From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

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Talmud on Shabbat: The Mystery and Miracle of Elijah Apr 23, 2022

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The prophet Elijah, whom we last encountered at our seders, poses a conundrum.

Elijah has this favored slot in Jewish history: the harbinger of hope and redemption. At the seder, we sing Eliyahu ha’navi as we move along the trajectory from darkness to light. At your son or grandson’s brit milah, the chair of Elijah invites the prophet into our lives at our choicest family moments. We bring Elijah into every Shabbat and Hag service in the blessings after the Haftarah and Havdalah. We bring Elijah into grace after meals every time we bench.

Of all the protagonists in the Jewish canon, Elijah is by far the most recurrent presence in Jewish ritual: more than Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, Moses, Aaron, Saul, David or Solomon.

Why so much Elijah? If you read the biblical story, this role is not only unexpected. It is a shocker. Elijah would be the last figure to get this job as harbinger of redemption.

Fact 1: Elijah’s last act as prophet is to be the Butcher of Mt. Carmel. He slaughters 450 prophets of Ba’al. A war crime. An atrocity. And that is not just a modern read. Leading to fact 2.

Fact 2: God fires Elijah for being only a zealot, and not being open to any other moves but hot zealotry. That is why God tells Elijah to appoint his successor, the gentler and more nuanced prophet Elisha.

So why exactly do we invite the Butcher of Mt. Carmel, fired by God, to our seders, to our britot, to our Shabbat prayers, to our grace after meals, as the harbinger of redemption?

We are going to be doing a four-part series to answer this question based upon a great new book that just came out, Daniel C. Matt, Becoming Elijah: Prophet of Transformation (Yale University Press, March, 2022).

Pesach Day VII Sermon: Serach bat Asher - A Hidden Heroine with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger Apr 22, 2022

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April 22, 2022

Pesach Day II Sermon: Deeds, Words, World with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz Apr 17, 2022

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Now that we have finished both seders this year, I have a question: What is the relationship, if any, between the words we say at the seder, the deeds we do at the seder, or that we commit to do, and the world we live in? Does our living a Jewish life, the prayer, the rituals, the community building, in what way, if at all, does that Jewish living affect the world? Will the two seders we just had affect the world, or will they only affect how we feel going through the world?

Shabbat Sermon: Pesach Day I with Rabbi Michelle Robinson Apr 16, 2022

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April 16, 2022

Shabbat Sermon: Passover Rx with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger Apr 09, 2022

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April 9, 2022

Talmud Class: A Leprous Home, Elizabeth Strout, and Your Passover Seders Apr 09, 2022

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"Something like a plague has appeared upon my house." Leviticus 14:35.

With these words, the troubled homeowner in ancient Israel gives voice to a truth that is universal. Homes, like human beings, are living things. Organic. Alive. Just like a human being can have healthy or not healthy practices, so too a home, and our home life, can have healthy or not healthy practices. Just like a human being can change it up and become more healthy, so too a home life can get better. Just like a human being can be overcome by illness and leave the world, some homes cannot survive their painful dysfunction. All of these truths are in our portion this week, parshat metzora.

When the Talmud encountered the case of the leprous house, it insisted that we not take these passages literally. That we interpret the leprous house as a metaphor and ask: what are the forces that strengthen home life? What are the forces that undermine home life? Can a bad home life be made good? Is that even possible?

Please read the attached short story from Elizabeth Strout, The End of the Civil War Days. Her story is a literary expression of the leprous house. It is also funny and risqué, and it raises the all-important question: can the patterns in our home life that are not serving us change? (I am sending the teaser early so that you will have the opportunity to read and enjoy this short and wonderful story.)

Finally, with the Passover seders around the corner (April 15-16), we will consider passages from the Haggadah that invite us to be mindful of the patterns that work at creating the home life we want to create; and the patterns that need to change so that if a plague appears on our house, we can exercise some agency and make it go away.

Shabbat Sermon: Seconds and Years with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz Apr 02, 2022

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It was the slap, and the rant, heard around the world.

How many of you saw Will Smith strike Chris Rock, and then rant about it, in real time?

