We Need a Miracle Now!

Israeli dreidels are different than ours. One letter is changed. Whereas our dreidels have the letters nun-gimmel-hey-shin, theirs show nun-gimmel-hey-pay. These letters remind us of Hanukkah’s message: “a great miracle happened there.” In Israel they instead proclaim, “a great miracle happened here.”

On the one hand, one letter seems to make little difference. A miracle is a miracle after all. On the other, whether we say, “here” or “there” can suggest a world of difference.

For years I thought, keeping miracles at a distance was the safer approach. Like the rabbis of old I believed that when the miraculous gets too close, when we feel that God is nearby working wonders, we begin to lose our grip on reality. We cease to do the hard work of improving our world. We think, “God will take care of it. I can sit back and wait for God.”

Like the Maccabees of old we can become infatuated with God’s power, and even intoxicated with God’s nearness. We start saying things like “We are instruments of God’s power. Our victories are evidence of God’s majesty.”

Such thinking leads to corruption and oppression. This is exactly what happened to the ancient Maccabean dynasty. They persecuted those who disagreed with them. Unlike the rabbis, the Maccabees did not believe in compromise and peace making. The rabbis sought to keep God near through our prayers but distant from the earthly and political.

And so, until the founding of the modern State of Israel, we safely said “there.” We kept God in our thoughts. We affirmed God’s miraculous powers but kept such power and might far away. Miracles like those military victories of the Maccabees happened there and not here.

We avoided zealotry. We pushed away the tendency to see God in the political. We hesitated to say, “God is on my side (and not yours).” There was safety in the rabbinic approach. That little dreidel, and that one letter difference, hints at a tension that has followed us through centuries of pain and struggle.

The rabbis believed in God’s power but skeptical when it was wielded by human hands. Listen to the blessing over the candles: “Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who performed wonderous deeds for our ancestors in days of old at this season.” Miracles happened back then—and for them.

For years, I focused on the words “in days of old.” I shared the rabbis’ skepticism. I affirmed their worries. I seek peace and compromise. I wish to avoid zealotry.

I believe in miracles—but back then and over there.

These days, however, I find myself hoping and praying for a miracle in this season. I feel we need one here and there—and most importantly now. This year our prayers feel different. Our blessings are tinged with hopes of yesteryear.

I push caution aside.

We need a miracle now!

The Strength of Forgiveness

The Torah is told through Jacob’s perspective. He is the patriarch of what becomes the people of Israel. His brother Esau on the other hand is the father of our future enemies.

And yet I find myself admiring Esau and not Jacob. Esau is a man of action. Jacob is ruled by fear. The Torah notes his fear on a number of occasions. We read, “Jacob was greatly frightened.” (Genesis 32)

Here is what brings them to this current fear filled moment. After twenty years of living apart, the two brothers are about to meet. Jacob stole the firstborn birthright from Esau by conspiring with their mother and tricking their blind father. (As my bar mitzvah student rightly noted, “Lying to your blind father is really bad.”) Esau then threatens to kill Jacob and so he runs away. There he was married, fathered many children and gained considerable wealth. Esau also achieved success.

Now Esau is marching towards his brother. He is accompanied by 400 men. Jacob assumes the worst and apparently thinks, “My brother has finally come to kill me.” We know little of Esau’s inner thoughts. And yet we can discern something of his feelings from what he does.

The Torah’s language suggests Esau loves his brother and is overwhelmed by feelings of “I have missed you so much.” Listen to the staccato beat of action.

“Esau ran toward Jacob. He embraced him. He flung himself upon his neck. He kissed him.”

The Torah makes plain. Jacob does not apologize for his past misdeeds. For Esau such an apology appears unnecessary.

I can imagine the scene. Jacob bows low as his brother approaches. As Esau draws closer, Jacob stands in place, unable to move, terrified that his earlier deception might still lead Esau to carry out his twenty-year-old threat. Esau grabs hold of his brother in an embrace. And yet Jacob is still frozen by fear. He thinks, “Maybe he means to cut my neck.” (Fear misdirects the imagination.) Esau now throws himself on Jacob’s neck. He kisses him over and over again.

In the Torah the word for kiss has unusual markings. There is a dot over each letter. There are several interpretations of these markings. Many traditional commentaries suggest that Esau hesitated. This is because they see Esau in a negative light. They assume the best about Jacob and the worst about Esau. (A history of hatred and persecution by the descendants of Esau finds its way into generations of interpretations.)

The rabbis argued that even when Esau was in Rebekah’s womb he was bent on wrongdoing and attracted to idolatry. Jacob on the other hand was drawn to Torah study and the houses of learning that taught it from his earliest days. In a sense, he loved Torah from conception. And our destinies were sealed from birth.

I think however that the Torah’s language suggests otherwise. Jacob allowed fear, and perhaps even regret, to rule his life. He stood frozen before his brother. Esau kissed him again and again until the Torah states: “They wept.” The tears were unleashed by Esau’s courage and action. He would not let go, he would not stop kissing his brother, until they both cried.

It is bewildering that our forefather Jacob is gripped by fear while Esau makes all the moves. Our hero stands mute. Our nemesis is courageous and forgiving.

Both examples are contained in our sacred Torah.

These days I am drawing strength from Esau’s example. I do not wish to be ruled by fear.

There is courage and strength in the embrace of forgiveness.

How Awe Inspiring Is Every Place

Most of the time we walk around like Jacob, sleeping and dreaming. We fail to see the divine that stands right before us.

Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely Adonai is present in this place, and I did not know it!” (Genesis 28)

The question is how do we fashion such moments? The first and most obvious answer is to be attuned to nature. If we turn away from the dispiriting news and look instead at autumn’s beautiful colors, we might catch a glimmer of the divine. It appears as if a master artisan took a paintbrush to the trees and sky as well as the vegetables and fruits I prepare for our festive meal.

Breathe in the fall air. Take in the Artist’s handiwork. Despite the thunderous noise, and despair, that beset our world we can, like Jacob, glimpse God.

The holiday of Thanksgiving reminds us to give thanks for the food arrayed on our tables. Our tradition counsels us that we should offer thanks every time we sit down to eat. Regardless of the size of the meal we are taught to say a blessing.

Our home becomes a sanctuary through blessings. Our table becomes an altar through prayers. This is how Judaism helps us to summon the divine to the most ordinary of occasions.

Then again Jacob was running. He was fleeing for his life. He was alone and afraid. And so, these days I am struggling with how fear might create such holy moments. I am wondering. Is the feeling of calm that sometimes follows fear a taste of the divine?

