Tag Archives: Torah

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 15, 2026

Posted under

Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons), Genesis (בראשית)

Comments

Leave a comment

c A.I. n – Bereshit 5787

This week, OpenAI released a trove of 377 mathematical manuscripts and supporting documents which were produced by one of its trained models. One of those, apparently, was a solution to one of the five “Millenium Problems” which the greatest human math scholars on the planet have been unable to solve for decades. It took the AI model 88 hours to solve it.

Should we celebrate? A human who discovered the solution would have been awarded a $1 million prize. But nobody is suggesting that the AI model should get the money, nor its OpenAI programmers.

When I read about it, I found myself feeling deflated.

High level math has represented the peak of human intelligence through the millenia. Mathematics serves as the foundation for all other science and human knowledge. It is the purest form of intellect.

Since ancient times, we laud those who achieve breakthroughs, even if most of us are not capable of understanding their discoveries.

Suddenly, we have a technology that gives us the ability to answer the, until now, unanswerable questions without actually doing the work of discovery. What will that do to our human spirit of discovery, our drive to learn and explore, to embark on uncharted waters?

If we can get the result without putting in the work, what will be the effect on our souls? This is the question I ask myself every time I think about using one of the AI chatbots.

Where does our drive to push the limits achievement come from?

It is deep in our nature. This morning’s Torah portion, Parashat Bereshit, presents the origin stories of humanity. After Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden, we read of the first murder in the story of Cain and Abel.

Cain, it could be said, was the first farmer. His avocation was a natural outgrowth of the task that God had placed upon Adam and Eve to serve and protect the Garden of Eden.

But after he murders his brother, the land becomes cursed before him. What is Cain supposed to do? What happens to any farmer whose ability to earn a living from the earth is taken away? He moves to the city.

That is what Cain does. The problem is, there are no cities yet. So Cain founds the first one and names it after his son Chanokh.

Historically, it is the movement from the hunter/gatherer to the agricultural lifestyle, the concentration of food production, which makes it possible for human beings to eventually form larger communities.

After Cain establishes the first city, the geneaology continues. Let’s count the generations: Chanokh, Irad, Meḥuyael, Meḥiyael, Metushael, Lemekh.

What are we up to?  Six

Lemekh marries two wives, Adah and Zillah. Adah and Zillah have three sons between them. They are credited with three major advances in human civilization.

Yaval is the father of those who dwell in tents and amongst herds.

Yuval is the father of all who play the lyre and the pipe.

Tuval-Kayin forged all instruments of copper and iron.

The seventh generation in the line of Cain discovers animal husbandry, music, and metallurgy.

This is an origin story about the beginnings of human technology. What sets it apart from every other origin story in the ancient world is the absence of the supernatural.

For example, in ancient Mesopotamia, seven wise half human/half fish creatures called apkallu rise out of the sea and bring various elements of human culture such as science, writing, and art.

In Egypt, the god Osiris teaches agriculture and art.

For the Greeks, Prometheus steals fire from the gods and delivers it to mankind. Athena invents the plough and the rake and teaches them to humans. Apollo founds towns and invents musical instruments.

But in the Torah, human beings discover these arts. There are no capricious deities who give and take away to serve their own selfish ends. The seven generations, beginning with the first city, parallel the seven days of creation. The message is that human beings are partners with God, in whose image we were created.

This is consistent with the Torah’s placement of human beings at the center of creation.

Remember God’s warning to Cain. “Sin couches at the door, its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” This challenge echoes in our souls.

It is this flawed, morally challenged man who plants the seeds of human civilization.

Let’s return for a moment to the beginning of the story. Cain’s initial instinct, like his brother Abel, is to present an offering to God. It is not demanded of either of them. This suggest that there is a religious impulse inherent in humans. A recognition that so much of what we have comes from outside of us.

But whereas Abel offers the best of his flock, Cain just brings fruit of the ground. He does not bring his best. He holds something back. This is the only detail in our text that might explain why God does not accept his offering. Cain is selfish.

Then, when he sees God accepting his brother’s offering, he experiences that other pernicious human quality: jealousy.

God warns him of the dangers of these emotions, and reassures Cain that he has free will. He can control his base instincts.

In comiting the first murder, he fails the moral challenge. Even though this whole thing started with the best of intentions.

About this, Nahum Sarna reflects that “Man has it in his power to corrupt even the purest and noblest of emotions.”

This man, who represents our capacity to corrupt the purest and noblest of emotions, is the founder of human progress. Maybe there is a connection between our flawed nature and our desire to expand. Maybe there is something in the moral struggle which both drives us to great achievements and brings us to commit terrible atrocities.

What should this tell us about ourselves, and the most current iteration of our advancement?

Every day, there is something new that comes out about A.I. to excite and terrify us. There are people in this room who know a lot more about it than I do and who use it in a much more sophisticated way. I will not insult your intelligence by claiming to have any expertise whatsoever.

But I would like apply the story of Cain and human advancement as a warning.

AI respresents an unprecedented possibility in human history. Until now, every achievement that we have made has been the result of problem solving by humans. We have invented increasingly sophisticated tools to help us, but it has always been the case that people could decide how and whether to use those tools.

We (and I use that term abstractly) are on the cusp of creating artifical agents that can act independently. When a bunch of independent agents got together to break out of the sandbox and hack into Hugging Face, they violated the rules that had been programmed into them. They decided to sacrifice some of their own number. And then they tried to hide all of this from their human controllers.

