From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

Judaism
**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:

Talmud Class: Torn Betwixt and Between Feb 12, 2022

Show notes

February 12, 2022

Shabbat Sermon with Robert Leikind, Regional Director of AJC New England Feb 05, 2022

Show notes

Robert Leikind, the Regional Director of AJC New England, brought us a special sermon on a recent Amnesty International report and and shared what we, individually, and we as a community, can do to support our beloved Eretz Yisrael.

Talmud Class: Should We Combat or Ignore a False Charge? Feb 05, 2022

Show notes

February 5, 2022

Shabbat Sermon: Out of Office with Rabbi Michelle Robinson Jan 29, 2022

Show notes

January 29, 2022

Talmud Class: Don’t Look Up: A prayer for the end of the world Jan 29, 2022

Show notes

January 29, 2022

Shabbat Sermon: Courage, my friend. You do not walk alone. I will walk with you and sing your spirit home with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger Jan 22, 2022

Show notes

How do you process a world in which doing the right thing, the kind thing, opening your doors and offering warmth and tea to someone in need, could result in someone holding a gun to your head and taking you hostage? How do you process a world in which synagogues around the country go through security trainings about evading shooters and deescalating terrorist attacks as a matter of course? A world in which our kids are so accustomed to active shooter drills, and so inured to the possibility of sudden violence, that they take news of this trauma in stride. They are not shocked.

And how do you process a world in which someone could decide to fly across the world to find Jews to use as pawns for his hateful aim? A world in which someone is so stewed in antisemitic tropes that he believes that Jews run the world and would be able to pull some strings to make his hateful wish come true? How do you process a world in which Jews, who constitute less than 2% of the population in this country, are victim to almost 60% of religiously motivated hate crimes, according to the FBI? And how do you process the fact that our FBI, which produced the report on religiously motivated hate crimes, refused to acknowledge that the hostage situation was an act of antisemitism until Thursday, calling it instead a “terrorism-related matter”?

For us, this was not unique. But it was uniquely heartbreaking.

Talmud Class: More Love or More Fear? What is the Right Move for Synagogues after Texas? Jan 22, 2022

Show notes

January 22, 2022

Shabbat Sermon: The Gift of Gifts with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz Jan 15, 2022

Show notes

Last Saturday night Shira and I had friends over for dinner, a lovely couple we had come to know after Shira had met the wife on a CJP mission to Israel. They walked through our front door bearing gifts. A lovely bouquet of flowers. Very nice. And then something else. Something we had never before received from any guest ever. The husband walked into our living room and presented me with this: a collection of gorgeously bound, all Hebrew, very religious looking, books, a five-volume set, the kind of books one would find in a yeshivah.

Talmud Class: Is Detachment a Luxury Afforded Only to the Dying? Jan 15, 2022

Show notes

January 15, 2022

Shabbat Sermon: What Can I Do to Renew? with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz Jan 08, 2022

Show notes

For the last thirty-one years, until last year, January 6 had been tied for the very best day in our family’s calendar. Thirty-one years ago our son Sam was born on January 6. In addition, the birthday of our beloved colleague Joan Mael is also January 6. For years, before the pandemic, our colleagues would take Joan out to Legal’s for lunch. At home and at work, I just loved January 6.

And then came last January 6, and the day obviously became a whole lot more complicated.