Perhaps this is why so many people are adrenaline junkies and thrill seekers. They are chasing similar feelings. I have never done this, nor do I plan on doing this, but I imagine that bungie jumping and sky diving at first make one feel afraid but then, if one is to take the smiles and laughs as evidence, ecstatic highs. The fear that precedes is perhaps the necessary corollary to the feeling that follows.

In Hebrew the word for fear and awe are the same. Yirah can mean both fear and awe. They are mingled and interchangeable. It is an unsettling and troubling thought to contemplate. Fear and awe are dependent on each other.

Jacob awakes from sleeping. He is filled with fear and awe. The Hebrew offers one direct word: “Vayira!”) Jacob exclaims, “How awe-inspiring is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and the gateway to heaven.”

How awe-inspiring is every place! And now we acknowledge, even those which cause us fear.

Choosing to See or Not to See

Many commentators are critical of Isaac. Some have suggested that he is stupid. Others that he is limited.

Here is why. He is duped by his father Abraham. When Isaac asks, “Where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” (Genesis 22) Abraham answers that God will provide it even though Isaac is the intended sacrifice. Then Abraham does not trust him and sends his servant to find him a wife. The servant returns with Rebekah who Isaac marries. And finally, this week we read that his son Jacob tricks Isaac along with Rebekah’s help into offering him the first-born blessing instead of the rightful heir Esau.

We are left wondering. How can Isaac be so blind? The Torah reports: “Isaac was old, and his eyes were too dim to see.” (Genesis 27) One answer is that he is in fact blind. And yet, how can he not distinguish between one son and another? When Jacob stands before him with his requested steak dinner, he asks, “How did you succeed so quickly, my son?” Jacob responds, “Because the Lord your God granted me good fortune.” Sounds like Abraham! And Isaac’s response is the same.

Isaac recognizes his son Jacob’s voice but is tricked by the feel of his arms. Again, we are left to wonder. Maybe Isaac is stupid. Or instead, does he hear what he wants to hear? Isaac expects that it is Esau standing before him and so he “sees” Esau. How often do our expectations color what we see? (Or the algorithms confirm our opinions?) We see what we want to see. We hear what we want to hear.

Isaac is moved by others. He is a transitional actor who appears to have little agency. His father moves him in one direction and his son, and wife, move him in another. Maybe they are instruments of God’s design. We cannot control every facet of our lives. Sometimes we are moved by others. Sometimes God’s design is other than we intended or planned. How often do circumstances create unforeseen opportunities. And then we find ourselves standing in a situation not of our own design.

Can we discern the blessings inherent even when things don’t go as planned?

Perhaps we should view Isaac’s blindness as his agency. He sees the truth but does not, or cannot, say it aloud.

Without the occasional willful blindness we are lost.

Oliver Sacks, the great neurologist and writer, who like our forefather became blind later in life, remarks:

To what extent are we the authors, the creators of our own experiences? How much are these predetermined by the brains or senses we are born with, and to what extent do we shape our brains through experience? The effects of a profound perceptual deprivation such as blindness may cast an unexpected light on these questions. Going blind, especially later in life, presents one with a huge, potentially overwhelming challenge: to find a new way of living, of ordering one's world, when the old has been destroyed. (The Mind’s Eye)

We are constantly ordering, and reordering, our world. Sometimes we see. Other times we see what we want to see. Sometimes others move us in one direction or another. And other times we choose blindness.

All are required in the writing of any story. All move our story forward.

Coming Home Again and Again

This week Sarah dies. Abraham must now buy a burial plot for his wife. Despite their advanced age, he did not plan for this moment. He has no place to bury Sarah even though they resided in the promised land for sixty-two years. (Here is the math. God instructed them to leave their native land for Canaan when Sarah was sixty-five. She dies at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven years.)

The Torah states, “Then Abraham rose from beside his dead and spoke to the Hittites, saying, ‘I am a resident alien among you; sell me a burial site among you.’” (Genesis 23) One could argue that he is just negotiating effectively. He therefore self-deprecates before the landowner Ephron from whom he wants to buy the Cave of Machpelah.

Then again, Abraham’s identity appears to be that of a wanderer. After spending nearly half of his life in what is now the land of Israel, he still considers himself a sojourner. He never feels at home.

I am beginning to wonder if this is representative of the Jewish condition.

The early Zionists believed never feeling at home was our crucial deficiency. They sought to cure this feeling. They believed that the root of our problem was never having a home. They argued that the Jewish psyche was plagued by feelings of homelessness and beleaguered by unwelcome signs throughout the many lands in which we resided.

Israel’s Declaration of Independence proclaims, “The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people—the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe—was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in the land of Israel the Jewish State.” The state is the answer to our wandering. It is a cure to our inability to see ourselves at home. It is response to the nations of the world’s refusal to say, “This is your home.”

Today, thousands of Israelis are unable to return to their homes. Those who built lives for themselves and their families in the South along Gaza’s border and the North along Lebanon’s are living in hotels in Jerusalem or at kibbutzim in the Galilee. They are no longer at home.

This is why the war with Hamas is an existential struggle. It is a fight to return home. It is a battle to restore our sense of home.

I never imagined that curing Jewish homelessness is an eternal struggle.

Will the descendants of Abraham ever feel at home in any land? Will the nations ever allow the Jewish people to call even a morsel of territory home?

I pray for our strength in this struggle.

I continue to hold fast to our dream. “To be a free people in our own land!”

Look Up at Miracles

Does God appear to us when we look up? Are miracles all around us if we lift our eyes?

In the opening of this week’s reading, the Torah proclaims: “The Lord appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre; he was sitting at the entrance of the tent as the day grew hot. He lifted up his eyes and saw three men standing near him.” (Genesis 18) These men are divine messengers who foretell Isaac’s miraculous birth to aged parents.

In the desert one can often see people approaching from a great distance and yet Abraham does not notice them until they are standing next to him. What took him so long to see these messengers approaching from a distance? Perhaps he was napping. The rabbis suggest he was still recovering from his recent circumcision. Regardless, all he needed to do was lift up his head.

And then God appears when he looks up, when he lifts up his eyes (vayisah einav).

There is a sense that lifting up our eyes is different than seeing. It involves more than looking. The head moves. The body turns. We see something that was there for some time or perhaps always there, but for some reason we were unable to see it until we move our eyes, until we open ourselves to the miraculous.

The refrain of lifting our eyes appears again at the end of this portion. An angel appears and tell Abraham not to sacrifice his son at the very moment he lifts the knife above his neck. The Torah continues: “Vayisah Avraham et einav—And Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw there a ram caught in the thicket by its thorns.” (Genesis 22). How long was this ram there? If it was caught in a bush, it must have been struggling to break free. How did Abraham not see the ram?

Was Abraham blinded by his obedience to God’s command? Was he unable to see because he was overcome by zeal to sacrifice his son? Did he not look up because he was so distraught that this is what God asked of him? In the last moment, Abraham moves his head, lifts his eyes and sees what God really intends: to sacrifice a ram and not his son.