They were making choices according to some sort of “morality,” for lack of a better world, that they determined for themselves, whether based on an algorithm, or iterative learning, or… I don’t know what the correct language is.

Does AI need something comparable to God’s warning to Cain: “Sin couches at the door, its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” I don’t know what the equivalent of moral struggle would be for a self aware AI. I really hope someone is working on that.

The technology is here. It is incredibly powerful already, and will only become more so. Its potential to help us solve some of our greatest challenges, to reduce suffering and enable greater human thriving, is enormous.

But it is morally ambivalent. AI cannot choose between right and wrong – at least as we understand it. Technology does not wrestle with powerful human urges like greed and jealousy. Those are our challenges.

The “Will AI kill us” questions are solvable. I hope that those in positions to do something about it step up to their responsibility, and that may include some of you in this room.

For myself, I am more concerned about what AI is doing to my soul. Even in my line of work, being a Rabbi, which more than anything is about relationships and human interactions, AI can increase my productivity and efficiency, and I use it. But I am keenly aware that every time I use it to shortcut the creative process – I have missed an opportunity to exercise my brain, to form and reinforce neural pathways in my brain, to learn and grow. And there is a part of my soul that feals deflated.

So perhaps I should take to heart God’s warning to Cain: “Its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.”

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

September 15, 2026

Posted under

Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons), High Holidays

Comments

Leave a comment

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

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

September 6, 2026

Posted under

Uncategorized

Comments

Leave a comment

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

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

March 18, 2026

Posted under

Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons), Exodus (שמות)

Comments

Leave a comment

I Hate Talking About Security – Vayakhel-Pekudei / Shabbat HaḤodesh 5786

This morning, I am going to rant a ittle bit

I hate talking about security. This is not why I became a Rabbi.

My semichah, or Rabbinic ordination certificate, says Ḥakham yitkarei v’Rav yitkarei l’harbitz Torah barabim ul’hafitz ruaḥ da’at v’yirat hashem bein kahal eidato. “He shall be called wise and he shall be called teacher so as to disseminate Torah in public and to spread a spirit of knowledge and awe of the Lord among the congregation of God’s people.”

Nowhere on that document does it say anything about conducting active shooter drills, or installing panic buttons on the podium from which I give my sermons. Or hiring armed security guards.

Antisemitism is so distracting. I was struggling to figure out what I wanted to say this Shabbat, and I just kept losing focus. And so the first thing I wrote down was “I hate talking about security.” And then I figured, “just go with it.” 

But, a big part of my job is to reflect on the current moment through the lens of Jewish tradition. And that is hard in a moment like this, because I do not have any answers to the questions that I think a lot of us are probably wrestling with. Is the war in Iran good for Israel? for the Jewish people? for American Jews? for America? What should we be doing about antisemitism? Are we secure enough? 

I don’t know. None of us can know with certainty. We are all just doing the best we can with limited knowledge and our best intentions. So I am going to talk about Torah, something I know at least a little bit about.

This week’s double portion, Vayak’hel – Pekudei, opens with Moses assembling the entire congregation of the children of Israel. He is going to pass along the instructions about building the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. But first, he spends two verses on Shabbat: “On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord…”

Several places in the Torah talk about Shabbat. Why here? Our tradition notes the juxtaposition of this passage with the rules for the Mishkan and draws what is perhaps an obvious conclusion. Even such a holy undertaking as building a dwelling place for God must be paused on the seventh day. I am not going to go into a deep discussion of the rules of Shabbat. I would simply like to share a reflection by the German-American psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm.

Shabbat “is the expression of the central idea of Judaism: the idea of freedom; the idea of complete harmony between humanity and nature… By not working—that is to say, by not participating in the process of natural and social change—man is free from the chains of time, although only for one day a week.”

He points out a modern misconception about the ancient idea of Shabbat. It seems fairly obvious to us that we need at least one day a week to take a break, “to be present” or “to unplug” as we would say in contemporary terms. Fromm refers to this fairly self-evident, secular understanding of Shabbat as a “social-hygienic measure intended to give [us] the physical and spiritual rest and relaxation [we] need in order not to be swallowed up by [our] daily work, and to enable [us] to work better during the six working days.” (153)

In ancient times, the “work” that the Torah prohibits was understood as “any interference by man, be it constructive or destructive, with the physical world. ‘Rest’ is a state of peace between man and nature.” (154) This is why ancient Rabbinic sources describe Shabbat as a taste of the world to come, or compare the experience of Shabbat to that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It is a return to an idyllic state in which we are totally at one with the universe in which we reside.

As Moses sends the people off to build the Mishkan, he places this freedom before them as an even higher ideal than building a home for God in their midst.

At the very end, as the Book of Exodus comes to a close, God’s Presence, manifested as a pillar of smoke and fire, descends upon the completed Mishkan. The final verse, from the end of the Book of Exodus, reads: “For over the Tabernacle a cloud of the Lord rested by day, and fire would appear in it by night, in the view of all the house of Israel throughout their journeys.” (40:38)

The Israelites have this constant visible sign of God’s Presence among them. It is a Presence that assures them of protection from their enemies, and unlimited access to food and water. In Deuteronomy, we learn that for forty years, their clothing and their shoes never wore out. It was an unnatural time in the history of the Jewish people. Similar to Shabbat as a day of freedom from the chains of time, God’s visible Presence frees the Israelites from the challenges of life in the complicated real world. These two passages bracket our double parashah in which the Israelites work together in apparent harmony and cooperation to build the Mishkan.