How many of you read about it, or saw a clip of it, after the Academy Awards?

It was of course raw and shocking, unscripted drama that was by far the most dramatic thing that happened all evening.

If it were just a celebrity thing, a famous actor slapping the face of a famous comedian, it would just be another moment of sensationalist news.

But it’s not just a celebrity thing, it is very much a human thing. Because most of us, in our own quiet way, have been tempted to do our own version of what Will Smith did that night. Something ticked us off. Something got our blood boiling. Our temper went from zero to 100 in a nano second. And we were tempted to lose it. To give the other person a piece of our mind.

And yet, when we lose self-control, we lose control.

Talmud Class: How the Driest and Most Opaque Text Leads to the Juiciest and Most Resonant Question Apr 02, 2022

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Last Shabbat had a special name, Shabbat Parah, the Sabbath of the Cow. It is one of the special Shabbatot that tells us that Passover is coming. What does the Red Heifer of Numbers 19 have to do with Passover?

This text is famously opaque. A red heifer, hyssop, scarlet, and cedar are burned up, their ashes mixed with pure water, and that solution has the power to purify somebody who has become impure by reason of contact with the dead when the solution is applied to them on days 3 and 7 after contact with the dead. Scholars have puzzled over this passage for thousands of years. They have come up with lots of explanations--which means no one explanation that compels and satisfies. Until two years ago.

In the attached essay, written in 2020, before his last Pesach, in the shadow of his own advancing cancer, Rabbi Jonathan Sachs does something very rare in the world of Torah scholarship: an utterly new idea. When you read his essay, it is clear that he nails it. What he has to say is more wise and true than anything any other commentator has ever said about it. More wise and true than Maimonides, Nachmanides, the rabbis of the midrash. He says something that has never been said (or at least we have no record of anyone else saying it) before about the Red Heifer, and it goes to the heart of our deepest fears: our own mortality.

If one wonders how many more Passovers do I have left? If one's anxiety about a finite number of Passovers disrupts our ability to enjoy this Passover, this text, as explained by Rabbi Sachs, provides a definite point of view. The best answer to fearing our mortality is living a life of faith. If we get Rabbi Sachs' teaching deeply, we will be able to enjoy this Passover, no matter how many more Passovers we have left.

Shabbat Sermon: In the Cosmic Battle Between Good and Evil, What Can I Do? Mar 26, 2022

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In 1986, Professor Ray Scheindlin of the Jewish Theological Seminary authored a book with an evocative title: Wine, Women, & Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life. The book featured the poetry of Jewish poets who lived during the Golden Age of Jewish Spain. They lived the good life, with rich homes with gardens and pools and fountains. They wrote poetry about their good life, about their gardens and pools and fountains. Most of these poets were secular. And they were rooted in Judaism. At home in Spain. At home in Judaism. The Golden Age.

But something happened to the Golden Age. It ended.

Talmud Class: Shalshelet - The Cantillation Mark That Speaks to the Angst of Our Age Mar 26, 2022

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There is a rare cantillation mark called the shalshelet that occurs only four times in the entire Torah. The shalshelet goes up and down and is conspicuously drawn out, to evoke a deep hesitation.

In Genesis 19:16, Lot hesitates before leaving Sodom with his family. He knows it is marked for destruction, but he is stuck. More than we know what we like, we like what we know. Sodom wasn’t perfect, but he hesitated leaving it.

In Genesis 24:12, Abraham’s servant Eliezer hesitates before praying to God to help send an appropriate partner for Isaac.

In Genesis 39:8, Joseph hesitates before refusing the advances of Potiphar’s wife, who tries to seduce him.

In last Shabbat’s reading, in Leviticus 8:23, Moses hesitates before slaughtering the sacrificial animal that would ordain Aaron and his sons as the priests.

In each case, the protagonist wrestles with an inner demon before doing the right thing. Angst, self-doubt, indecision precede deed.

What do we learn from the shalshelet, and the wrestling of Lot, Eliezer, Joseph, and Moses with their demons, about how to handle the angst of our age?

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