Miracles stare us in the face but too often we are unable to see them.

The Psalmist declares: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.” (Psalm 122)

Perhaps the miracle is the mountain. Perhaps help comes from looking up at nature.

Stop looking down. Start looking up. Don’t let the world, and its horrors, keep us from lifting up our eyes.

Miracles are all around us.

Where Our Concerns Begin and Today May End

What follows is my sermon from Shabbat Lech Lecha, three weeks after the October 7th massacre. It is in part a response to a younger generation’s more universalist impulses.

I opened the Torah portion in the hopes that it would serve as a distraction from world events and in particular the struggles of our brothers and sisters in Israel. At first the effort proved a success.

We read about God’s call to Abraham—Lech lecha. He is commanded to leave his native land and journey to the land of Israel. There God promises he and Sarah will become a great nation. But after ten years Abraham and Sarah are unable to realize even the slightest glimmer of God’s promise. They are unable to have a child and thereby secure their promised future. Out of desperation Sarah instructs Abraham to sleep with her maidservant Hagar so that she might have a child through her. Hagar becomes pregnant immediately. Sarah quite understandably becomes enraged. Not so understandably she treats Hagar harshly and Hagar then runs away.

We find Hagar away from the protection of her home in the wilderness. God appears to Hagar. An angel of the Lord instructs her to return to Sarah. The Torah states: “An angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Behold, you are with child and shall bear a son; you shall call him Ishmael, for the Lord has paid heed to your suffering.’” (Genesis 16) Ishmael means God hears. Here is a remarkable fact. God names Ishmael from whom Muslims trace their lineage. Furthermore, God responds to Hagar’s suffering.

And then after twenty-five years of struggling to have a child God finally responds to Sarah’s pain. Fourteen years after Ishmael is born, Isaac is born to Sarah. Here is how the Torah opens the telling of the birth of the person from whom we trace our lineage. “V’Adonai pakad et Sarah—The Lord took note of Sarah as the Lord had promised. Sarah conceived and bore a son.” (Genesis 21) Sarah names her son Isaac. His name means laughter because she laughed when God reaffirms the promise that she would have a child at 90 and Abraham at 100 years old. That response of hers makes total sense. Isaac’s birth, like that of other biblical heroes, is miraculous. Sarah does not know what else to do but laugh.

I was immediately struck by two realizations. God appears to Hagar first. God appears to Hagar before speaking to Sarah. And number two. God responds to suffering—namely Sarah’s and Hagar’s—with compassion. I was flabbergasted by these discoveries. I was bewildered that my efforts to find a path away from the news proved ineffectual. These days I see the news everywhere. It is inescapable even in the Torah’s pages.

We live in a similar world to that of Sarah and Hagar, where Jews and Palestinians both claim the crown of victimhood. We shout at each other and say, “Our pain is greater than yours.” We both fight for the right to say God is on my side. We also live in a world where feelings take precedence over facts, so teasing out historical truths from such strongly held beliefs becomes difficult and nearly impossible. Sentiments are not the same as facts. Be clear about that distinction.

These days I am wondering, is it possible to hear the voice of Hagar’s descendants? Is it necessary to respond to Palestinian’s suffering with compassion? Yes. And yes. Is it also possible to prioritize the pain of Sarah’s descendants? Is it equally necessary to be more attuned to the suffering of our own people? Again, yes. And yes. Let me explain in more detail.

We should feel compassion for the suffering and pain of Palestinians. To suggest otherwise is a betrayal of our values. They too are held prisoner in Gaza by Hamas. Israel is not always perfect. Its actions are not always righteous. Guess what is also true and seems even more necessary to say? Israel is not entirely to blame. Let’s be crystal clear about this fact. At present Israel’s goal is to reestablish deterrence against future terrorist attacks. It is to reaffirm its sacred obligation to its citizens: to offer them safety and security within its borders, to return the hostages to their homes. Its goal is not vengeance. Its intentions are pure.

If the State of Israel’s goal becomes revenge, then we should raise our voices in protest. And this is why I will continue to protest against settlers who vengefully attack West Bank Palestinians and blame all Palestinians for Hamas’ evils. At present we should say loudly and clearly that we stand with Israel in its fight against Hamas and its right to safeguard the lives of its citizens while also saying that we are saddened by the deaths of Palestinians.

Our tradition has always balanced this idea and held on to these sometimes competing values. Take for example the story about the Israelites’ rescue from Pharoah’s army as they were fleeing from slavery in Egypt. According to our tradition when the Egyptian army was drowned in the Sea of Reeds the angels burst out in celebration and song. God silenced them and said, “My children are drowning.” Likewise, we do not rejoice at the deaths of so many Palestinians. It is deeply saddening. We are horrified by what is required and necessary to guarantee our safety from antisemitic murder. That Hamas is primarily to blame for these deaths should not mitigate the human tragedy. God silenced the angels even though Pharoah was entirely to blame. Similarly, we prioritize the needs of our own people. I am not ashamed of choosing my family first.

Of course, this war is going to be violent and even more bloody. Nation states are not perfect—most especially when they wage war, even those of self-defense. Nation states may not even be what we believe to be the universal ideal. But in this imperfect world they are all we got. And that is a basic tenet of Zionism. In a world of nation states we need our own just as the Palestinians need their own. Furthermore, in a world where far too many people, leaders and nations seek the Jewish people’s destruction, our only defense is a nation of our own. I am not embarrassed by Jewish power. I do not feel guilty about its oftentimes messy expressions. I seek to better it, and improve it, but I do not want to do away with it. The answer is not to give up power or to even have less power. I do not want to turn the clock back to hundreds of years ago. I recall our tragic history.

Here is my belief. We should seek to make the Jewish nation state as compassionate as possible, but never at the expense of our own lives, not at the expense of our family’s lives. My teacher Yossi Klein Halevi writes:

The Jews today are no longer helpless. We can defend ourselves, and we can strike back against those whose vision of a better world depends on our disappearance. If progressives seek to turn our reclamation of power into their symbol of human depravity, we will deal with that too. History imposes on Jews the responsibility to confront the moral consequences of power. But October 7 wasn’t a response to the abuses of Jewish power; it was a reminder of the necessity of Jewish power. In a world in which genocidal enemies persist, powerlessness for the Jewish people is a sin.

Powerlessness is a sin, most especially when facing such unimaginable evil. Zionism and Israel are about reasserting our own power over history. Israel must respond to Hamas with force. This does not mean we should let go of our compassion or a vision of better future.