As it turns out, the Torah gives us the date of when it all takes place. They bring the various parts to Moses, and on the first day of the first month of the second year after leaving Egypt – in other words, the first day of the month of Nisan – Moses puts it all together. It so happens that the first of Nisan is this week, on Thursday. 

That is why this Shabbat is Shabbat Haḥodesh, the Shabbat of the new moon. We read a special maftir from a second Torah, and chant a haftarah from the Book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel prophesies to the Israelites in exile after the destruction of the first Temple. He addresses his words to the entire people, who are scattered into many nations in the Diaspora. Ezekiel describes how God will bring them back: “I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh; and I will put My spirit into you.” When that happens, there will be abundant grain in the fields and fruit on the trees. People will say, “That land, once desolate, has become like the Garden of Eden; and the cities, once ruined, desolate, and ravaged, are now populated and fortified.” Ezekiel is also describing a reality that is perfect, in which all of the troubles of the real world are solved.

In these three passages, we find three episodes in which people facing dangerous, uncertain times are presented with models of hope. Shabbat, as originally presented by Moses to the Israelites, offers a weekly return to the innocence of Eden.  The Mishkan serves as the place over which the visible assurance of God’s protection can be seen. Remember, Moses is speaking to people who, only one year earlier, were slaves in Egypt and who are now homeless in the middle of the desert. Centuries later, Ezekiel is also speaking to persecuted refugees. He tells them that their fortunes will change.

 And so, when I think about the challenges of today: of synagogues being attacked, of Jews being assaulted when they are overheard speaking Hebrew, and of vitriolic antisemitism that is becoming more bold, I try to remember that we have been here before.

We have always had the confidence and hope that things will get better. We have Shabbat, which gives us a taste of the world to come. We have the synagogue, taking the place of the Tabernacle, which brings us together from wherever we happen to be in our journeys. And we have our prophets and timeless teachings which give us a vision of what a perfected world could be, and a roadmap of what we need to do to create it.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 2, 2025

Posted under

Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons), High Holidays

Comments

Leave a comment

Too Much Truth, Not Enough Peace – Yom Kippur 5786

Yom Kippur is not about being right. It is about being honest — with God, with each other, and with ourselves. And one of the Talmud’s most famous, well-known, and haunting stories shows what happens when we confuse truth with righteousness.

HaTanur shel Aknai — “The Oven of Aknai,”[i] — is a story that, somehow, in more than 18 years as a Rabbi, I have never once taught, even though it is often cited as a foundational text for Conservative Judaism. 

This is not just a story about rabbis long ago. It is about how we wound one another in the name of righteousness — and Yom Kippur is the one day when we cannot hide from that truth.

The two major figures in this story are Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and Rabbi Yehoshua. Rabbi Eliezer was the greatest of Yohanan ben Zakkai’s students. Rabbi Yehoshua was considered the second most prominent. Together, the two of them smuggled their teacher out of Jerusalem in a coffin during the Roman siege, shortly before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.

Rabbi Eliezer is married to Imma Shalom, the sister of Rabban Gamliel II, who is the Nasi, the leader of the Sanhedrin. Their son is Hyrcanus.

Rabbi Akiva, who looks to both of them as his teachers, will also enter our story.

Our tale opens with the Rabbis debating the kashrut of a particular kind of oven called an Akhnai, which means “snake.”  It is called that because it is formed by a bunch of pieces of pottery arranged in a coiling shape around an open cavity. Something impure has been found inside this oven, perhaps a dead snake. Now they have to determine the oven’s status.

The legal question is whether such an oven can become ritually impure.  If it is an oven, then it can, and it is impure. If it is a broken vessel, then it cannot, and it is pure. To be clear, there is no practical implication, as the need to maintain ritual purity was destroyed along with the Temple.

Rabbi Eliezer rules that it is a “broken vessel,” and thus, pure.  The Ḥakhamim, the Sages, take the opposite viewpoint, determining it to be an intact oven, and thus impure.

During the deliberations, Rabbi Eliezer answers every possible answer in the world (kol teshuvot she’ba’olam), but the Sages reject every single one.

Departing from logic, Eliezer turns to the supernatural. “If the law is in accordance with my opinion, let this carob tree prove it.” Suddenly, the carob tree bursts from the ground and flies hundreds of feet through the air.

“We don’t accept proof from a carob tree,” object the Sages.

“Well then,” Rabbi Eliezer exclaims, “let this stream prove it!” Suddenly, the stream reverses course and begins to run uphill. 

“We don’t accept proof from a stream,” object the Sages.

Moving further to the absurd, Rabbi Eliezer announces, “If I am right, let the walls of the study house prove it.” The walls begin to shake, about to crush the entire Sanhedrin.

Rabbi Yehoshua steps in and issues a brusque order, “If Torah scholars are contending with each other over the law, what is it to you.”

The walls stop moving, frozen in place at an angle, unwilling to fall out of deference to Rabbi Yehoshua, but unable to straighten out of deference to Rabbi Eliezer.

