From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

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**From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life**

Bringing weekly Jewish insights into your life. Join Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz, Rabbi Michelle Robinson and Rav-Hazzan Aliza Berger of Temple Emanuel in Newton, MA as they share modern ancient wisdom.

Latest Episodes:

Shabbat Sermon with Guest Speaker Richard Stone Nov 19, 2022

Show notes

Learn more about Rick here!

Talmud Class: Can Stories Change How We Think and Act? Nov 19, 2022

Show notes

Imagine if you could actually fulfill this Jewish teaching. It is short and seems simple.

Yet it is somewhere between impossible and even against human nature to fulfill.

And yet if we could somehow bring ourselves to do it, doing so would change our lives for the better:

Reciting a blessing for health, happiness and good things feels intuitive. Hashem, thank you for our new child or grandchild. Hashem, thank you for my recovery from illness. Hashem, thank you for my surviving this accident or near miss. All that blessing flows from a grateful heart. But this famous teaching in Berakhot would challenge us to bless God for the reversals of life, for our loss, our illness, our pain. How is that even possible?

This Shabbat we have a special treat. Rick Stone is a master story-teller, and an expert in the field of story-telling. Learn more about Rick here. At our Talmud class this Shabbat morning, Rick will teach these three brief, evocative Hasidic stories (Trusting in God's Goodness, The Leaf, and The Remarkable Horse).Each is a response to the above teaching from Berakhot.

Do these stories convince you? How does story truth compare to our other modes of truth for engaging our mind, inspiring our heart, and motivating our deeds?

Shabbat Sermon: More Than Turkey and Cranberry Sauce with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger Nov 12, 2022

Show notes

I love Thanksgiving. It’s a little early, I know. But every year, November comes, and all I can think about is Thanksgiving. I’m going to see my family soon. We’re going to eat turkey and cranberry sauce green beans and sweet potatoes and pies…there was the year I almost got stopped by TSA for bringing too many pies back…I didn’t know they’re considered a liquid. I love all the sweet memories I have of Thanksgivings from my childhood, when we used to gather in my Aunt Vanessa and Uncle Allan’s restaurant, the River Sage, in Evergreen, Colorado or at my grandparents table with the giant mirror. Four years ago, I loved Thanksgiving even more when Solomon proposed to me, and we got to celebrate our engagement with my whole family in Colorado. I loved Thanksgiving three years ago because we were just married and reveling in the blessing of getting to celebrate with everyone we love. This year, every time I think of Thanksgiving I want to cry. After so many months of infertility purgatory, this year we get to go home to Colorado with our little PB—that’s what we’re calling our little one before they make their appearance this spring. Thanksgiving has never felt sweeter.

And then, the other day, while scrolling through Hulu, I came across Padma Lakshmi’s new show, Taste the Nation. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, Hulu suggested I watch an episode filmed right here in Martha’s Vineyard called “Truth and the Turkey Tale.”

The show was incredibly powerful.

Talmud Class: Is There a Point of No Return? Nov 12, 2022

Show notes

Some hypotheticals:

After his lengthy prison term, Harvey Weinstein joins Temple Emanuel and wants to come to services. He says I now get it. I was wrong. Would you sit next to him?

We receive a generous check from Jeffrey Epstein to be used by the Temple in any way we wish, and anonymously, no need to publish his gift. He writes I now get it. I was wrong. Would you accept his gift?

After referring his 4.6 million followers to a vile Jew-hating movie that denies the Shoah, and after refusing to apologize for it, and after refusing to state that he has no anti-Semitic beliefs, Kyrie Irving goes on March of the Living. He goes to Auschwitz. He goes to Israel. He comes back and says I now get it. I was wrong. Would you support the Nets reinstating him? Would you now root for him?

Is teshuvah always available to right our wrongs? Or do we ever reach a point of no return where teshuvah is not possible? It is a complicated question, and the evidence of the Torah is mixed. The concept of teshuvah is late, late, late, not until Deuteronomy chapter 30. Before then, the basic concept is that sinners pay the price. Adam and Eve are banished along with a host of other punishments.

And in the reading tomorrow about Sodom, the categories are tzadik and rashah, translated by JPS as innocent and guilty, also translated as righteous and evil. That is a binary. What about people doing teshuvah and changing their ways? Teshuvah is not on the table in the Sodom story. Why not?

There is a famous story in the Talmud where Rabbi Meir was attacked by brigands. He prayed that they would die. His wife Beruria took him to task. Wrong prayer, she said. Better instead to pray that they change their ways and sin no more.

The issue comes to a point in the closing line of psalm 104: yitamu chataim min haaretz u’reshaim od einam, which is translated in very different ways by our siddur and our JPS Tanakh.

Siddur: “Let sins disappear from the earth and the wicked will be no more.”

Tanakh: “May sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more.”

Are Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and Kyrie Irving human beings who committed sins; or are they sinners?

Do we ever reach a point of no return, and if so, when and what is that point of no return?

Are we a healthier religion if we teach that there is a point of no return? Watch it.

Live with an active awareness of it.