Our people trace their lineage to Abraham through Sarah. Muslims to Abraham through Hagar. I choose the son of Abraham and Sarah. I choose Isaac. Others choose Ishmael the son of Abraham and Hagar. God responds to both with compassion. I wish I had God’s capacity to respond with compassion to both and to all. In God’s eyes all of life is precious. In my limited human view, I prioritize the lives of those I hold most dear. For now, in this imperfect and dangerous world, and in this moment most especially I choose Sarah’s son and my people. I will continue to struggle to reclaim my feelings of compassion for all. I recognize however that I can only do this when my family is once again whole.

Until that day I will pray for Israel’s strength and resolve. I will pray that the hostages are reunited with their families. I will pray for peace—first for my people and then for all people. “Oseh shalom bimromav—May the One who makes peace in the high heavens makes for us and for all Israel—v’imru: amen.”

The Weight of Wealth

Rabbi ben Zoma taught: “Who is rich? Those who are happy with their portion.” (Pirke Avot 4) For the ancient rabbis wealth and riches are about perspective. Happiness is not related to how we typically define success. It is not a matter of winning the lottery. It is instead about being content with one’s lot. It is about not pining after what others have.

The Torah reminds us that our forefather Abraham was wealthy. “Now Abraham was very rich in cattle, silver and gold.” (Genesis 13) The Hebrew uses a curious phrase. “Avram kaved maod.” A literal rendition might read: “Avram was very heavy with cattle, silver and gold. The Hebrew suggests that he was weighed down by his riches.

The plain meaning is clear. The journey on which God sends Abraham is difficult not only because he must leave his ancestral home but because of all the riches he must carry with him. It is not easy to travel across the desert with so many belongings. It is not easy to shepherd a flock across the wilderness. Better to travel light. Abraham is unable to do so. And thus, he travels in stages. “And he proceeded by stages from the Negev as far as Bethel.”

Perhaps there is an even greater truth in this phrase “very heavy.” I am given to wonder. How do our riches weigh us down? How do they prevent us from seeing beyond ourselves?

For Abraham the Torah suggests that his accumulated wealth might have prevented him from leaving his home and answering God’s call, from setting out on the journey that forever defines the Jewish people and bringing us to the land that is now a source of our current anxiety but yet our eternal hope.

A curious fact. Holocaust survivors tend to accumulate portable wealth. They do not purchase valuable paintings and sculptures, but instead jewelry and watches. Such items can be easily carried on a person if one is forced to flee. Jewels can even be sewed into jacket liners if one needs to secret a family across borders. Such are the scars that survivors carry. They are always readying their escape.

For others wealth is often a stumbling block to change. We do no march forward for fear that we might lose our precious possessions. We do not set out on new journeys because we worry about their financial risks. Listen to Ben Zoma’s teaching. Wealth is a matter of a perspective.

There are many reasons why Abraham is called righteous. One reason is found in how he treats his wealth. In his hands all that silver and gold is transformed into an obligation.

For the righteous, wealth is weighty because it is a burden. It is a call to use our success in the service of others.

Wealth is not a privilege. It is instead a challenge. It is a call. “Lech lecha—Go forth!”

What Tikkun Olam Means Today

Throughout our tortured and tragic history Jews were taken hostage. Jewish communities often paid their ransom. The unparalleled medieval thinker, Moses Maimonides, exhorted his fellow Jews to redeem captives and even collected money for this purpose.

He writes: “The redemption of captives receives priority over sustaining the poor and providing them with clothing. Indeed, there is no greater mitzvah than the redemption of captives. For captives are among those who are hungry, thirsty, and unclothed. They are in mortal peril." (Mishneh Torah, Gifts to the Poor 8)

The rabbis ask, “Is there too high a price to pay for a captive?” They answer, “One does not ransom captives for more than their value because of tikkun olam.” (Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 45a) Tikkun olam! Repair of the world!

We often use this term “tikkun olam” when arguing for the support of social justice causes. In this case, however, it implies that if we pay too much, we will undermine the world’s moral order. In other words, paying too much might overly burden the community. Or, the rabbis, go on to say, if we pay too much, the evildoers might be encouraged to take more hostages.

Throughout the years, I have studied these texts about pidyon shvuyim, ransoming captives. In the past I found the study of these sacred texts, and the wisdom of my rabbinic forebears, a helpful diversion from world events. “Look at the vexing questions of yesteryear,” I thought to myself. “Thank God, we don’t face such dilemmas!” Today, however, I find these texts only add to our grief. They compound our tragedy.

Hamas holds 203 hostages. I cannot get their pictures out of my mind. I cannot turn away from the image of an elderly grandmother carted off to Gaza in a golf cart, or the thought of injured, and brutalized, children being held captive.

Israel was intended to help us write a new story. Today we instead find ourselves revisiting an old story. And we lack the vocabulary to confront this challenge. I worry. If we rely, on previous understandings and prior texts, we may be returned to the past.

The instincts of liberal Jews are to fight against all wars. “Tikkun olam means peace,” we say. When attacked, and murdered, in this manner repair of the world can mean, and must mean, a restoration of the moral order. Hamas is the antithesis to the values we most cherish. Defeating these terrorists is the only option Israel, and the Jewish people, has.

In this hour, and in this moment, tikkun olam means fighting a war.

My teacher, Yehudah Kurtzer, writes: “The challenge we face is that the dominant moral instincts and biases that define liberal North American Jewry, including an abiding commitment to kindness, compassion, and peace, make it difficult to confront the sad and painful truth that Israel is fighting a just war based on a just cause, and that solidarity with both our fellow Jews and with our values means supporting this war against Hamas, as awful as it will be.”

Today, redeeming the captives is also about redeeming the Jewish soul. It is about once again liberating the Jewish people from victimhood and persecution. It is about protecting, and safeguarding, Jewish lives. It is about never again allowing Jews to be taken hostage or the Jewish soul to be held captive.

Today, fighting a just war is the fulfillment of tikkun olam.

Let’s Be Clear About Hamas

What follows is my sermon from the Shabbat services following Hamas’ October 7th massacre. At our celebration of Shabbat we raised our voices in prayer and song despite the threats that we should not. We refuse to be terrorized.

I hope and pray these words help us find a measure of clarity amidst this past week’s pain, heartbreak and the extraordinary loss of life.

The other day a friend said to me, “It’s terrible what happened in Israel.” And I said, “Yes. It is devastating. I am deeply pained and saddened.” He then added “I guess they have been fighting and killing each other since the beginning of time.” I looked away in bewilderment. I did not have the strength to confront him, but I wish I said, “Actually what has been happening since the beginning of time is that antisemites keep trying to kill us. And sometimes, they succeed in murdering us.” In every generation, in every land, we been forced to confront this sad, but inescapable truth.

Rarely have I felt so alone as in that moment or during this past week.