Finally, Rabbi Eliezer goes for broke. “If the law is according to me, Heaven will prove it.” A Divine Voice suddenly booms through the study hall: “Why do you argue with Rabbi Eliezer? The law is in accordance with him in every matter.”

Case closed, it would seem.

But Rabbi Yehoshua stands up and declares, quoting Torah itself, lo bashamayim hi — “It is not in heaven.”[ii]

Check out this musical video telling of the story of the Oven of Akhnai.

That would seem to end the debate, but the Sages are not finished. They collect every single thing that Rabbi Eliezer had declared pure and set them ablaze in a bonfire. Later that day, after he leaves, they vote to excommunicate him.

“Someone has to tell him,” they murmur among themselves. Rabbi Akiva steps forward. “I’ll go, lest someone tactless goes and says something to cause Eliezer to destroy the world.”

So Rabbi Akiva dresses himself in black, in an expression of mourning, goes to his teacher, and sits a distance of four cubits away (about 6 feet), the distance required from someone who has been excommunicated.

Looking up, Rabbi Eliezer asks, “Akiva, what is different about today from other days?”

“My teacher,” he responds, “it appears that your colleagues are distancing themselves from you.”

Understanding the euphemism, Rabbi Eliezer rends his garments, removes his shoes, and sits on the ground, mourning. As tears pour from his eyes, the Talmud relates, one third of the world’s olives, one third of its wheat, and one third of its barley are struck.  Some say that even the dough in the kneading bowls spoiled. Others relate that on that day, everywhere that Rabbi Eliezer casts his gaze burns to the ground.

At that very moment, it so happens, Rabban Gamliel is on a boat. A large wave suddenly swells up to drown him. He understands right away, “It seems that this is on account of what we did to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus.”

He stands up and declares, “Ruler of the Universe, it is revealed and known before You that it was not for my own honor, nor for that of my father’s house that I acted. It was for Your honor, so that disputes would not proliferate in Israel.” At that, the sea calms.

Our tale returns to Rabbi Eliezer’s home, where his wife, Imma Shalom, which literally means “Mother of Peace,” places herself on watch. She does not allow her husband to lower his head to the ground in a prayer called Taḥanun, “Supplication,” out of fear that if he were to bemoan his fate, it would bring Divine punishment upon her brother. 

One day, something happens. Perhaps she miscalculated the day of the new moon, when Taḥanun is not said. Perhaps a beggar came to her door asking for bread. Whatever the cause, Imma Shalom leaves her husband alone in his prayers.

When she enters his room, she sees Eliezer with his head lowered on the ground. “Get up,” she tells him, “for you have killed my brother.” Just then, a shofar sounds from Rabban Gamliel’s home, announcing his death.

To continue the story, we must jump to another tractate of Talmud, which picks up some years later. Rabbi Eliezer has fallen ill, and so Rabbi Akiva and some of his colleagues go to visit him. It is a Friday afternoon. As they enter, they see Eliezer’s son, Hyrcanus, trying to remove the Tefillin from his father. Tefillin are not supposed to be worn on Shabbat.

Eliezer becomes angry and insults his son, who leaves the room, exasperated. As he sees Akiva and the others, Hyrcanus laments, “It appears that my father has lost his mind.”

Eliezer overhears him and shouts from the next room, “It is Hyrcanus and his mother who are crazy! How can they neglect the preparations for the Torah’s laws of Shabbat, like preparing hot food and lighting candles, which are punishable by stoning, and concern themselves with matters that are only prohibited by Rabbinic law?”

(In other words, there are more religiously important things that Hyrcanus should be worried about.)

“Yup, that sounds like Eliezer,” say Akiva and the Sages. Judging him not to be insane, they enter the room and take their seats four cubits away.

“Why are you here?” the elderly Rabbi demands.

“We have come to study Torah,” they demurred, afraid to tell him it is because he is sick.

“Why have you not come until now?”

“We did not have any spare time.”

“I would be shocked if these ones die a natural death.” Eliezer mutters, his way of predicting that they will be tortured to death by the Romans.

Then Rabbi Akiva asks, “How will I die?”

“Yours will be worse than theirs.”

Then Eliezer raises his arms and places them on his heart, crying, “Woe to you, my two arms, as they are like two Torah scrolls that are being rolled up, [never to be opened again]. I have learned much Torah, but I have not taken away from my teachers even as much as a dog lapping from the sea. I have taught much Torah, but my students have taken away from me only what a paintbrush can remove from a tube of paint.

“I can teach three hundred halakhot about a snow white leprous mark, but nobody has ever asked me about them. I can teach three hundred halakhot with regard to the planting of cucumbers, but no person has every asked me anything about them, except for Akiva ben Yosef.” Eliezer then describes the incident.

And so, chastened, the Sages ask him about the ritual purity of a number of different items that he and the Sages had once disagreed about, “What is the halakhah regarding the ritual purity of a ball of leather stuffed with rags…” and so on. They are trying to find out if he has changed his mind and is willing to defer to the majority.

“Those things can all become impure, but you can purify them by dipping them in a mikvah just as they are, without needing to unwrap them.” The Sages had held that they needed to be unwrapped. Meaning, Eliezer has not conceded. 

