ḥannah, like Rosenzweig, we carry both joy and pain, pride and disappointment, acceptance and rejection, in our Jewish lives. The question is not whether we have these experiences, but what we do with them, how we shape them into the core memories that define who we are.

As I think about the next generation, I try to keep in mind that it is impossible to know which Jewish experiences will form core memories, positive or negative. My own children continue to surprise me. All that we can do is provide rich communal experiences in which we express our own pride and love of Judaism and the Jewish people. 

On this Rosh Hashanah, may we treasure the joyous moments, learn from the hard ones, and open ourselves to the possibility of new core memories — ones that connect us more deeply to Judaism, each other, Israel, and the world.

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August 31, 2025

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Guardians at the Gates – Shoftim 5875

The opening verse of this morning’s Torah portion is:

שֹׁפְטִ֣ים וְשֹֽׁטְרִ֗ים תִּֽתֶּן־לְךָ֙ בְּכׇל־שְׁעָרֶ֔יךָ אֲשֶׁ֨ר ה֧׳ אֱלֹקֶ֛יךָ נֹתֵ֥ן לְךָ֖ לִשְׁבָטֶ֑יךָ וְשָׁפְט֥וּ אֶת־הָעָ֖ם מִשְׁפַּט־צֶֽדֶק׃ 

You shall appoint judges and officers in all of your gates, in all the settlements that the LORD your God is giving you, and they shall judge the people with due justice. (Deuteronomy 16:18)

Rashi, the author of our go-to study guide for the Torah, understands this verse in a straightforward sense. Moses is instructing the Israelites to appoint judges, and court officers who will enforce their judgments, in every city, in all of the tribal regions in the Promised Land that the Israelites are about to inherit. The text continues with specific instructions for those judges and officers to judge justly, to not accept bribes or play favorites.

For any society to operate with trust and social cohesion, having just officials who administer the law impartially is a necessity. While the opening of our parashah may seem obvious, its fulfillment is far from a given. 

But there is a grammatical detail that Rashi, and many of the commentators, ignore. Moses delivers his instructions in the second person, singular. “You” – just you – “shall appoint magistrates and officials…”

Who is Moses talking to? Which individual has the authority and ability to make all of these appointments? Is it a grammatical mistake? Is it a collective “you?”

Our Etz Ḥayim Ḥumash refers to a teaching by Isaiah ben Jacob Ha’Levi Horowitz, who understands Moses’ instruction as metaphorically applying to each one of us, individually.

Horowitz lived in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Originally from Prague, he made aliyah to Eretz Yisrael in 1621, moving to Jerusalem, where he was appointed the leader of the Ashkenazi community living there. After he was taken hostage and ransomed, Horowitz moved North to Tsfat and T’veriah, in 1625.

Horowitz wrote his magnum opus, Shnei Luchot HaBrit, as a kind of ethical will. His son later published it in his father’s name. Horowitz is known as the Sh’lah, after the acronym of his famous work. Shnei Luchot HaBrit had a tremendous influence on Ashkenazi Judaism, particularly Hassidism, and popularized many kabbalistic ideals.

Drawing on the opening verse in this morning’s Torah portion, the Shlah cites an ancient kabbalistic teaching that identifies seven gateways to the human soul: two eyes, two ears, one mouth, and two nostrils. To these seven gateways, the Shlah adds two additional orifices that are a bit lower down. He says that the opening verse of our parashah alludes to a moral imperative on the individual.[i]

We must guard these seven (or nine) gateways with extreme care, he says. To what we see with our eyes, what we hear with out ears, what we speak or ingest with our mouths, and the anger which flares from our nostrils. He adds a bit more about our lower gateways, but I am going to skip over those details this morning.

In short, he concludes, these are the gateways of the body, over which one must appoint for oneself judges and officers who will constantly judge oneself. This is the reason the Torah added the words titein l’kha, “place for yourself,” in the singular. Moses is speaking to each one of us.

What the Shlah does not say explicitly is that Parashat Shoftim always occurs on the first Shabbat of the month of Elul. This is the month when we begin our spiritual preparation for the High Holidays, when we engage in Cheshbon NaHefesh, taking account of our souls, as a necessary step in the process of teshuvah, repentance.

The Shlah focuses mostly on what comes out of our soul’s gateways. By controlling how we interact with the physical world around us, he points out, we can keep ourselves from sin and achieve a state of peace, holiness, and purity.

Lately, I have found myself troubled much more by a kind of input into my soul that the Shlah could never have imagined, an input that I fear is having a terrible impact on me. Specifically, the digital content that pervades nearly every waking moment of my life.

I am not going to go through all of the evidence of how harmful our screens are to us. We know that they are harmful to our children’s learning and development. And while parents struggle to place some limits on our kids’ screen use, many of us know that we are just as addicted.

By this point, we know it is bad for our mental health and our social interactions, our relationships with family members and friends. Our attention spans and our patience. We know that book reading is down and loneliness is up. 

We know how social media drives us into echo chambers and exacerbates polarization. We know, intellectually, that the content that appears on our news feed, our Instagram reel, Tik Tok, Facebook, and whatever other social media platforms we use are driven by algorithms designed to feed us content that is tailor-made to keep our eyes glued as long as possible.

This system has us paying for the device and the internet connection. This entry fee grants us the right to have our attention sold as a product to the advertiser.

I see the ad. I recognize it for the click-bait that it is. I know that it likely contains something malicious. And I click on it anyways.

How many of us have had the experience of having a verbal conversation with someone and then, within a short time, we start receiving ads for the very thing we were talking about?

The rapid rise of ChatGPT and the other generative language AI platforms has introduced even more potentially isolating and dehumanizing dimensions to our lives. The amount of computer-generated content that enters through our gateways keeps rising, while our ability to distinguish what is human from what is AI-generated decreases.

To be clear, I am not anti-technology. The advances that we have seen are incredible, and offer the possibility to improve human life and flourishing, to combat disease and poverty, to help us solve the greatest social and global challenges.

The technology itself is not inherently good or evil. That depends on us. We get to decide how to use it – and how not to. The nature of fast-changing technology makes it very difficult to impose top-down guardrails and restrictions. 

My hope is that enough of us can get sufficiently fed up with the harmful uses of these devices that we begin to impose guardrails on our own use, and then the way that they are used begins to change for the better.

Although he never would have imagined his words being used in such a way, the Shlah’s interpretation of our parashah is entirely fitting to the present moment. It is up to each of us to appoint judges and officers over the gateways of our souls.

Over the next month, as we prepare for the High Holidays, this is what I will be working on. My Cheshbon HaNefesh will be taking stock of how I am utilizing technology, how the content that it feeds me is impacting my soul, and how I can better empower my own judges and officers. I invite you to join me. 

[i] Torah Shebikhtav, Shoftim, Derekh Chayim

שופטים ושוטרים תתן לך בכל שעריך (דברים טז, יח). בכאן יש רמז מוסר להא דתנן בספר יצירה, שבעה שערים הם בנפש, שתי עינים, שתי אזנים, והפה, ושני נקבי האף, עד כאן לשונו. והוא חושב השערים שהם בראש של אדם. אמנם יש שער לברית המעור, וגם כן פה התחתון, וצריך האדם להיות שומר השערים דהיינו הראיה והשמיעה והדיבור והכעס היוצא מאף. ג”כ צריך לשמור שער ברית הקודש שלא יצא זרע כי אם לקדושה. גם פה התחתון שלא ימלא כריסו כבהמת קיא צואה. ועל אלו השערים ישים האדם לעצמו שופטים ושוטרים, כלומר שישפוט את עצמו תמיד. זהו תיבת לך שאמר תתן לך, וישגיח תמיד שלא יהיה שם שום עבירה, כי כמעט אלו המקומות מקום שלום, ויהיו תמיד בקדושה ובטהרה: 

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October 6, 2024

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A Four-Fold Song – Rosh Hashanah 5785

God never promised it would be easy.