Hamas celebrates the murder of Jews. They do not want to make peace with Israel. Saturday’s massacre did not happen because Israel is occupying the Gaza Strip. It is not. Israel withdrew its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005. Hamas’ quarrel is not with a controversial settlement built on a West Bank hilltop made sacred to some because of its mention in the Bible. Kibbutz Beeri, the community that lost ten percent of its members—100 were murdered out of a community of 1000—was founded in October 1946. It sits within the boundaries of Israel’s internationally recognized borders.

Hamas’ aim is the destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of Jews. I cannot fathom why this is so difficult for people to understand and comprehend. I cannot come to grips with the fact that people are still defending these murderers. Supporting Palestinian rights should actually mean opposing Hamas.

Last Saturday our people were intended to celebrate our beloved Simhat Torah, the day of our great rejoicing. All we wanted to do last week was sing and celebrate and dance. And that is the most important reason why I am here on this Shabbat. I will not allow the terrorists to rob me, and us, of our Shabbat joy. What I wish I had said to that friend was, “Yes. No one seems to want to let Jews live in peace.” To be honest, it might be better to say more simply, “To let us live.”

Then again, I was heartened by President Biden’s words of support. He said, “This attack has brought to the surface painful memories and the scars left by millennia of antisemitism and genocide of the Jewish people. So, in this moment, we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack. There is no justification for terrorism. There is no excuse.” I am buoyed by the United States government’s efforts to lend military aid to Israel.

I have other friends of course and many of them called me and texted me offering support. Most are not Jewish. They remain equally horrified by what they read and saw and so wanted to lend a comforting shoulder to the friend they know has deep connections to Israel. I sense their love and concern. And it helps. Their words briefly temper my feelings of abandonment.

There has also been a significant outpouring of support from world leaders. And yet, these words so often seem tempered. I don’t recall, for example, when the UN secretary general offered support and condolences to the United States after the terrorist attacks of 9-11, in the next sentence added a warning about the need for the US to exercise restraint when going after those responsible for the attacks.

My teacher, Yossi Klein Halevi, writes: “Israelis will tell you: We don’t need the world’s sympathy only when the violated bodies of our family and friends are being displayed to cheering mobs in Gaza. We need that sympathy most when we attack those who have carried out these atrocities. If you can’t distinguish between an army that tries to avoid civilian casualties and a terrorist group that seeks to inflict them, then spare us the condolences.”

And I would add don’t say that Israel does not intentionally target civilians. Say instead Israel’s goal is not the murder of as many Palestinians as possible. Its armed forces seek not so much the destruction of the enemy, but the defense of this simple idea, let us live our lives. Of course, we should be saddened by the deaths of innocent Palestinians and the destruction of homes and the upending of Gaza and the further impoverishment of its residents. Israel will make mistakes in its prosecution of this war, but its actions are justified, its intentions pure.

Hamas is largely to blame for these events. The IDF seeks not the destruction of Gaza but the preservation of Israel. And that in a nutshell sums up the conflict. Make no mistake about this terrible fact. If Hamas could, they would murder all seven million Israeli Jews, as well as those two million Israeli Arabs who have built lives for themselves in Israel. They would murder every Jew throughout the world if they could. That is their stated goal. Saturday’s massacre should wash away any doubts about Hamas’ intentions.

In our hour of grief, we acknowledge, our people were murdered. We say our people are being attacked. Our people are now traumatized and terrorized. This is not the moment for disagreements, or even debates about what went wrong. This moment calls most of all for solidarity and unity.

We will carry this grief with us. Next year’s Simhat Torah will still be tinged by memories of this year’s massacre. Every celebration will be colored by a measure of these deaths. The Psalmist sings, “You turn my mourning into dancing.” Even though that appears now upended, the joyful dancing of Simhat Torah is now our grief, one day I am confident, because as much as I have studied our tragedies, I have also come to know our triumphs, our dancing will be restored. I have faith that our hope will triumph.

We are the people of hope, who against all odds and expectations, returned to the land that once exiled us. That of course is the meaning of Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah. “Od lo avdah tikvateinu—our hope is not yet lost.” Not in 1945 and not in 2023!

“L’hiyot am chofshi b’artzeinu—to be a free people in our own land.” We are the people who know how to hang on to hope. Don’t ever forget that. And don’t ever forget that now we must also hang on to the unity of the Jewish people.

We will triumph. We will live. And we will once again dance

Have Faith in the Jewish Spirit

The other day I was picking what will probably be the last of my garden’s cherry tomatoes. It was a rather inconsequential harvest. Ten tomatoes. My mind wandered away from what I had hoped to be the restorative power of gardening to a more bountiful harvest in another place and time. I recalled traipsing through the tomato fields of a kibbutz near the Gaza border. Their cherry tomatoes were the best I had ever tasted.

Today, I can no longer savor their sweetness. Kibbutzniks are murdered. On Kibbutz Beeri alone one out of every ten members are dead. Field workers from Thailand and students from Nepal killed as well. In all 1,300 were murdered. 3000 injured. 150 taken hostage. We grieve for the dead. We pray for those injured—and the countless more traumatized. We hope for the hostages’ safe return.

The sheer inhumanity of Hamas is difficult to comprehend. The terrorists’ barbarity is indescribable…

This post continues on The Times of Israel.  

Dancing Heals the Soul

This Friday evening, we will celebrate the joyous holiday of Simhat Torah when we mark the conclusion of the Torah reading cycle and then its immediate beginning. We chant the last verses of Deuteronomy and the first verses of Genesis.

The cycle never stops. As soon as we conclude the reading, we begin it again. Torah defines our lives. It encircles our year.

And so, it is our custom to unroll the entire scroll around the sanctuary. It is an extraordinary site and one not to be missed. We are reminded that Torah defines us. We behold how Torah encircles us.

This holiday is also marked by additional music and song, celebration and dancing. Allow me to focus on dancing.

Everyone can grab the opportunity to dance on Simhat Torah. Everyone can grab hold of the Torah and start moving their feet. The hakafah, the circling of the sanctuary and dancing with the scrolls, can offer us much needed strength for the year ahead.

And yet, I wonder why people are often reticent to dance. We should take to heart the words of the Hasidic master, Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav. He said: “Get into the habit of dancing. It will displace depression and hardship.”

This is certainly what I believe. I admit. Sometimes it might appear that I have shpilkes on the bima. But my feet are moved by our tradition’s prayers. The music and songs overtake my legs. This is why I can often be found on the dance floor at the many simchas I am privileged to attend.

The joy overtakes me. It commands my feet to move. Rejoicing overwhelms my being.

Take this to heart. Dancing cures most ailments of the soul.

Get into the habit of dancing!