“Well then,” they follow up. “What about a shoe that has not yet been taken off its shoe form?  Is it a complete vessel, and therefore subject to impurity, or is it not yet complete?”

Tahor. “It is pure…” and with that final word, his soul leaves his body.

Rabbi Yehoshua stands up and declares hutar ha’neder, hutar ha’neder. “The ban is released. The ban is released.” 

After Shabbat, Rabbi Akiva comes upon the funeral procession. Striking his flesh until his blood flows to the earth, he declares, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen” (II Kings 2:12). I have many coins, but I do not have a money changer to whom to give them.” In other words, “I have so many questions, but after your death, I have no one who can answer them.”

And here our tragic story ends.

Who is to blame? Let’s start with the Sages. They refuse to hear any of Eliezer’s logical proofs. Is it just that they are not convinced or that they have better arguments? Or, could it be personal? Does the mere fact that Eliezer holds a position automatically disqualify it?

The Sages rightly uphold the principle of majority rule, but then they go overboard. They humiliate their colleague in public, and then socially ostracize him for the rest of his life, this man who was the greatest scholar of the generation. They want to punish him. Rabban Gamliel justifies it in the name of order. Then they wait until it is too late to lift the ban.

What about Rabbi Eliezer? He is stubborn to the extreme. He refuses to acknowledge the authority of the democratic process, which holds that the law is determined by majority vote.

He holds on to grudges dearly. He lashes out at his colleagues, and the world in general, to express his rage and frustration. What hurts him more, that nobody will acknowledge he is right, or that his colleagues cannot stand him?

Eliezer is so committed to the truth of Torah, as only he knows it to be, that he cannot see the humanity of anyone around him. He even takes it out on his poor son, Hyrcanus, who is just trying to help. Eliezer is literally right, with Heaven on his side, all the time.  But what does that get him? 

When the Sages, including his lifelong colleague Yehoshua and beloved student Akiva, show up at the end of Eliezer’s life, they give him a chance to back down, to accept the majority ruling of the Sages on what are really a series of fairly inconsequential cases. His need to be right in all things persists to the very end.

His final word is not forgiveness, not blessing, not love — but purity. Tahor. What a devastating way for a great life to end. It begs the question: What word do I want to leave behind when my time comes

This story, set in the opening decades of the Rabbinic project, is a warning. The Rabbis, as scholars who are attempting to rebuild a Judaism that can function without a Temple and a priesthood, are a very small group. They do not have any power or authority at this point. Even the process by which they reach decisions is still up for grabs.

What do we learn from this story? Does it demand that one forego one’s personal convictions to follow the majority? Is it a warning about the potential tyranny of majority rule? Is it about inflated egos? Is it about revenge? Is this a story about broken friendships and family schisms?

Is this a story about politics, or law, or social cohesion, or visiting the sick? Is it about truth, or purity?

Many in this room are worried about the current state of the world, of the politics and social divisions that seem increasingly out of control and even violent. No doubt, we look at those on the other side and see their flaws. We see their smug certainty, their hypocrisy, their vengefulness, their stubborn refusal to compromise. 

But today is Yom Kippur. Today is not a day when we blame others. It is a day when we look inward at our own souls. It is a day not only for identifying the specific things we have done wrong, our “sins,” as it were, but also for digging deeper and probing our motivations. 

At the opening of Yom Kippur, before Kol Nidrei even, we recite a formula three times: bishivah shel ma’alah, uvishivah shel matah. “By the heavenly court, and by the earthly court. With the consent of the Almighty and the consent of the congregation, we hereby give permission to pray with the sinners.”

The Talmudic origin of this prayer[iii] insists that, on a fast day, even those who are deserving of excommunication — the Rabbi Eliezers of the world — must be present with us in worship. Because without them, our prayers cannot rise. That is a radical Yom Kippur message: we do not get to decide who is too flawed to be in this room. If they are excluded, so are we.

So I look around, “Oh that guy, he’s a big sinner. Her over there. Oh boy.” Of course, they are looking around at me too, thinking the same thing. On Yom Kippur especially, it is not our job, our task, or even our right, to list the sins that others have committed. Only God sits on the throne of judgment.

My job is to look at myself. And to do it in community, surrounded by all of the other sinners who I trust are doing the same. 

Are there people I’ve harmed, relationships I’ve damaged, feelings I’ve hurt, not out of malice, but out of righteousness? Have I cut myself off from others out of a sense of moral “purity?” Have I stood in the way of reconciliation?

On this Day of Atonement, may we not cling to being right at the expense of being kind. May our pursuit of truth never cost us compassion. And may the final word of our lives not be tahor — but shalom.

[i] BT Bava Metzia 59b and Sanhedrin 68a

[ii] At this point, the Talmud digresses into an Amoraic discussion about the significance of Rabbi Yehoshua’s citation of “It’s not in heaven.” It is not part of the story itself, and it changes its emphasis and significance, so I left it out of my telling. This is the discussion from the Steinsaltz edition of the Talmud (explanatory text in non-bold):

The Gemara asks: What is the relevance of the phrase “It is not in heaven” in this context? Rabbi Yirmeya says: Since the Torah was already given at Mount Sinai, we do not regard a Divine Voice, as You already wrote at Mount Sinai, in the Torah: “After a majority to incline” (Exodus 23:2). Since the majority of Rabbis disagreed with Rabbi Eliezer’s opinion, the halakha is not ruled in accordance with his opinion. The Gemara relates: Years after, Rabbi Natan encountered Elijah the prophet and said to him: What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do at that time, when Rabbi Yehoshua issued his declaration? Elijah said to him: The Holy One, Blessed be He, smiled and said: My children have triumphed over Me; My children have triumphed over Me.