This morning’s Torah portion tells the story of the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael. Sarah recognizes something untoward in the way that Ishmael is playing with her son. She demands that Abraham send him out into the wilderness with his mother.

When their supplies run out, Hagar places her son underneath a bush so she does not have to watch him die. God hears the cry of the boy and sends an angel to Hagar with a prophecy.

Fear not, for God has heeded the cry of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him.

Then the angel reveals a well of water, and they are saved.

A midrash (Tanchuma Vayetzei 5:2) describes a scene that transpires in heaven, just before this moment. When God commands the angel to reveal the well, the angel objects: “Master of the Universe, why do you bring forth a well for this wicked person who will ultimately waylay travelers and wayfarers?”

The Holy One, blessed be He, retorts: “What is he right now? Is he not righteous? I judge a person only according to the moment at which he stands before me.”

The midrash derives this response from the Torah’s language: God has heeded the cry of the boy ba’asher hu sham – “in the place where he is.”

Midrashim often put into words their authors’ struggles with the Sacred Text. In this case, we witness the tension between the suffering of a child, for which any human with a heart must feel compassion and pity; and tribal protectiveness. This struggle is personified through Sarah versus Hagar, Isaac versus Ishmael.

The angel’s objection captures our defensive instinct to close ranks and protect our own. God ‘s rebuke expresses the universalism which seeks to break down barriers between peoples and treat individuals as they are, human beings made in the Divine image.

God does not suffer from human parochialism.

It is a particularly poignant midrash for us this year, conveying this tension between tribalism and universalism. I ask myself, in this moment: “Do I resonate more with the angel, or with God?”

As we celebrate Rosh Hashanah, welcoming 5785, it is a time for us to reflect on the ways in which we value peoplehood and humanity. Or is it peoplehood versus humanity?

One of the most beautiful expressions of this was described by Rav Abraham Isaac Kook over one hundred years ago, at a time which bore certain similiarities to our own.

Rav Kook is considered to be be the founder of religious Zionism. He was born and grew up in Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1905, he moved to Yaffo, in Palestine, then controlled by the Ottoman Emprire.

At the outbreak of the first World War, Rav Kook happened to be in Germany, where he was interned as an alien. He managed to escape and lived for the remainder of the war in London, stuck in exile, unable to return to Palestine.

It was a tumultuous time, full of danger, uncertainty, and change. The world was at war. Empires fell while nationalist movements reared their heads. Russia was aflame in revolution. A global pandemic was incubating. It was during this time period that Rav Kook wrote Shir Meruba, A Four-Fold Song.

He imagines four ways that a person might see themself; might orient their life and find meaning. He describes each of these four ways as a kind of song: the song of the self, the song of the nation, the song of humanity, and the song of the universe.

There is one who sings the song of oneself, and in themself findseverything, full spiritual satisfaction in its entirety.

There is another who sings the song of one’s people. He leaves the circle of his own individual self, because he finds it without sufficient breadth, without an idealistic basis. He aspires toward the heights, and he cleaves with a gentle love to the whole community of Israel. Together with her he sings her songs. He feels grieved in her afflictions and delights in her hopes. He contemplates noble and pure thoughts about her past and her future, and probes with love and wisdom her innerspiritual essence.

There is another who reaches toward more distant realms, and going beyond the boundary of Israel to sing the song of humanity. Her spirit extends to the wider vistas of the majesty of humanity in general, and its noble essence…

Then there is one who rises toward even wider horizons, until he links himself with all existence, with all God’s creatures, with all worlds, and he sings his song with all of them…

As Rav Kook describes so evocatively, each of us sings one of these four songs. He describes them as reflecting wider and wider perspectives, ever-expanding concentric circles.

What is my primary area of concern? Who do I care about most? Where do I invest my emotional energy? Form which wellsprings do I draw meaning and purpose in life?

Do I wake up each day to advance myself? Am I devoted to the Jewish people? Do I work for humanity? Or is my concern even more global?

Which song do I sing most strongly?

Rav Kook suggests that most people primarily sing one of these four songs. It is tempting to restrict our perspective to the narrowest of the concentric circles. Perhaps that is the song that most of us sing, most of the time.

This is the drive for self-preservation, for placing self over others.  It evokes the most famous teaching of Hillel the Elder in Pirkei Avot: 

אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי. “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”

The next part of Hillel’s teaching warns of the risk of only focusing on the self

וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. “But if I am (only) for myself, what am I?”

Hillel suggests that a self-focused life is incomplete. Meaning and worth must include a concern for and commitment to others. But his teaching does not go so far as to distinguish how far that concern should extend: just to the Jewish people, to humanity, or to all of creation.

As we look back at the past year, I fear that we may have placed too great a focus on the universal, and not enough on the particular. Maybe we did not emphasize enough to our children how important it is to form our structures of meaning specifically around the history, values, and traditions of the Jewish people. We did not sufficiently emphasize that it is not only ok but necessary to feel particular connection to our Jewish brothers and sisters around the world.

We are now being taught that lesson. The borders that surround us are pressing in.

We are four days away from the one-year anniversary of the October 7 massacre, which changed the way Jewish people everywhere view ourselves as individuals, as part of the Jewish people, and within the wider society of humankind. 

Within hours of that horrific event, antisemitism had already begun its surge.

This past year has seen the international double standard against the world’s only Jewish state laid bare. We are still praying for the return of 97 hostages.

Many university campuses became unwelcome places for Jewish college students. We felt the need to further harden the barriers around our houses of worship and Jewish institutions, increasing our stress and fear.

So many experienced abandonment by friends, who could not bear to even have a relationship with someone who supports the legitimacy of the State of Israel.

And some of us painfully faced the conflict between the song of the nation and the song of humanity within our own families.

How have these forces, pushing in against us, affected our song?

After October 7, so many of us sought out one another, to be together, shed tears, express our grief, find solidarity —to experience some measure of comfort.

Many of us were surprised to find ourselves feeling connected to the Jewish people more profoundly than ever before.

This amplification of our song has not only been reactive. We are experiencing renewed eagerness to embrace Jewish tradition and practice. Participation in Jewish life is rising all over the world. 

Membership at Congregation Sinai is at its all-time high, along with the number of children learning in our religious school. What began as a defensive reaction has evolved into an awakening curiosity and eagerness to explore and find meaning in Judaism’s rich history and culture.

As we gather as a people to observe the new year, what are we to make of this seeming dissonance between Jewish peoplehood and universalism?

Rosh Hashanah is not a particularly particularistic holiday. It does not have an historic or symbolic connection to the Exodus from Egypt. It does not mark any moment in the history of the Jewish people. 

We describe it as Yom Hadin, the Day of Judgment. Not judgment for the Jewish people – but rather, judgment for all humanity. Unetaneh Tokef describes how “all who live on earth shall pass before You like a flock of sheep.”

A few lines later, we sing “On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on the fast of Yom Kippur it is sealed.” The fate of every living person in the year ahead is determined.

Rosh Hashanah is said to take place on the sixth day, the day on which God completed all the works of creation by forming humanity in the Divine image.

It is the most universal of Jewish holidays. Perhaps Rosh Hashanah is a holiday for singing the song of humanity, or the song of the universe, rather than the song of our people.

Does it have to be either/or? Must concern for the Jewish people come at the expense of concern for humanity, or vice versa? Let us return to Rav Kook’s Four Fold Song, which continues from where we left it. He imagines the rare individual who harmonizes the four competing melodies

…into one ensemble, each joining their voices… lending vitality and life to one another. They are sounds of joy and gladness, sounds of jubilation and celebration, sounds of ecstasy and holiness.

The song of the self, the song of the people, the song of humanity, the song of the universe continuously merged…

Rav Kook describes this four-part harmony as a “song of holiness.” It is the song of Yisrael, which, with the first two letters switched, spells Shir El – the song of God.

Rav Kook challenges us to merge our various identities. We start by asking: Which song do I primarily sing? Has my song changed in the past year?