This Beautiful, Fragile Earth

The Hebrew month of Tishrei offers a flurry of holidays that come one right after another. It begins with Rosh Hashanah. This is soon followed by Yom Kippur. Tomorrow evening begins Sukkot and then a week later Simhat Torah. There is no rest from our celebrations.

On the High Holidays we spend our days in synagogue recounting our wrongs, apologizing to friends and family, and seeking to better ourselves. The faith that we can correct our failings is paramount to these days. It may not be easy, but it is possible.

This effort of bettering ourselves does not conclude with Yom Kippur. It is ongoing. And yet these holidays restore our hope that change is possible, and repair can be achieved. We leave these services with our faith in God not only restored but also in ourselves. We can do better.

And then, a few days later, we enter the sukkah. Whereas Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are inner directed, Sukkot turns our hearts outward. We are commanded to spend as much time as possible in these temporary booths unless of course it is raining. The joy of the holiday takes precedence over “dwelling in the sukkah” and so if the weather becomes intolerable, we eat dinner in our homes.

The High Holidays helps to restore our faith that we can control some aspects of our lives, that how we behave towards others is within our grasp. Sukkot, on the other hand, reminds us that life can be as fragile, and unpredictable, as the weather and these temporary booths in which we are directed to live.

Whether or not our sukkah will withstand the winds and rains is always a question. Whether we will be able to eat every dinner, or spend any late night, in the sukkah is anyone’s guess. (The weather app is not always right!) Life can be as unsettling as the weather. Life can be as delicate as this flimsy booth.

Sukkot is a reminder of life’s fragility. It is also a reminder that we are dependent on the earth. On Yom Kippur we spent hours and hours praying and singing, learning and celebrating in the comfort of our synagogue, and homes, that keeps the rain out (most of the time!), now our Sukkot holiday celebration is entirely dependent on the earth.

We do not know what is in store for us in the coming week.

And so, what are we to do?

Celebrate the gift of this holiday. Rejoice with family and friends. Take in the beautiful, full moon that will peer through the sukkah’s flimsy roof. And try as hard as we can to give thanks for the rain that nurtures the earth.

Rejoice in the gift, and fragility, of our beautiful earth.

Grieving for Friends

What follows is my meditation from the Yom Kippur Yizkor memorial service and the lessons I am learning from grieving for my friend Todd.

The Jewish tradition obligates us to mourn for these relations: parent, spouse, sibling and child. It demands that we recite Kaddish when we lose our mother or father, husband or wife, sister or brother, son or daughter. This is not a statement about how one feels. Whether we talk to our parent every day, or the relationship is fraught with tension Judaism says, “Mourn. Recite Kaddish.”

Obligation is the path our tradition offers us through the valley of the shadow of death. It is as if to say, when you feel lost, when you don’t know what else to do, hold on to these well-worn rungs to lift you forward. This sentiment is so strongly felt that some refuse to attend this Yizkor service if they are not obligated to mourn.

In January, I lost my friend. His death at the age of fifty-two remains a shock with which I still struggle. Todd and I shared many hours together, riding our bikes, running the trails or swimming in the sound. And so, when he died, I discovered that I did not know what to do. The mitzvah was gone. The road that I had offered others, the path that I explained to so many as offering a ladder to which to hold, was absent. I have spent the better part of these months contemplating the gap between these overwhelming and bewildering feelings of loss and the succinct and clear obligation to mourn. I grieve, but the path belongs to others.

I know many have lost loved ones this past year. I have seen your grief. I know as well that many have likewise lost friends. I have seen your tears at these funerals. I have seen you cry, and your nods, when the obligated child stands to mourn the parent who is the friend with whom you shared so many occasions. I have witnessed you struggle to hold the mourners in your arms even though your tears burn your cheeks. The tradition does not command us, “Say Kaddish.” Of course, we can. Of course, we can choose to obligate ourselves. I do not make much of the superstitions that suggest otherwise.

And yet I am left wondering. What if the obligation offers rescue? What if that path of commandment and observance offers at least guideposts along this long, tortured journey. They do not heal the pain. They do not explain the loss. They offer instructions when it is so unclear what to do.

Judaism organizes our lives around obligation. My heart is wrapped up in feelings.

And yet I know of no way forward but the prescribed path. I understand no journey without lengthy to do lists. “Leave a stone. Say Kaddish.” The heart will be assuaged. The hurt continues. At least now the hand and the mouth have their instructions. And they might serve as a balm to the grieving heart.

Say Kaddish. Leave a stone.

Standing with Israeli Protestors

What follows is my Yom Kippur morning sermon.

Fifty years ago, the armies of Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israeli forces in the Sinai desert and Golan Heights. It was on this very day of Yom Kippur in 1973. Israel suffered terrible losses especially in those initial days. American Jews awakened to war. Rabbis hurriedly adjusted their Yom Kippur messages. Israeli soldiers on the front lines were ordered to break their fasts. Reservists’ names were read from the pulpit. In one synagogue, a young man stood when his name was called. His father embraced him and refused to let go. The rabbi descended from the bima and quietly said, “My friend, your son’s place is not here on this holy day.”

I recall my parents’ worry. I did not share their concern. At the age of nine I had already imbibed the legends of Israel’s bravado and its Six Day War success. I did not understand their fear. From day one I had confidence that Israel would be victorious in the face of even unimaginable odds. It was led by Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan after all. I believed Israel would prevail—quickly and decisively. The war lasted for nearly three terrible weeks. In the end, and in part because of an American airlift of supplies, Israel pushed the Egyptians beyond the Suez Canal and the Syrians from the Golan. Nearly 2700 Israelis were killed and over 7000 injured. The Egyptian and Syrian war dead were estimated in the tens of thousands. Our enemies attacked us on the holiest day of the year. We, however, persevered.

Or this is how we like to tell the story. This is how we like to hear the tale…

This post continues on The Times of Israel.

Gates Are Meant To Be Opened

What follows is my Yom Kippur evening sermon.

One of the highlights of visiting Israel is visiting Jerusalem. And one of the highlights of visiting Jerusalem is visiting the Old City. It never gets old, so to speak. There you can walk through the thin alleys of the Arab shuk, squeeze past Christian pilgrims going to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher or run ahead of Moslem worshippers rushing to afternoon prayers at the Al Aqsa Mosque. You can grab a fresh squeezed orange juice from a vendor or argue over the price of T-shirts with a hawker. You can wait in line for a falafel, explore the archaeological remains below the city’s streets and along with thousands and thousands of other Jews touch the stones of what remains of the ancient Temple. There, you can place your hands on the Kotel, the Western Wall.