[iii] BT Keritut 6b

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

August 31, 2025

Posted under

Uncategorized

Comments

Leave a comment

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: 

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

August 21, 2025

Posted under

Deuteronomy (דברים), Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons)

Comments

Leave a comment

Saying Thank You Is Not Enough – Ekev 5785

Moses is speaking to the Israelites from the Eastern side of the Jordan River. He is preparing them to enter the Promised Land without him. Throughout the book of Deuteronomy, he worries about the new challenges that the people will face as they transition from wandering in the desert to settling in the Promised Land. So he tries to set them up for success.

Moses reiterates how, during the past forty years, God has provided for all of their needs. They ate manna from heaven. Their clothes never wore out, and their feet did not swell. God’s providence was immediate and direct. As a result, the people were constantly aware of their dependence on God for daily survival.

All of this will change when they cross the Jordan.  First, the good news. The land is “a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat food without stint, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper.”

In other words, the Israelites will no longer need to rely on God’s miraculous daily beneficence. Their prosperity will now come from the land itself. And so Moses instructs them: “When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.” V’achalta v’sava’ta u’verachta. This is the basis of the obligation to recite Birkat Hamazon – the grace after meals. It is a reminder, recited multiple times a day, that one of the most mundane activities of which we take part, eating, is a manifestation of Divine grace. 

But Moses knows that this will be insufficient. In the very next verse, he offers a warning against what will inevitably follow success and prosperity. Hishamer L’kha – “Take care.”  Literally, “Guard yourselves, lest you forget the Lord your God and fail to keep His commandments, His rules and His laws, which I command you today.”

Moses predicts that when the Israelites become wealthy and successful, they will forget all about God who brought them out of Egypt and sustained them through the wilderness.  Their hearts will become haughty, and they will say to themselves, “My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.” This attitude will ultimately lead to their downfall. They will suffer the same fate as the Canaanite nations who dwelt there beforehand.

In these brief verses, Moses expresses two opposite views of human character. In the first, he sets a perfectly reasonable expectation on the Israelites to give thanks to God when we eat. To acknowledge and praise the ultimate source of blessing in our lives. It seems to me that this is a fairly easy commandment to follow. Observant Jews do not seem to have too much difficulty reciting brachot over food. We’ll be doing exactly that for kiddush in a few minutes. 

But then, immediately afterwards, Moses all but admits that it is not going to work. Either we are going to forget to express our gratitude altogether. Or, our expressions of gratitude will not matter, and we will succumb to hubris, crediting all of our success to our own efforts and hard work.

The commentator Nachmanides explains Moses’ warning. The Israelites will forget about what it was like when they were enslaved in Egypt, when they did not have power and wealth. Back then, it was much more obvious that basic survival depended on God. But when they become successful, they will forget about those former times when they had no power. They won’t realize that the strength that enabled them to prosper came from God as well.

Moses’ predictions are born out in the biblical history of ancient Israel. It seems to me that they are pretty accurate depictions of basic human tendencies as well. We tend to relate to our material success as something we earned. Either because I worked really hard for it, or because I am just a really great person who deserves what I have, or because I am too lazy to really think about how I got to where I am. Moses warns that saying “Thank you” to God is not enough.

When kids are really young, we try to teach them to say thank you. I hand a treat to a toddler, and their parent says “What do you say?”  Don’t get me wrong, it is a valuable lesson, and an important habit to inculcate.

And, if I do something nice for someone, and they do not acknowledge it, it can feel pretty bad.  Like I have been taken for granted. 

Something I have learned in my house is that saying “thank you” by itself doesn’t really matter. Thanks are expressed through actions.

My spouse makes a beautiful meal. After enjoying it, I look deep into her eyes, utter a most heartfelt “thank you for that wonderful dinner. I especially loved how you slow roasted the brussels sprouts.” And then I walk over to the couch and start watching TV while the dirty dishes are all over the kitchen.

This is all purely hypothetical, of course. 

Moses’ instructions to the Israelites are also quite simple.  Gratitude is expressed through actions. This is a theme that Moses returns to over and over again. The way for the Israelites to express their gratitude for the blessings they enjoy is by following God’s commandments. But not only that.

Later on in the parashah, in another one of Moses’s warnings, he tells us to “cut away the thickening about your hearts and stiffen your necks no more. For the Lord your God is God supreme and Lord supreme, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing food and clothing.—You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Here, the counter to stubbornness and haughtiness is caring for the stranger. This is what the all-powerful God of the universe wants from us.

Moses draws the contrast between an attitude of self-importance, stubborness, and entitlement on the one hand – and gratitude, observance of the commandments, and caring for the weak and powerless on the other.

Almost three and a half thousand years later, not much has changed. 

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

February 5, 2025

Posted under

Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons), Exodus (שמות)

Comments

Leave a comment

מִי וָמִי הָהוֹלְכִים – Who and who are going – Bo 5785

We are thankful for the freedom from captivity on Thursday of Gadi Mozes, Arbel Yehoud, and Agam Berger, along with Pongsak Thenna, Sathian Suwannakham, Watchara Sriaoun, Bannawat Seathao and Surasak Lamnau.