With Israel at war, and the Jewish people threatened, is there space left in my heart to maintain my commitment to myself and my people, as well as to humanity and creation?

Rav Kook would argue that I do not have a choice. Humanity’s mission is to strive towards wholeness and perfection. Israel, like other peoples, has a unique contribution to make.

From the beginning, when God first revealed Godself to Abraham, our challenge as a people has always been to be a blessing to the world, as a distinct people, and through our commitment to Torah. 

For humanity to rise higher, we must be able to sing both songs. Rav Kook wrote:. “The upright person must believe in their own life.” He also wrote “the Love of Israel requires the love of the whole of humanity.”

Even when segments of humanity do not behave so lovingingly towards us.

We celebrate our new year with complicated emotions. We pray that our brothers and sisters still held hostage will return to their families embrace. We pray for God to protect our people who are at war, and to deliver the brave souls fighting to defend them.

We pray that we be strengthened in our communities and drawn closer as a people. We pray for love, connection, and healing within our families.

We pray for all people, everywhere, to learn to recognize the Divine sparks in one another. We pray for unity in humanity’s collective striving for wholeness, for each person and nation to contribute their own blessings to our shared task.

May all of these prayers blend together to produce a glorious masterpiece, the song of God, the Song of Songs.

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Sarah’s Howl – Rosh Hashanah II 5784

How did the ram’s horn get its name?

Because you can hear it from shofar away.

Now that we have firmly established the linguistic origin of the word shofar, where does this tradition of hearing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah come from? What might that origin teach us about the meaning and purpose of the shofar?

The Maftir Torah reading, from our second Torah scroll, is identified as the source of the obligation.

In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations. A Day of Blasting it shall be for you.

Numbers 29:1

This is the Torah’s name for today: Yom Teruah, “A Day of Blasting.” Other than a few typical sacrifices, blasting the shofar is the only specific action that the Torah commands.

Nowhere is our holiday called Rosh Hashanah. It is never acknowledged as the new year, nor is it claimed to have anything to do with creation. Teshuvah is never mentioned.

It would seem that Rosh Hashanah’s significance, in the Torah, is in respect to Yom Kippur. We sound the shofar as an announcement of the upcoming Day of Atonement. In contrast, Yom Kippur does have great significance and lots of detail in the Torah. 

The deeper meaning of our holiday is revealed through our rabbinic traditions. It is Rosh Hashanah: the new year. It celebrates creation and the enthronement of God as king. It is the Day of Judgment, the first step in what will eventually result in our souls being purified on Yom Kippur. It is the day when we eat apples dipped in honey and make our challahs round.

Through multiple layers of significance, the shofar remains the most iconic element of Rosh Hashanah, the most unique and special ritual of the holiday.

But what does it mean? Maimonides acknowledges that the Torah provides no explicit reason for the shofar, but suggests that there is a hint as to its purpose. The sound announces:

You who sleep, bestir yourselves from your sleep, and you who slumber, emerge from your slumber. Examine your actions, return, and remember your Creator. Those who forget the truth in the vanities of time and waste all their years with vanity and emptiness, which is not effective and does not save, look inside yourselves. Improve your ways and your actions, let each one of you abandon their evil path and their thoughts that are not good!

Maimonides, Laws of Repentance 3:4

For Rambam, the shofar is a moral alarm clock, meant to awaken us to what is really going on with our lives. Most of us devote most of our energies to tasks that are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. If we are paying the right kind of attention, the shofar blast shatters our complacency, and reorients us to what truly matters. In other words, the sound of the shofar is an important step in the process of teshuvah, repentance.

While Maimonides offers us a psychological explanation, the Talmud offers something more theological, imagining a conversation between God and the Jewish people. God says:

Sound a blast before Me with a shofar from a ram, so that I will remember for you the binding of Isaac, son of Abraham, and I will consider it as if you had bound yourselves before Me.

Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 16a

The Torah reading from this morning, the Binding of Isaac, ends with Abraham offering up a ram as a burnt offering in place of his son Isaac. This story was chosen for today as a testament to Abraham’s total and complete faith in God, as well as Isaac’s willingness to go along with the Divine command.

Sounding the shofar is our way of symbolically participating in that act. It is a way of offering up our faith to God, putting our lives in God’s hands, so to speak, so that God considers us with mercy on the Day of Judgment.

Of course, the story itself never claims to have taken place on Rosh Hashanah, nor does the Torah ever make a connection between the Binding of Isaac and our holiday.

Maimonides’ explanation characterizes the sound of the shofar as a call to us to perform teshuvah. The Talmud says that it is a reminder to God to remember the Binding of Isaac and have mercy upon us.

A midrash provides a third explanation for the origin and the meaning of the shofar that digs even deeper. It suggests a deeply emotional origin for our beloved ritual.

This midrash picks up on the juxtaposition of the story of the Akeidah with the death of Sarah in the subsequent chapter. It addresses Sarah’s absence in the story. Did she know what Abraham was doing with her son? Did she ever find out afterward? Did she wake up the morning they left to pack them a lunch and see them off? “Bye honey, be back in time for dinner.” The Torah is silent.

This midrash brings in Samael, an evil angel who serves as God’s adversary. Samael expects Abraham to chicken out at the last minute, revealing the weakness of his faith. But Abraham’s commitment to God is so strong that an angel has to call out his name, not once, but twice to get his attention and stop him from slaughtering Isaac.

His plan frustrated, Samael sets out for revenge. Hastily, he rushes to Sarah with a message:

“Sarah, Have you not heard what has happened?”

“No.”

“Your old man (Yes, he calls Abraham ‘old man.’) took your son Isaac to sacrifice as a burnt offering. The boy was crying and howling that he would not be able to be saved.”

[Then Sarah] began to cry and howl. She cried three cries, corresponding to the three tekiot. Three howls corresponding to the three yevavot.[Then] her soul departed, and she died.

Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 32:8

A few words of explanation.

The three tekiot and three yevavot refer to the required number of blasts that one is required to hear on Rosh Hashanah. A tekiah is an uninterrupted note. A Yevavais a broken note, what we call teruah. The Rabbis translated Yom Teruah, a “Day of Blasting” into Aramaic as Yom Yabava.

This remarkable midrash provides a very different origin story for our shofar.  Instead of representing the willingness of a father to sacrifice his son, it expresses the grief and utter loss of control of a mother who discovers she has just lost her child. As Aviva Zornberg explains, the word for howl, yelalah, is

a wordless sound made by women particularly at moments of birth or death, at extreme moments when all normal patterns and understandings of the world break down.

“Cries and Whispers: The Death of Sarah” in Beginning Anew: A Woman’s Companion to the High Holidays, p. 185.

It is pure emotion, uninhibited and unrestrained. When the Rabbis in the Talmud argue over what the broken short notes, the yevavot, are supposed to sound like, they compare them to the yelalah – the raw cry of motherly grief. There is no discernable message in the yelalah. No reminder for self reflection, no call for Teshuvah, and no appeal to Divine mercy. Just honest, unfiltered emotion.

We encounter another weeping mother in today’s Haftarah. Picture the scene in your mind’s eye.

A cry is heard in Ramah—wailing, bitter weeping—Rachel weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children, who are gone.

Jeremiah 31:15

While the passage continues with God’s words of comfort and promises to restore her children to their land, Rachel’s crying reverberates.  She refuses to be comforted. In this haunting scene, we are reminded that sometimes, before we can embark on a path of introspection and repentance, we need a moment to howl, to let out our rage and grief.

The howl of the shofar echoes the sorrow and despair in our world: mothers and fathers who have lost children to violence and suicide; families and communities devastated by earthquake, flood, and fire; humans suffering from poverty and oppression, addiction and depression; as well as many of us whose lives have not unfolded as we had hoped. 

If we allow it to penetrate us, the cry of the shofar can awaken the compassion and empathy necessary to truly evaluate our own lives and pray for Divine mercy, not only for ourselves, but for all who suffer. As we open our hearts to the shofar’s call for personal growth, let us also extend our hands. May the echoes of Sarah’s howl and Rachel’s bitter weeping, along withthe cries of all who grieve, inspire us to be agents of healing, kindness, and transformation in the year ahead.