To get to these sites one typically enters the city through Zion Gate. Other times we walk through the busy Jaffa Gate or even through the Dung Gate depending on where the tour bus finds parking. There are actually eight such gates. Dung sits adjacent to the Arab town of Silwan and is where the trash was taken out from the city in ancient times. The path to Jaffee Gate that before 1967 was no man’s land is now lined with a shopping mall. And Zion is still pockmarked with bullet holes from the fierce fighting that occurred there during the 1948 war. I am particularly fond of this gate. It retains its ancient bend so that you cannot walk straight through, and I often have to jockey for position with a car that wants to make its way out.

Long ago this bend served as an added defense against invaders. Just as the cars cannot speed through the gate so too foot soldiers had difficulties running straight through. This bend is also reminiscent of the judicial benches built into the gates in ancient times. It is where people took their cases and judges sat, rendering judgements. It is a common biblical motif and one that is taken up by many of our prophets. Amos shouts: “Hate evil and love good,/ And establish justice in the gate.” (Amos 5) He meant this literally. Judgement sits at the edges. Justice stands at the periphery.

I have been thinking about gates and the space they occupy in our lives. They are the boundary between us and them, between our perceptions of safety and danger. They are the liminal passageway through which we render daily judgments about what is ok and what is not. We organize our lives around such gates.

In the St Louis of my youth, I grew up in a subdivision called Lac du Bois, a fancy sounding French name for Lake of the Woods. Recall that it is not as we say St Louis but “Saint Louis.” Or that the small town in which Lac du Bois is located is not pronounced as we do Creve Coeur, but the French “Creve Coeur.” Later I can tell you the story about the Native American princess and her broken heart for which the town is named, but these days I am thinking about how intimidating those subdivision gates might appear to others. And how all these names, and all this language, makes some insiders and others, outsiders.

There is judgment in a name. There is exclusion in language. Even though the subdivision’s gates were always opened they remained locked to some.

This evening I wish to meditate on the inadvertent gates we too often construct. This is the Yom Kippur confession I offer.

In Jerusalem’s Old City the gates are obvious. In our lives they are hidden to those who sit inside. We need to shine a light on these gates and acknowledge them. Let us dwell on these gates and most especially on those that provide us with unknowing reassurance but to others exclusion.

This all became glaringly apparent to me as I prepared for a wedding this past June. Every wedding is of course different. Every couple is unique and every ceremony joyous, but David and Max’s wedding was unlike any I had officiated at in my thirty plus years of rabbi-ing. David and Max are gay. They are two grooms. It is not that I refused to officiate at gay or lesbian weddings years ago, but no one had asked. No congregant had invited me to do so. I was grateful for the invitation.

We studied the ceremony together. I pored over the tradition’s language that I have nearly memorized. “Mi adir al hakol, mi baruch al hakol… hu y’varech chatan v’kalah—who blesses the groom and bride.” I may have unlatched the gate, but Max and David threw it open. The ceremony’s gates are everywhere. “Hattan v’kalah. Bride and groom.” They appear on nearly every page. Should I say, “reim ha-ahuvim—loving companions” in its place or “hattan v’hattan—groom and groom?” We spoke openly about their meanings. We decided to interchange both terms. What about the vows? The list appeared lengthy. They forgave my gaffe when I, in one of our preparatory meetings, asked, “How many people are in the bridal party?” The language of yesterday is carved in our brains. It does not, however, have to be etched in our hearts. I rejoice in their love. It was a splendid and joyous occasion. Mazel tov David and Max! Thank you for the teachings.

I am left wondering how many locked gates are arrayed before us. How many does our inheritance arrange while we sit unknowing and unaware within its walls? Our language and how we idealize relationships can be doorways to openness or locked gates turning people away. In our traditions’ efforts to make us feel like insiders it may make more people than we realize feel like outsiders.

I am holding on to the symbolism of the huppah. It is open on all sides. We usually explain it this way. The huppah is open to symbolize that a couple’s home should be welcoming to others. It should include not just friends but family. It should most especially be open to the new family each partner is joining. The couple is now one family and no longer two. But perhaps we should see the huppah’s openness in a different manner. It is open to all who wish to sanctify their commitment and love. It has no gates. It offers no judgments!

Reverend Victoria Safford, an author and minister, writes: “Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness…. nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of ‘Everything Is Gonna Be All Right.’ But a different, sometimes lonely place… the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it will be….” Open the gates of hope. Every loving relationship offers promise. Place your faith in hope. Too often we say things like, “That’s not really marriage.” Or “That’s not what God wants.” But how can we be so sure? We shut others out to our own demise. When we close those gates, we banish hope from our own souls.

Back to neighborhoods. Recently I installed a ring doorbell. It’s awesome. I can see when packages are delivered. I can get notified when someone is at my door, even when I am not home. I did not know about another one of its features called “Neighbor,” but it confirmed my love-hate relationship with technology. Before I figured out how to turn these Neighbor notifications off, I was receiving frequent alerts that said for example, “Man carrying plastic bag and when I didn’t answer he tried to enter my backyard. He lurked around my house for about 45 minutes.” Or the following, “Man carrying green bag and smoking and walking into yards and snooping around property.” Everyone is suspect.

Keep the doors locked. Scan the property for anyone who does not look like us. Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to critique the need for us to have security or ignore the frightening increase in antisemitism, or the daily occurrences of violent gun attacks in our country, or to suggest if you are home alone that you should fling the door open to a stranger, but not everyone on the other side of the camera or the other side of the gate is dangerous. We are so worried about letting the wrong people in that we may be keeping the right people out. Just because they are on the outside does not mean they do not belong on the inside. Just because they are on the other side of our gates does not mean they are a threat, and that we should not welcome them in. The Torah is clear: “Love the stranger. V’ahvtem et ha-ger.” (Deuteronomy 10) And who is the stranger? It is the person who we feel is distant but stands right nearby. It is the person who sits just outside those gates. That is why judges sat at the edges of the city. We echo the prophets and affirm their message. How we respond to those on the periphery is a measure of our righteousness.

We have erected filters, whether they are the tradition’s eyes or technology’s cameras, through which we look out into the world. Take down those gates. We should caricature less. We should judge far less frequently. If we would take the time to sit across the table from others who are not yet friends, we might fill our hearts with hopefulness. And I am certain our souls will respond with gratitude. They will shout words of thanks.

A story. A few years ago, when traveling with Ari in Laos (I know not your typical rabbinic field trip), Ari convinced me not only to meet him in Laos but I also that we should sign up for a hike through the jungle. The destination for the hike was a remote Hmong village. I was quite trepidatious. I offered up many roadblocks before saying yes to the hike. I had a multitude of worries, chief among them the availability of gluten free food in the jungle. Ari opened the gate, and we walked through. Soon after the start of the hike, another traveler heard Ari’s unmistakable Long Island accent and asked, “Where on Long Island are you from?” We answered, “Huntington.” Turns out Rob grew up in Huntington and had just moved to of all places, Missouri. A friendship with Rob and his partner Melissa was born. Nowhere in our planning did we imagine the following, “Go to Laos, hike the jungle, discover a fellow Long Islander and become longtime friends.” I almost did not go! The gate is opened. Serendipity walks through. The soul is renewed.