Shabbat Sermon: Known with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz Nov 05, 2022

Show notes

This past Monday morning I got both an email and a text from my wife Shira, who was out of town. I knew it was trouble when the first word of both the email and the text was honey. Honey means that she is about to ask me to do something she knows I won’t want to do.

Honey, today is Halloween. And I know you just got home from an overnight flight from Israel. But we don’t want to be Scrooge. We don’t want to be the only dark house on our street. So please go to CVS and buy candy, and turn on the lights to let the kids in the neighborhood know that you are so happy to give out the candy on Halloween. XXOO Me.

How can I say no to an email that begins with honey and ends with XXOO Me?

Talmud Class: Two Models for an Anxious Age Nov 05, 2022

Show notes

We live in an anxious age. If it is hard for you to watch the news, what lenses does our tradition offer to help us make sense of it all?

Tomorrow we are going to look at the two models that we are in the middle of reading in shul: Noah, who seeks refuge in his ark, away from the pain of the world (Click here), and Abraham, singled out by God to do justice and righteousness (Click here).

The Noah principle is so tempting, and that is where many of us live, in our zip code, worried about the world, but insulated from its harshest features. 02459 and the other zip codes of our congregation are an ark. We can read about the horrors of the world without, for the most part, experiencing them on the front lines. Noah is no child’s story. Noah captures the reality of withdrawal from a world that feels impossible to fix and too painful to face. We do Noah, pretty much every day. But is more expected of us, and if so, what?

The Abraham principle is so daunting. The classic question is: why Abraham? What did he do to deserve the covenant? The classic answer, which we will study tomorrow, is that when he saw a world on fire, he felt summoned to do something about it. Put out the fire. Restore the building. Sounds good. Seems hard to argue with. But if we take that midrash seriously, what does it call upon us to do, particularly if the problems we see as most vexing do not admit of any solution that we can bring.

We don’t have answers, but we do have helpful lenses.

Shabbat Sermon with Rabbi Michelle Robinson Oct 29, 2022

Show notes

October 29, 2022

Sisterhood Presents: Ed Shapiro: “The Ukrainian Refugee Situation and what Americans Can Do” Oct 28, 2022

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Join Sisterhood and the TE community to hear Ed Shapiro speak on the current refugee resettlement crisis: “The Ukrainian Refugee Situation and what Americans Can Do”.

Edward Shapiro is the Managing Trustee for The Shapiro Foundation, a Boston-based charitable foundation started in 2000 by Ed and his wife and now focusing on community-based refugee resettlement. Ed is also actively involved in many national and international nonprofits involved with refugee matters.

Shabbat Sermon: Why Moses’s Final Words Call Out to Us With Special Urgency Right Now with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz Oct 22, 2022

Show notes

Why Moses’s Final Words Call Out to Us With Special Urgency Right Now

This past week, in anticipation of Simchat Torah, I was drawn to a granular question that I had never thought about before: namely, what are Moses’s very last words before he dies? The portion we read on Simchat Torah contains Moses’s final farewell speech. He blesses all the tribes of Israel one by one, offering them final words suited to their story. When he is done blessing the last tribe, he has one last thing to say to the Jewish people. What is it?

When I examined the text, I was surprised by what I found. Here are his final words:

Your enemies shall come cringing before you,

And you shall tread on their backs. Deuteronomy 33:29.

Curious. Enemies come cringing before you. You shall tread on their backs. What enemies? What does treading on their backs even mean? Rashi, the classic commentator, explains that it means: “Put your feet upon the necks of these enemy kings.”

Not what I would have expected.

Talmud Class: Methuselah, Jonathan Larson, and You Oct 22, 2022

Show notes

One of the most evocative figures in the Torah does not get much attention because

his brief appearance is embedded in a dry genealogy. His name is Methuselah.

When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he begot Lamech. After the birth of Lamech,

Methuselah lived 782 years and begot sons and daughters. All the days of Methuselah

came to 969 years; then he died. (Genesis 5:25-27).

Methuselah is famous for two things. He lived the longest of any biblical figure. Moses

lived until 120, Methuselah until 969. But Methuselah is known for nothing beyond his length of years. If he touched somebody’s life, if he made the world better, if he inspired love, the Torah contains no record of it.

By contrast, the composer Jonathan Larson, most famous for writing the musical Rent and dying at the age of 35 the night of its first performance, inspired this gorgeous song from Rent, sung by Leslie Odom, Jr. called Without You. (Click here for the video) The thesis is: life goes on, as it must, without you, but I am not the same without you because of the deep impact you have had on me. (Click here for lyrics)

We have just left the High Holiday season with its message that we do not get to control how much time we have, we can only control what we do with the time we’ve got. We are now entering a month without holidays, a season of ordinary days. The most important question for us all: what do we do with our ordinary days that turn them into days of impact? What are we doing that can inspire the love of the song Without You? Who will sing that song for us, and what have we done to earn that song? In his classic When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough, Harold Kushner lays out three things we can do every day (Click here for text). Hopefully, that will not be our question until 120. But asking that question now can invest our years with their greatest joy, blessing, and impact.

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