May the pure sound of the shofar serve as a beacon of hope, reminding us that even in our moments of deepest sorrow, we can find the strength to move forward, to mend, and to repair our world.

Shanah Tovah, may we all have a sweet and meaningful new year filled with love, compassion, and positive change.

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The Cure for Loneliness – Rosh Hashanah I 5784

What is the number one public health challenge in America?

Loneliness.

That is not something that we typically associate with health.

Dr. Vivek Murthy became the Surgeon General of the United States in 2014. Dr. Murthy spent his first several months visiting communities large and small, urban and rural. He met with health care professionals and farmers, small business owners and teachers. Of course, he heard all about heart disease and diabetes, cancer, drug and alcohol addiction, the opioid epidemic and obesity. These were expected.

But what surprised him was to encounter, over and over, that people were experiencing loneliness and isolation in profound ways.

Now in his second stint as Surgeon General, Dr. Murthy’s department released, this past April, a general advisory for our nation entitled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.

What is loneliness? First of all, it is subjective. We experience it when there is a gap between the social connections that we desire and those that we have. 

Aloneness and Loneliness are not the same. It is possible to be alone in a crowd, just as it is possible to spend large amounts of time by oneself and feel socially fulfilled. 

Consider your own life. If you have felt lonely at some point in the past year, and if you are comfortable doing so, I invite you to raise your hand…

A related, objective term is “social isolation.” This refers to having few social relationships and roles, group memberships and interactions with others.

Social isolation has been increasing in the United States for the past half century, and especially over the past twenty years. For example, between 2003 and 2020, the average number of hours adults spent by themselves increased by 24 hours per month. Time spent engaging, in person, with friends decreased from 30 to 10 hours per month. Even within households, we spent 5 fewer hours per month interacting with our family members.

This is bad for us. Decades of research has found connections between loneliness, social isolation, and health outcomes.

Lacking social connection puts a person at about the same risk of early mortality as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day and is a greater risk factor than drinking 6 alcoholic drinks a day, physical inactivity, obesity, or exposure to air pollution.

Those with poor social relationships are associated with having a 29% increase in risk for heart disease and 32% increase in risk of stroke. Similar links exist with hypertension, diabetes, cognitive decline, and dementia.

It should come as no surprise that those who are more socially isolated are more likely to experience depression and anxiety, to become addicted to opioids, and self harm.

Gun violence is exacerbated by loneliness and isolation.

Loneliness also brings an economic cost. First, the obvious: healthcare and social services. But there are other expenses. Children who are isolated have lower academic achievement. Workers experiencing loneliness are less productive in their jobs. One study found that loneliness led to increased rates of stress-related absenteeism, costing employers $154 billion each year.

There is one additional harm that bears mentioning. The terrible political and social polarization plaguing us is directly related to the loneliness and social isolation that has exploded over the past decades. Loneliness drives us to extremes.

How did we get here?

For most of human existence, survival required membership in deeply integrated social communities. Our prehistoric ancestors formed tribes for mutual protection from outside enemies as well as to meet basic needs, i.e., food, clothing, and shelter. Religious beliefs, moral codes, meaning, and purpose all emerged out of this collective social orientation.

Now, we can survive day-to-day without ever sharing air with another person. I can work remotely. I can have all my food, clothing and cleaning supplies delivered to my door. I can consume an endless amount of entertainment from the comfort of my sofa. And I can even complain to my therapist about my lack of a social life from the comfort of my laptop. 

In his final book, Morality, published in 2020, the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l, points to the beginning of the Enlightenment, approximately 400 years ago, as the moment when humans began to shift the way that we perceive ourselves in relation to our communities.

Instead of existing as part of a collective “We,” individuals began to think of themselves as a unique, sovereign “I.”

Without going into a social, political, religious, and economic history of the past four hundred years, it is safe to say that the quest for meaning and purpose in life is now something that we each must figure out on our own. This has not always been the case.

In his 1961 inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy famously challenged, “And so, my fellow American: ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” It was a call for children and adults to do something to contribute to the public good, to selflessly give of themselves for the collective “We.”

His challenge presupposed a shared national identity and system of collective values.

Can you imagine a national politician putting out a similar call today?

By the way, the continuation of the speech included this line: “My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

I think we know, deep down, that we need each other, that we are better off when we face life’s challenges together, and that our society is more cohesive when we embrace a shared set of values.

But now it is not uncommon to ask, “What does my Judaism mean to me?” That is a lonely question that would have been considered absurd until very recently.

Facebook is less than twenty years old. Newer still are Instagram, Snapchat, Tik Tok, X—human beings around the world have never been more connected. Ironically, we have also never felt so alone.

Think for a moment about some of the terms we associate with social media: Influencer; My personal brand; Followers, The selfie.

While presented as tools to bring people together, these social media apps prey on our attachment to self and need for validation. But the result is that we feel inadequate. Do we feel more or less connected to fellow human beings after scrolling through our feed for an hour?  

So many of our face-to-face encounters have been replaced by screen time. Our social muscles are atrophying. Even when we are together, we are distracted. It is so disheartening to look around a restaurant and see families, friends, and colleagues mesmerized by their phones, oblivious to the person sitting across from them. Is this the purpose for which we are created?

Our tradition teaches that Rosh Hashanah, the first of Tishrei, coincides with the day on which humanity was born. After creating the first human in the Garden of Eden, God declares, lo tov heyot adam levado. “It is not good for a human to be alone.”

So, God makes all the animals off the ground and the air, bringing them to Adam, one by one. But no fitting helper can be found.  It is then that God casts a sleep upon the human and forms a woman out of its side. Now identified by gender, the man and the woman find companionship in each other. 

Humanity’s very first experience is loneliness. The Torah unambiguously declares it lo tov, “not good.” Its remedy, the solution provided by God, is human companionship.

Our present epidemic is not how we are meant to live, neither from a biological perspective, an evolutionary perspective, nor a religious perspective.

Turning to our Rosh Hashanah liturgy, we find the theme of loneliness woven throughout. In our Torah portion, after God remembers Sarah and blesses her with a child, she orders Abraham to banish Hagar and Ishmael. 

Cast out that slave-woman and her son, for the son of that slave shall not share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.

Genesis 21:10

This is not mere physical exile, but social excommunication. Hagar and Ishmael can no longer be part of the family. When their supplies run out in the wilderness, Hagar, depressed, abandons her son, thinking “Let me not look on as the child dies.” Hagar’s loneliness is answered when God sends an angel to announce that God has heard the cry of the boy “where he is.”

Our Haftarah tells the story of another barren woman. As the story begins, Hannah is teased and tormented continuously by Peninnah, her rival wife. Her tone-deaf husband, Elkanah, tries to console her:

Hannah, why are you crying and why aren’t you eating? Why are you so sad? Am I not more devoted to you than ten sons?

I Samuel 1:8

The Bible does not dignify Elkanah’s selfish words with an answer. Hannah prays, silently moving her lips while weeping. Even the priest Eli looks right past her. He scolds her as a drunk. Only then does Hannah recite her first words out loud.

Oh no, my lord! I am a very unhappy woman. I have drunk no wine or other strong drink, but I have been pouring out my heart to Adonai. Do not take your maidservant for a worthless woman; I have only been speaking all this time out of my great anguish and distress.

I Samuel 1:15-16

That must have taken a lot of courage: to speak up for herself, to own her sadness and loneliness, and to share it with a stranger. Now Eli really does see her. He prays for God to grant her wishes. As Hannah leaves, she eats and she is no longer downcoast. A moment of empathy, of being seen, has made all the difference.

These stories evoke our own loneliness. How have we been forgotten? Does God hear our prayers? Is there a remedy for our own loneliness?