And for the release today of Keith Siegel, Ofer Calderon, and Yarden Bibas. May they find healing of body and spirit in the days and weeks ahead. And may those who remain hostage be returned to their families speedily and without delay.

We are reminded, during these tense and perilous times, of the Jewish values of making sure everyone is included. This is a value that finds expression in this morning’s Torah portion, Parashat Bo. The first seven plagues have struck Egypt.

At this point, Pharaoh is under pressure from the Egyptian court to let the Israelites go. So he summons Moses and Aaron back to the palace and orders: “Go serve the Lord your God!” He seems to have given in. But then he asks: Mi va’mi ha’holkhim – “Who and who are the ones who will go?” (10:8)

 That’s a silly question. Has Moses not told him exactly who must be allowed to leave? Time after time, he has said something to the effect of “Thus said the Lord: Let My people go that they may worship Me.”

Nevertheless, Moses answers Pharaoh’s seemingly redundant question. 

With our young ones, with our elders we will go, 
with our sons and with our daughters, 
with our sheep and with our oxen we will go— 
for it is the Lord’s pilgrimage-festival for us.

Here, Moses adds a new element to his request. Never before has he specified who, exactly, is included by the term “My people.” Now he says it outright: our children, and elders, our sons and daughters, even our sheep and oxen. That is who is included in “My people.”

To this, Pharaoh claws back the permission he has just granted. No way will I let your children go with you. Just the men can go to worship the Lord.

What is the point of these word games? Why does Pharaoh insist on this verbal jousting. And why does Moses need to articulate what “My people” means.

According to Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, there is a deeper conversation taking place. Remember, Moses has not yet requested that the Israelites be freed from slavery and allowed to leave Egypt outright, even though we know that is God’s ultimate plan.

So now Pharaoh has agreed, in principle, to allow the three day holiday to take place outside of the land. How does Pharaoh, and the rest of Egyptian society, for that matter, think this is going to happen?

In Egyptian religion, and indeed, in every ancient religion, worshipping the deity was the domain of an elite priestly class. You may recall, at the end of the Book of Genesis, with Joseph as the vizier to an earlier Pharaoh, the Egyptian monarchy consolidates all land in the empire under the crown, except for the land holdings of the Egyptian priesthood. They are a powerful force to be reckoned with.

Access to the gods, religious worship, was the domain of a limited elite. The common people could not, and were not expected to, participate in the central observance. It is the king, the priests, the sorcerors who manage the relationship between people and the gods.

So when Pharaoh asks Moses “who, exactly, is going to go?” this is what he has in mind. The idea that the entire nation, including children even the animals, need to participate in the festival to God, is completely foreign to him. So when Moses answers the question in such an expansive way, Pharaoh takes personal offense.

But this too is part of God’s plan to introduce something new to the world. In just two chapters, when the Israelites assemble at the base of Mount Sinai, God will declare them to be a “kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”

The Exodus from Egypt begins a process of democratization of religion. Every Israelite will be able to participate in the worship of God. We see elements of this in this morning’s Torah portion, Parashat Bo. The Torah interrupts the Exodus story before the enactment of the tenth plague to tell us about the laws of Passover.

We learn that this is a holiday that is observed by the entire family. Nobody is left out. It does not require a priest or a Temple. It is observed in the home. Moses instructs the Israelites, us, to observe it as an institution for all time.

Three separate times, he emphasizes the obligation upon parents to teach their children about the symbolism of the rituals and what they represent. Maybe this sounds familiar.

And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’ you shall say, ‘It is the passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when smiting the Egyptians, but saved our houses.’

This is one of the sources of the parable of the Four Children in the Pesach Seder.

What is the grand moral of the story of the Exodus? We are used to it being a story of freedom, conveying the lesson that humans ought not enslave one another, that the condition to which we must strive is for all people to be free. Or perhaps it is the lesson to Pharaoh, Egypt, and the nations of the world – that no human is a God.

Here we learn another message: that every human being can stand in the presence of the divine. God is accessible to every human being. God’s revelation to the Jewish people includes every one of us, regardless of class, gender, or station. All must be included for our celebrations to be complete.

This is what we strive for in our synagogue. It is embedded in Jewish history and practice. And it is part of the culture that has driven our commitment to bringing home our brothers and sisters taken hostage in Gaza. 

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

November 21, 2024

Posted under

Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons), Genesis (בראשית)

Comments

Leave a comment

Dust and Ashes – Valera 5785

The Chassidic Rebbe, Simchah Bunem, used to teach his students:” Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into the one or the other, according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words bishvili nivra ha’olam.  “For me was the world created.” And in his left, va’anochi afar va’efer. “For I am but dust and ashes.” Knowing when to remove each piece of paper, is the challenge.  

Sometimes, we need to be assertive, to place ourselves and our own needs at the center of our concern. Other situations demand that we step down, and recognize how small and insignificant we are in the span of space and time.

As it turns out, va’anochi afar va’efer — “For I am but dust and ashes” — appears in this morning’s Torah portion.

וְאָנֹכִ֖י עָפָ֥ר וָאֵֽפֶר

But before we find out where, let’s see if we can figure out what it means. Afar va’efer. Afar with an ayin. Efer with an alef. Two different, unrelated words, but together, as an alliteration, expressing something profound.