Look around the room. We come to shul.  We sit side by side. We sing in harmony (or something resembling harmony). We catch up. We wish each other a good year. Amidst the angst and uncertainty that fill our lives, we come together to share our loneliness. And suddenly we are not so lonely.  All of us recognize, at some level, that the only way to celebrate the new year is together.

It should not surprise any of us to learn that people who are involved in religious communities are less lonely, and experience higher levels of social support and integration. In other words, Shul is good for your health – emotionally, psychologically, maybe even physically. (Although we might want to take it easy during Kiddush.)

To reverse our loneliness epidemic, Rabbi Sacks suggests that we need to shift our focus back from “I” to “We.” How do we begin?

In one experiment, participants were given a sum of money. Half were told to spend the money on treats for themselves. Half were told to spend the money on a person in need. The subjects were asked questions before and after to measure their relative levels of happiness. Which group do you think was happier at the end of the experiment?

It was the group that spent the money on someone else. Taking those few moments to think “What would make another person happy,” increased their own happiness. We experience the greatest joy when we stop thinking about ourselves. 

Instead of turning to “Self-Help” to work on what is wrong with us, how about trying “Other-Help?”  What if, every day, we consciously do one thing solely for another person’s benefit. 

There is a particular concept in Judaism that Rabbi Sacks suggests could help us reframe our relationship to community: the brit, or covenant. A covenant is different than a contract. In a contract, I am me and you are you. Contracts deal with tangible things and specific responsibilities. I agree to pay you five thousand dollars, and you agree to give me a car in working order. When we complete our responsibilities as outlined by the contract, we never have to see each other again. A covenant is different. It establishes a relationship. Fundamentally, it calls on the parties of the covenant to be loyal to one another. It transforms you and me into we. 

As Jews, we are quite familiar with this idea, at least conceptually. Covenant is how we describe our relationship with God. Our brit establishes mutual loyalty, care, and compassion; not only between God and us, but between and among one another. If I am not responding to the needs of my fellow Jew, I am not being faithful to the covenant. Meaning in is found by sharing a common set of stories and values that tell us where we come from, who we are, and what our purpose is. 

Rabbi Sacks argues that it is our mutual loyalty to one another and to God which forms the basis of morality. Living covenantally asks me to give up some of my need to self actualize and self authenticate, to set aside my self interest and prioritize the other. The goal of any society should be to prioritize the well-being of all its members, and to serve the common good, rather than the interests of a select few. If I am to belong to that society, those must be my priorities as well.

Covenants can exist at varying levels. At the smallest, a marriage is a covenant between two people who make a commitment of loyalty and care to one another. As the Torah explains after the creation of man and woman: v’hayu l’vasar echad. “They become one flesh.”

Ostensibly, the Jewish people are covenantally committed to mutual care and compassion. Kol Yisrael arevim zeh la-zeh, goes the saying. “All of Israel are surety for one another.” How well we live up to that ideal is debatable.

Do we have a national covenant that binds Americans together in loyalty and mutual responsibility? At the moment, it does not seem like we do.

Rabbi Sacks even posits the existence of 

a covenant of human solidarity that binds all [eight] billion of us alive today to act responsibly toward the environment, human rights, and the alleviation of poverty for the sake of generations not yet born.

Jonathan Sacks, Morality, 313-314

How different our world would be if humanity truly saw itself committed to this shared vision. Perhaps that is the meaning of the words of Zekhariah that conclude the prayer Aleinu, originally recited only on Rosh Hashanah.

V’hayah Adonai l’melekh al kol-ha’aretz,
bayom hahu yihyeh Adonai echad ush’mo Echad

Adonai shall be ruler over all of the earth.
On that day, Adonai will be One and the name of Adonai, One.

Let us each take the steps within our power to bring that day closer.

This year, may we dedicate ourselves to cultivate compassion and empathy, to truly see one another, and to put other before self. May we, together, be worthy of a year filled with health, happiness, meaning, and growth. L’Shanah Tovah.

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The Friendship of the King – Rosh Hashanah 5783

What is the first thing that pops into your mind when I say the word “King?”

Given recent events, I imagine that the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of King Charles III probably come to mind.

In the United States, the concept of royalty is not particularly relevant to our lives. Our nation was founded when we gained independence from a king. It is a matter of national pride that we have no royalty.

Monarchy is not a particularly common form of government these days. The British Crown, as a Constitutional Monarchy, is largely symbolic.  There are just a handful of absolute monarchies left in the world, and I am not sure that any of them are in places that you or I would want to live.

And yet, “King” is one of the dominant symbols and the primary metaphor that we use to describe God on Rosh Hashanah.

Our High Holiday liturgy is filled with pageantry. All of the ark openings. The standing. The sitting. Much of the music we sing is meant to sound like a royal procession.

We shift the beginning of the morning service so that the first word is hamelekh, the King. What is the most iconic prayer of Rosh Hashanah? Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father our King. We even braid the Challah into a round loaf resembling a crown. Rosh Hashanah is a coronation, a crowning of the King of Kings on the New Year.

This is expressed nowhere better than in a glorious piyyut which we will sing in a little while. Here is a preview. It can be found on page 150 in the mahzor. In this particular melody, the last line of the poem serves as the congregational response. The words are v’yitnu l’kha keter m’lukhah – “And they will give You a crown of kingship.”

The prayer imagines a future in which all of humanity joins in glorious unity, rejecting all forms of idolatry and recognizing God as King. Let’s practice singing it right now. I’ll sing the leader’s part without using any words. All you have to do is repeat the exact melody that I sing, using the final line v’yitnu l’kha keter m’lukhah.  After three lines, we’ll join together in the niggun, a wordless melody.

[SING]

When we talk about a human King, what qualities come to mind?

Kings are not like us. They sit far away, upon an elevated throne. They have absolute power. The King is the law. The King is male.

What does it mean when we describe God as a King? This metaphor might work for some of us. Or, maybe we try not to think too hard about what “God is King” might imply. Or, maybe the idea of God as a King turns us off.

I personally have a difficult time with it.  When teaching Avinu Malkeinu to our religious school students recently, I struggled with how to translate it and explain its meaning. I ended up using “Ruler,” which is not really the same thing. For the handout, I hedged by just writing Avinu Malkeinu in English,

What do we say in Avinu Malkeinu? “Our Father, Our King. Have mercy on us, answer us, for our deeds are insufficient; deal with us charitably and lovingly, and redeem us.”

We ask for compassion from a King who is far away. ‘We don’t deserve your mercy,’ we admit. There is no claim whatsoever that we can make. We are entirely in Your hands; we exist at Your whim. Maybe that is the appropriate way to understand our relationship with our Creator, but it does not feel very good.

Maimonides says that there are no words that can accurately define God. We can only say what God is not. All descriptions are metaphors which, if we took them literally, would make us guilty of idolatry. For the most part, our descriptions of God are really descriptions of the best qualities that we hope to see in ourselves: kindness, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, reliability, constancy, fairness, justice. We project on God those qualities to which we aspire…

…which brings us to another problem with Kings. They are, by and large, terrible. In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses tells the Israelites that there may be a time in the future when they say “I will set a king over me, as do all the nations about me.” When the request comes a few centuries later, in the days of the Prophet Samuel, he agrees to help the Israelites, but tells them, “You can do it, but you’re not gonna like it.”

Here are some of the rules that Moses outlines for Kings: he can’t have too many horses, he can’t send people back to Egypt to get more horses. He can’t have too many wives.  And further, the King can’t do whatever he wants. He must keep a copy of the Torah with him at all times, read it daily, and follow the commandments closely.  And, he cannot set himself above his subjects.  Basically, he does not get to do any of the fun stuff that Kings like to do. With all due respect to Mel Brooks, “It is not good to be the King.”

When the Israelites do establish a monarchy, it is essentially a disaster, with a few exceptional bright spots here and there. And let’s not even get started with the non-Israelite kings.

If human royalty is so terrible, why on earth is it the metaphor we use for God?