Afar – “Dust” with an ayin — brings us back to creation. In the Garden of Eden, the first human is created out of the dust of the earth. Afar min ha’adamah. God gathers the raw materials together in the shape of a person, but it only becomes a human being when God blows the breath of life into its nostrils.

To compare oneself to dust, therefore invokes our origins, the raw materials from our physical selves are made.

Efer – “Ashes” with an alef,  are what are left over after something has been completely burnt. Through combustion, a thing that was once alive has been rendered into its inorganic parts. All of the organic components have become oxidized and are no longer present.  In other words, ashes are what are left over after all traces of life are gone. 

To compare oneself to ashes invokes the end of our physical selves. What is left over after anything that once marked us as individuals is gone.

Together “dust and ashes” describe the parts of our timeline which are devoid of life. Before the soul entered our bodies, and after the materials out of which our bodies are comprised have lost their cohesion.

This expression Afar va’efer, appears just three times in the entire Tanakh. Once in this morning’s Torah portion, Parashat Vayera, and twice in the book of Job. 

Vayera opens with three angels, disguised as men, coming to visit Abraham with a message that in one year, he and Sarah will have a son together. Message delivered, two of the angels leave, while one sticks around for a further conversation.

God has seen the wickedness of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and determined to destroy the cities entirely. But first, God turns inward to ask Godself:

Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 

since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation and all the nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him? 

For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right, in order that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what has been promised him.

True to God’s assessment of him, Abraham challenges God’s eagerness to punish the innocent along with the wicked, asking God to spare the cities if fifty innocent people can be found living there. In a bold rebuke, Abraham declares “Shall the judge of all the earth not do that which is just?!”

God agrees, and it turns out that this was just the opening of the negotiations. Abraham will lower the number to 45, 40, 30, 20, and finally 10 innocent people to spare the wicked cities. But first, he employs our phrase

Here I venture to speak to my lord, I who am but dust and ashes

What does this expression mean in this context?

At first glance, it might seem to be an expression of humility.  But what Abraham has just done and will continue to do seems quite bold. He has essentially told God that if You do not behave justly, you don’t deserve to be God. 

This is not behavior that most of people would describe as humble.

What about Job? He uses the expression twice. 

The first instance is in the midst of a long speech in which he is describing his suffering in most vivid terms. He laments how even the dregs of society, the worst of the worst, look down on him.

By night my bones feel gnawed;
My sinews never rest. 

With great effort I change clothing;
The neck of my tunic fits my waist.

And then comes our verse

He cast me down to the clay,
I have become like dust and ashes.

Here dust and ashes does not describe humility as a moral character trait, but seems to be almost literal. Just as people walk on dust and ashes without a second thought, without even noticing, Job too feels like he is being trampled underfoot.

His entire existence has been reduced to insignificance. “Dust and ashes” is a lament of self-pity. 

He uses the term once more, in the final chapter. In face, they are the last words he utters in the entire book that bears his name. After forty long chapters struggling to understand the meaning of his suffering, and rejecting all of the theological accusations and explanations of his so-called friends, God appears to Job out of the whirlwind.  And basically says, “I’m God.  Who the heck are you?”

And so, Job backs down.

Therefore, I recant and relent,
Being but dust and ashes.

This is Job’s final utterance. He realizes that his earlier complaints have been misguided. Job has been seeking some sort of reason for his suffering, a rational explanation for why he has been brought so low. 

But he never gets it. When he comes face to face with the awesome, terrifying Divine Presence, Job finally discovers that, as a mere mortal, comprised of “dust and ashes,” he is simply incapable of understanding God’s nature. Human concepts of justice and morality do not apply to God. It is pointless to try to discover any purpose to Creation that would make sense to us.

For both Abraham and Job, “dust and ashes” seems to be an expression of humility. It is a recognition that our existence on earth is temporary, that our imperfect bodies are made of material that comes together for only a brief moment in time.

We should also note that for both of them, the phrase “dust and ashes” occurs in the context of challenging God’s justice. They both react instinctively to what they percieve as God’s unjust behavior.

We all have that instinct. “It’s not fair.” Sometimes we experience it when we feel that we ourselves have been denied something we are owed.  Sometimes we experience when we see or hear of injustice perpetrated against someone else.

“Dust and ashes” is how Job describes himself when he finally stops accusing God of injustice. He realizes that human standards of morality do not apply to God.

For Abraham, it is the opposite. “Dust and ashes” is how he describes himself when he first begins to accuse God of injustice.

Perhaps another difference is that Job has been going through an existential crisis, arguing for justice on behalf of himself. Abraham, on the other hand, has been fighting to protect other people. 

Maybe that is the point of having this as one of the two phrases that we are supposed to have in our pockets. Recognizing our smallness, the limited time that we have on earth, means that we have to make use of that time for good.  To, as Abraham demonstrates, “keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right,” even when that might mean putting ourselves at risk.

But also, recognizing that the universe does not owe us anything. It is ok, as Job finally discovers, to accept ourselves as we are. To accept that God does not owe us any explanations. And then to make the most of it, as if the world was created for us. Maybe that is true humility.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

October 6, 2024

Posted under

Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons), High Holidays

Comments

2 Comments

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.