The Rabbis are aware that the nature of God’s Kingship is fundamentally different than an earthly King. The Talmud (BT Avodah Zarah 11a) tells the story Onkelos bar Kelonimos. According to one legend, he was the nephew of the Roman Emperor Titus. He converted to Judaism in the first century, CE, and wrote what came to be known as Targum Onkelos, the earliest Aramaic translation of the Bible.

News of Onkelos’ conversion spreads, and the Roman emperor sends a troop of soldiers to arrest him. As the soldiers approach, Onkelos starts reciting verses of Torah, as one does. He is very persuasive, and they convert.

The emperor sends in another troop of soldiers to arrest Onkelos. This time he instructs them: “Do not talk to him.”

They arrest Onkelos, and as they are walking along, he says to them: “I just have one thing I’d like to say. It is the job of the junior officer to hold the torch for the senior officer. The senior officer holds the torch for the Duke. The Duke holds the torch for the Governor. And the Governor holds the torch for the King. So,” he asks the soldiers. “Does the King hold the torch for the people?”

The soldiers, mesmerized by Onkelos, forget their orders and answer: “No. Of course not.”

Onkelos turns to them and says: “And yet, the Holy One holds a torch for the Jewish people.” Then he quotes Exodus: “The Lord went before them in a pillar of cloud by day, to guide them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light.” (Exodus 13:21).

Hearing this brilliant exposition, the entire second troop of soldiers converts.

Word reaches the Emperor, who he is beside himself. As he sends out the third troop, he commands them: “Do not speak with him at all. Not a word!”

The soldiers follow their orders. They arrest Onkelos and start marching. As they are walking along, Onkelos sees a mezuzah on a doorpost. He puts his hand on it and looks over at the soldiers: “What is this?”

They look at one another, thinking of the Emperor’s order. But they are curious. So one of them shrugs his shoulders and quietly whispers for Onkelos to answer his question.

So Onkelos says: “The standard practice around the world is that the king sits inside his palace, while his servants stand guard at the gates, protecting him from any threats. But when it comes to the Holy One, it is the opposite.” He points to the mezuzah. “God’s servants, the Jewish people, sit inside their homes with their mezuzahs on their doors, while God stands guard over them.” 

When the soldiers hear this, what can they do but convert on the spot? 

The Emperor does not bother sending any more soldiers.

This story is all about contrasting the human King with the Divine King. Notice how the Roman Emperor remains inside his palace while his servants, the guards, are sent outside to supposedly protect his interests. Onkelos, who has chosen to be a servant of God, is protected by verses of Torah. Even when he is out on the road, the Divine King is with him to light his way and guard him from harm.

Although calling God “King” might seem like such a given, it might be surprising to learn that God is not a King in the Torah. None of the Patriarchs or Matriarchs relate to God in that way. Moses never instructs Pharaoh to submit before the King of Kings. When the Israelites build a place of worship, they construct a Tabernacle, not a palace.

The word melekh, King, referring to God, or its related verb, occurs just three, or possibly even only two times in the entire Torah, which creates a problem for our machzor.

The Musaf service contains three special sections called Malkhuyot – Kingship, Zikhronot – Remembrances,  and Shofarot – Shofar blasts. Each of these sections are comprised of ten verses from the Hebrew Bible: three from Torah, three from Writings, three from Prophets, and a final verse from Torah. The verses conclude with a closing blessing, followed by shofar blasts.

The Talmud has no problem at all in associating Zikhronot – Remembrances –  and Shofarot – Shofar blasts – to Rosh Hashanah, or in finding appropriate verses. But it really struggles to find four verses from the Torah for Malkhuyot. Most appear in poems. The first is from the Song of the Sea: Adonai yimlokh l’olam va’ed – “The Lord will reign for ever and ever.” The second is recited by Balaam, the non-Israelite Prophet, when he utters words of blessing upon the Israelites. We’ll come back to it. The third verse, from Deuteronomy, might actually be referring to Moses instead of God. The fourth verse is Shema Yisrael, which does not even have the word melekh. None of these four verses have anything to do with Rosh Hashanah.

Now back to our verse from Balaam. Summoned by the human King Balak of Moab to curse the Israelites, Balaam instead offers words of blessing, including our verse:

No harm is in sight for Jacob, No woe in view for Israel. 

The Lord their God is with them, And the teruah of the King among them.

Numbers 23:21

Ut’ruat melekh bo. Do you hear anything familiar? The teruah of the King among them. What is teruah? It means “blasting,” probably referring to a trumpet fanfare announcing the King’s entrance. It is one of the three notes sounded by the shofar. It is a word used to refer to our holiday – zikhron teruah – a remembrance of blasting.

So maybe we can make an indirect connection.  If melekh has a connection to teruah, and teruah is associated with Rosh Hashanah, then by analogy melekh is connected to Rosh Hashanah. If A = B, and B = C, then A = C. Maybe.

Before we get too excited, let’s look again at teruah. Does it actually mean “blasting?”

Remember Onkelos? His Aramaic translation uses a curious word.  It says ush’khinat malk’hon beineihon – “The Shechinah of the king is among them.” No blasting. Instead, it is the Shechinah, the indwelling of God’s Presence. Rather than triumphant horns, the image shifts to one of intimacy and comfort.

Perhaps this is what leads the commentator Rashbam to explain the verse in this way. The word Teruah is related to the word re’ut, which means “friendship.”  On the inside of our wedding rings, Dana and I have the words Zeh dodi v’zeh re’i inscribed.  “This is my beloved, this is my friend.”

Teruah therefore means friendship.  ut’ruat melekh bo – “and the friendship of the king is among them.”

Turning to the opening words of the verse, Lo hibit aven b’ya’akov – Rashbam explains that God does not want to punish the children of Israel even when they sin.  Literally, “God cannot see sin in Jacob.”

What kind of King is this? One who is in intimate relationship with the beloved, who deliberately overlooks sin, ignoring imperfections, who is blinded by love. 

That is a very different image of a King. Instead of the majestic, male, distant Ruler seated upon a lofty throne, with trumpets blaring, this King is at our level, feminine perhaps, a loving companion who accepts us with all of our imperfections. In other words, nothing at all like a human king.

What kind of relationship do I want with my Creator? No question that there is a rather large power imbalance. But don’t I want to be seen and accepted by the universe, told that I matter?

While our High Holiday liturgy is filled with royal language and imagery, I struggle to relate to those metaphors. Maybe this other type of King, the loving companion, offers an alternative.

If it is true that God knows us better than we even know ourselves, then maybe what we want from God is to be a close friend, an intimate companion.

What do we need from our closest relationships? We need to be accepted for who we are and loved — no matter what.

We talk about the unconditional love of parents for their children. Unconditional means love without judgment, accepting our child for exactly who they are.

That is pretty difficult to achieve, because we actually judge our kids regularly. We hold them to the standards we set for ourselves – standards which we often fail to meet. We judge them by our own deficiencies.

And they feel judged by us, even when we are trying to accept them for who they are. Judgment interferes with acceptance and love.

As parents, isn’t it our jobs to try to set aside our judgment, to make sure our kids know that they are seen, accepted, and loved?

The same is true of any quality relationship with another person, whether a lover, a  family member, or a friend.

A true friend is someone with whom I am safe to be vulnerable. Someone who, when I share my deepest secrets, my shame, will not judge me. A real friend will accept me in all my imperfections. With all of my self doubt. 

We are asked each year to take account of our souls, to perform Cheshbon HaNefesh. This requires brutal honesty. And it is hard to be so open if I know that I am going to face judgment. But if I know that I am opening up to a loving companion…

This intimacy and companionship is what so many of are missing after the past two and a half years. It is starting to feel like we are getting back to normal. But we are still so divided, so quick to judge. We cannot expect God to be a loving companion in our midst unless we are also prepared to be that for each other.

The dominant depiction of God is as the King of the universe, sitting on His high and lofty throne, but perhaps what we really want is for God to be a companion in our midst, accepting and loving us for exactly who we are. 

And perhaps that loving companion is also what we want, what we need from — and to be for — each other.

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What Happens Behind Closed Tent Flaps – Rosh Hashanah 5782

When the Sofer was here last weekend to complete our new Torah scroll, he pointed out something that I had not thought about before. He asked, when in the Torah do Abraham and Isaac talk to each other?

The answer is, only during the story of Akedat Yitzchak, the binding of Isaac, which we read this morning. 

Abraham receives the call from God, a test, to “take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.”  (Genesis 22:2)

With alacrity, Abraham sets off on the journey, a donkey, two servants, Isaac, and wood for the sacrifice.  On the third day, Abraham leaves the two servants with the donkey and continues up the mountain.  He places the wood on Isaac’s shoulders, and himself carries the knife and the flint.

We now hear Isaac’s voice for the first time.

Avi – “Father”

And Abraham responds, hineni v’ni – “Here I am, my son.”

Hinei ha’esh v’ha’etzim, v’ayeh haseh l’olah – “Here are the flint and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”

Elohim yir’eh lo ha’seh l’olah b’ni, Abraham answers – “God will see to the sheep for the burnt offering, my son.” (Genesis 22:7-8)

And they continue on together.

That’s it, the only dialogue between Abraham and Isaac in the entire Torah.  

The angel comes to stop Abraham at the last minute. Indeed, God does see to the sheep for the burnt offering. Abraham looks up and sees a ram with its horns caught in a thicket, which he offers up in place of Isaac.

In reward, God reiterates the blessing to Abraham. His descendants will be as numerous as the stars in heaven and the sand on the seashore. They will seize the gates of their foes, and the nations of the earth will bless themselves by them.

Since ancient times, Jews have read the Akedah as highly significant. Although it might seem surprising to us, it is traditionally portrayed positively, the ultimate test and proof of Abraham’s faith, a test that he passes with flying colors.

But the scene ends on an ominous note — depending on how we read it.

Abraham then returned to his servants, and they departed together for Beer-sheba; and Abraham stayed in Beer-sheba.

Where is Isaac? He is neither seen nor heard from. 

Midrashim suggest a few possibilities. Abraham thinks to himself, “Everything I have is due to my commitment to Torah and mitzvot. I must ensure thay my offspring always maintain their faith.” So he sends Isaac off to study in the Yeshiva of Shem (Noah’s son).  (Genesis Rabbah 56:11)

Another midrash claims that Abraham partially slaughtered Isaac on the altar. So Isaac goes off to the Garden of Eden to recuperate for the next three years.

Other midrashim connect the Akedah directly to Sarah’s death, which follows at the beginning of the next chapter. In one legend, Sama’el, otherwise known as Satan, frustrated that Abraham passed God’s test of faith, goes to Sarah and asks her,

“Do you know what has just happened?  Your old husband has taken the lad Isaac and sacrificed him on the altar.  He cried and and wailed but there was nobody to save him.” Hearing this, Sarah herself began to cry and wail, three long gasps like the tekiah of the shofar, and three broken howls like the shevarim.  Then her soul departed.

Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer 32:8

Even though the Akedah is traditionally seen as a “win” for Abraham, we still find notes of discomfort – a recognition of its painful and potentially alienating repercussions — if not for Abraham, then for Isaac and Sarah.

But I would like to come back to our initial question? Do we really think that this was the only conversation that ever occurred between Abraham and Isaac?

Of course not. 

Yes, old Abe was surely an intense guy, but I imagine they might have gone out to throw the ball around at some point.

Maybe, just maybe, they would get together from time to time over a beer and laugh about that time when Dad almost sacrificed his son.

And while the conspicuous absence of any reference to Isaac coming down from the mountain does seem ominous, we might be overreacting.

Is it possible that Abraham and Isaac had a more normal relationship than we generally assume; that the Torah’s story of their three-day father-son camping trip might not be representative of their relationship?

After all, we know only what is shown to us on the outside.

We make a lot of assumptions about the meaning of a story like the Akedah. How much do our assumptions mirror our own concerns and viewpoints rather than describe what [quote unquote] happened? This is true as well of our relationships with one another. We do not know what happens behind closed doors, or closed tent-flaps, as the case may be.

We have spent much of the past year and a half physically-distanced.  We cannot yet understand the full impact of this isolation. But let’s acknowledge for a moment some of the difficulties we have faced behind closed doors.

Much of our interactions have been by way of a two dimensional screen. We catch only partial glimpses of one another, and reveal just a fraction of ourselves, superimposed on a fake background of a tropical beach. The ability to mute ourselves or turn the camera off at will provides a further means of creating distance. Even when we have been together, we see just half of one another’s faces. We have been unable to see out of town family and friends. People who have been ill have had to spend their time in the hospital alone. Those who have lost family members have been unable to say goodbye in person. There are those who have experienced forced isolation with a sigh of relief. The removal of the pressure of social interactions has come as a blessing. Others have found their stress and anxiety levels rising. Parents have struggled to support their children, who have had to attend school from home and stay apart from friends. Often, we have been at a lost as to what to do when we see our children falling behind in schoolwork, withdrawing from friends, and suffering. We have coped with stress in ways both healthy and self-destructive.

Human beings are often quick to judge.  Quick to come to conclusions based on what we see on the surface. But just as when we read the Akedah, our judgments of others are just as if not more likely to be a reflection of ourselves than an accurate depiction of the other. Let’s keep in mind: A person who appears confident could be terrified. A friend who seems happy could be suffering. Someone who seems normal may be experiencing abuse at home.

To really see another person requires that we set aside our ego, that we be open to learning something we did not already know and could have no way of knowing. This is difficult under normal circumstances, and even more so lately.

We do not know what goes on behind closed doors, whether the physical doors of a home, or behind the doors into the soul of another person.

What we encounter of each other is limited, but God sees what is beneath the surface, perceives that which is hidden and invisible from one another. God remembers all of the forgotten things, taking note of that which we do not see, which we fail to take into account.

This day of Rosh Hashanah is a celebration of grandeur, of Creation and renewal. But as we celebrate such grandeur, we turn inward, to the innermost parts of our selves, the parts that are hidden from each other, that may even be hidden from us.  In the poetic language of the mahzor, however, all is revealed before God, for God is fundamentally different.

Atah hu yotz’ram, v’atah yode’a yitzram, ki hem basar va’dam – It is You who are their Creator, and it is You who knows their inclination, for they are flesh and blood.

This expression comes in the context of describing how God is waiting, every day of our lives, for us to turn in teshuvah. Each one of us is imperfect and mortal, our origin is from the dust and our end is to return to the dust. And the infinite God knows our innermost thoughts and feelings. The God of the universe, who surely has bigger, more important things to worry about, pays attention to the souls of each one of us. As we pray repeatedly during these holy days, God’s nature is forgiving and understanding, always willing to give us another chance.

Perhaps that is a lesson we might take to heart. The qualities we ascribe to God are those ideal qualities that we aspire to in ourselves. 

We do not know what is going on beneath the surface.  What happens inside homes, between family members. Behind the computer or smartphone screen. But it is safe to assume that there is an entire world. Each human being is an olam katan. 

So before we pass judgment on what we think we see, let’s make that extra effort to be compassionate, just as we ask God to do. To try to understand, with patience. To give each other the benefit of the doubt, a second chance, a third chance.

With so much alienation and distance between us, we need each other more than ever. May this new year be a year in which we open our eyes and open our hearts to one another.

Shanah Tovah.

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September 29, 2020

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Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons), High Holidays

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Birthdays and Yahrzeits – Yom Kippur 5781

In 1888, Ludvig Nobel died in France from a heart attack. The story is told that a French newspaper mistakenly reported that it was, in fact, Ludvig’s brother, Alfred, who had passed away. The obituary called Alfred a “merchant of death” who had made his fortune developing new ways to “mutilate and kill.”

Alfred Nobel was indeed an arms developer and manufacturer. He invented dynamite, and over the course of his career filed 355 patents for various explosives components. Alfred owned nearly 100 munitions factories.

When he read the mistaken obituary, Alfred Nobel came face to face with his legacy. He could not bear to be remembered for causing death and destruction.

In 1895, Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament. In it, he devoted his fortune, worth around $265 million today, to a series of annual prizes that would be awarded to individuals from around the world “who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” The categories included physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. Economics was added in 1968.

Alfred Nobel died the following year. The first Nobel prizes were awarded in 1901, and have since been granted to more than 500 people, including Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King, Jr. When we think of Alfred Nobel today, we think of the prize that bears his name.

Did Nobel’s late-in-life awakening serve as atonement for his earlier actions?  That is for God to say, but the good that he did at the end of his life is surely meaningful in its own right. It leaves Alfred Nobel with a complicated legacy.

The Nobel prizes are announced every year on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred’s death. Interesting that his birthday was not the date selected.

In America, we tend to celebrate great people on their birthdays. Presidents Day is sandwiched between George Washington’s birthday on February 22 and Abraham Lincoln’s on February 12. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day occurs on the third Monday of January to mark his birthday on January 15. Cesar Chavez Day occurs on March 31, also his birthday.

What is the difference between the date of birth and the date of death? What is a birthday? What does it represent?

It is fundamentally arbitrary. A birthday has significance because we say so.

It marks some multiple of 365 days since the day on which a person was born. Put another way, it is when the earth is in the exact same position in its orbit relative to the sun as it was when that person entered the world. 

One week from today, on October 5, the earth and sun will be aligned exactly as when my wife was born, for the 46th time. So happy birthday Dana.

The birth of a baby is just about the happiest thing in life. But why? The kid has not done anything yet.

All of the joy that we feel is for the potential that this child embodies. At a bris, and sometimes at a Simchat Bat, the baby is placed in Elijah’s Chair as if to say, this child could potentially be the mashiach, could be the one to make the world worthy of redemption.

Birthdays are about hope. By celebrating them, we suggest that having been born was a good thing. According to “celebration industry analysts” in 2018, the Children’s Birthday Party industry in the United states was worth $38 billion. That’s a lot of hope.

On the other hand, each successive birthday celebration reminds us that the time since our birth is increasing and the corresponding time to our inevitable end is shrinking.

Perhaps that is why some people become sensitive about their birthday and their age as they get older, as in when someone, only partially in jest, announces that they are celebrating their 29th birthday for the fortieth time.

Judaism does not traditionally celebrate birthdays. Instead, we observe the yahrzeits of those who have passed.

Yahrzeit is a Yiddish word that literally means “time of year.” It is the anniversary of a person’s date of death, according to the Hebrew calendar. While there are terms that reflect similar practices for Sephardic Jews, the word yahrzeit has migrated into Ladino as well.

We mark a yahrzeit in a few significant ways. Mourners light a memorial candle to burn for the entire day. The flame is seen as a symbol for the soul, and is inspired by the verse in Proverbs (20:27): Ner Adonai nishmat adam.  “The light of Adonai is the soul of a human.”

Mourners go our of their way to find or even assemble a minyan so that they can recite the Kaddish.

In synagogue, on the preceding Shabbat, we read all the names of those whose yahrzeit will occur in the upcoming week. While this technically serves simply as a reminder to mourners to light the candle and recite the Kaddish, the recitation and hearing of the name has become a ritual in and of itself. Relatives attend services on the preceding Shabbat to hear the name of their loved one being read.

Other customs to mark a yahrzeit include giving tzedakah, studying Jewish texts, and visiting a grave. Of course, telling stories about our loved one is central.

Where the birthday marks the potential, still unrealized future actions of a person, the yahrzeit marks the impact and legacy that a person has already made. It honors a life in its entirety. Birthdays look to the future. Yahrzeits look to the past.

Judaism evaluates a life based on the sum total of a person’s accomplishments – the good and the bad. As long as I have breath, my legacy is still incomplete. It is not yet time to celebrate.

Later this afternoon, we will observe Yizkor, a service in which we remember our loved ones who are no longer with us. Yizkor is about remembering what they meant to us and how they impacted us. We recognize that, even in death, the souls of the dead are bound with the souls of the living. 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away a week ago Friday, on September 18. It was the 29th of Elul, 5780, Erev Rosh Hashanah. Over the past week, the tributes have poured in as people around the nation have honored her life and legacy.

Joan Ruth Bader was born on March 15, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York. She was a pioneer and a fighter throughout her career. She was one of only a few woman in law school at Harvard. She transferred to Columbia and graduated first in her class. RBG was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court and its sixth—and longest serving—Jewis Justice. In death, she was the first woman and the first Jew to ever lie in state at the US Capitol.

From the beginning of her career, Ginsburg fought for gender equality and women’s rights. She argued, and won, many cases before the Supreme Court. She joined the Court in 1993 as a moderate consensus builder and later became the leader of its liberal wing. Notably in the last decade, she became a defender of voting rights.

Her chambers were decorated with the passage form Deuteronomy, Tzedek, tzedek tirdof – “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” 

RBG was always outspoken. She made a point of writing and reading her dissenting opinions from the bench when she had a point to make. She gave great interviews and could sometimes be a bit hasty in her comments – a testament to her freshness.

Her best friend on the court was her ideological opposite, the late Antonin Scalia, with whom she would dine and go to the opera. They were an example to the rest of us that it should be possible to have close relationships with those with whom we disagree.

Over the past decade and a half, the Notorious RBG became a pop icon and an inspiration to younger generations – which came as a total surprise to the petite Jewish grandmother from Brooklyn.

I do not know if we will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s birthday, but I am pretty sure that we will remember her yahrzeit. The date of her passing on Erev Rosh Hashanah has special significance to Jews. She got to live every day of 5780, which feels so appropriate for a woman who pursued justice every day of her life, even when she was lying in her hospital bed.

RBG was a pioneer in life. Now that she is no longer with us, she continues to inspire us as someone who made every day of her life count. Usually we say, “May her memory be a blessing.”  For her, we can say “Her memory is a blessing.”

Of course, there are few people who achieve her level of greatness. Most of us will not have such far-reaching impact. But we do not have to compare her accomplishments to our own.

That is the force of the story about Alfred Nobel. It was when confronted with his own life’s legacy that he decided to change course. 

Yom Kippur is the day on which we face our mortality. It is the day when we consider our life as if it is at the end. If The Mercury News screwed up and printed our obituary, what would it say? Would we be pleased with the report?

There are two unique parts of the Yom Kippur service that occur in every Amidah over the course of the fast: Selichot and Vidui.

Selichot are the penitential prayers. We chant the thirteeen attributes of God, emphasizing God’s forgiving, patient nature. We know we have made mistakes. We want to be better, and so we are asking for another chance.

The Vidui is the confession. This is when we collectively list all of the ways in which humans miss the mark. We pound on our chests for each of them. While none of us has violated every sin on the alphabetical lists, we know in our hearts which ones apply to us.

Selichot always precede the Vidui. We want to make sure that God hears our confessions from the side of compassion. S’lakh lanu, m’khal lanu, kaper lanu, we sing. “Forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.” Atonement is essentially the opportunity for a new start.

Yom Kippur includes elements of both the Yahrzeit and the birthday. When we get through the day, we experience a kind of rebirth. While nothing from our past is erased, we now have another chance to add to our story.

What a wonderful blessing and charged opportunity.

Earlier in the Covid crisis, I heard a piece of advice for high school students that stuck with me. Imagine, when all this is over, when a college admissions officer asks you the following question: “What did you do during Covid?” how will you answer?

I don’t think that is a question for just high schoolers. It is for all of us.

How have I spent this time? 

RBG, who fought cancer for the past four years, continued her life’s work of pursuing justice, issuing Supreme Court decisions from her hospital bed.

Our lives have been inhibited in so many ways. I do not need to list them. But that should not be an excuse to give up. It should be an opportunity to do something in a different way.

When we come out of Yom Kippur, the world around us will be the same. The question that we must ask ourselves is, will I?