When we open those gates, venture beyond their edges, and push past our fears, we encounter the unexpected. We welcome renewal. Too often fear stands in our way. It need not rule our souls. We forget. Gates are meant to be opened!

On this Yom Kippur let us open the gates. On this day when we seek to better ourselves, and when we recount most especially our frequent misuse of words, let us acknowledge those hurtful comments and inopportune phrases we too often utter. Let us work to throw these gates of “You don’t belong here” and “That’s not what marriage is meant to be” open. These gates exclude some we are meant to include. These bolted doors offer judgment where understanding and compassion will better serve not only others but us as well. We are very good at using these gates to keep others out. We are very good at using language to exclude people. We say things like, “That’s forbidden. This is not your place.” Or “Get off my property. They make me uncomfortable.”

Too often we think gates are only meant to be closed. We think they are all about protecting us. They are meant to be opened. They are intended to be invitations for welcome. Open the gates to the unexpected. Serendipity restores the soul. Hope is burnished by compassion.

A community is a hodgepodge of differences. Let’s sit like the judges of yesteryear at the periphery. Rather than offer their judgements let’s wave people in. Let us embrace others even if they don’t always look like us, or talk like us, or think like us, or act like us.

Soon we will be celebrating the holiday of Sukkot when we are supposed to welcome everyone into these temporary booths. The sukkah has no doors. Its walls, and its flimsy roof through which we must be able to see the stars, must all have a temporary quality. This temporariness enhances the sukkah’s openness. Its feel is akin to a tent. The sukkah cannot be so strong so as to be able to withstand a storm. When it rains, we are commanded to leave the sukkah and go inside to our house. The sukkah is too open to stand up against bad weather. Without doors and sturdy walls, without a roof that keeps the rain out, things do feel flimsy. Openness feels threatening. And so, what do we do? We bolt our doors. We erect formidable defenses, some in plain sight and others not even seen by ourselves.

We turn our focus on these locks and these gates. We soon forget how to open them. We forget even how to unlock them. We lose sight of how to invite others in. We look only within and only without through lenses and peep holes. Our vision narrows. We lose sight of those who sit on the edges. How do we now unlock the gates? How can we embrace the openness of the sukkah and not lose faith because of its apparent flimsiness?

Back to Jerusalem. “Rabbi Elazar said: Since the day the Temple was destroyed the gates of prayer are locked and prayer is not accepted as it once was. Yet even though these gates of prayer are locked, the gates of tears are never locked. One who cries before God may rest assured that these prayers will always be answered.” (Babylonian Talmud Brachot 32b) Tears open the gates if only we can hear them, if only we can see the pain that sits nearby.

Hear the cry of our forefather. I imagine that when Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah, on the very spot where the Temple once stood and below which we can now touch the Western Wall’s stones, Isaac shed tears as he looked up at his father who was clutching the knife, lifted up above his neck ready to sacrifice him. Abraham was so zealous in his pursuit of what he believed to be God’s command that the angel had to shout his name twice to stay his hand. “Avraham! Avraham!—Abraham! Abraham!” Finally, Abraham looks up from his son and saw the ram which he then sacrificed in place of Isaac. Perhaps this was God’s intention from the very beginning. Isaac represents the hope and promise of the future. How could God want Abraham to sacrifice his son? If you don’t look, if you don’t open the gates of hope, you cannot really see. After slaughtering the ram, Abraham names the place, “Adonai yay-ra-eh—God sees.” (Genesis 22) Too often we are like that zealous Abraham slamming those gates shut, unwilling to see the person standing nearby and unable to see the tears before us. We close the door to hope.

If we do not see the person standing on the periphery, then we too are likewise blinded by what we believe. If we do not see the gates that bar others from feeling welcome, then we are just as zealous. How do we help to make these gates more visible so that we can unlock them? How can we no longer be blinded by zealousness? There is only one answer. And that is to sit with others and listen. It is to learn how others feel. It is to imagine how our words might sound to their ears. It is to open with compassion and invitation rather than exclusion and judgment.

According to tradition when the messiah comes to rescue the world the mashiach will come first to Jerusalem and begin the messianic redemption in the Old City. And through which of Jerusalem’s eight gates will the messiah enter the city? Shaar HaRachamim—the gate of compassion. Here is the funny thing about that gate. Today that gate is literally blocked up. It is filled with stones from floor to ceiling, all cemented together. The gate of compassion is sealed shut.

That seems the perfect metaphor for our age. We spend so much time erecting gates in our effort to keep others out, or to say people don’t belong, rather than the few moments it takes to unlatch them. Gates are meant to be opened.

The one gate that can unlock hope is blocked. The gate of compassion beckons if we but unlatch it. We are called not to judge. We are asked to welcome and invite. Only then will the messiah enter. Only then will redemption occur. Only then will hope return to our hearts.

Be Honest with Yourself

A story about Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, the eighteen century Hasidic master.

Rabbi Levi Yitchak was once walking down the street on his way to Yom Kippur services. On this day we are commanded to fast and seek repentance. He happened upon an acquaintance who was enjoying a hearty morning breakfast.

“My son,” the rabbi said softly, “Have you forgotten that today is the Yom Kippur fast?” The man shook his head, smiled, and said, “No. I have not forgotten at all.” Levi Yitzchak hesitated for a moment and responded, “I see. And I assume then that you have a weak heart or must be worried your fasting will be harmful to your health.”

The acquaintance quickly assured the rabbi that this was far from the case and said, “I am in excellent health. My heart is strong.” Hearing this response, Levi Yitzchak didn’t shout or rebuke his friend or even storm away in anger. He did not even show disappointment.

Instead, the rabbi beamed with joy and shouted toward heaven. “Master of the universe! Look how righteous are your people! This Jew here, even though he is not fasting, is so good at heart that he refuses to lie about it.”

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak saw the good instead of the bad. Rather than focusing on the negative, he saw the positive. Let us likewise see the positive in others.

And let us likewise take an honest accounting of our own souls. The Yom Kippur fast is a means to an end. It points us in the direction of bettering ourselves and improving our relationships.

This begins with an honest accounting of our own lives.

Rebalancing Our Lives

What follows is my Rosh Hashanah morning sermon.

Let me begin with two personal stories.

This August Susie and I celebrated our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. And I share this not so that you can offer us mazel tovs and congratulations—although, thank you very much—but instead as an illustration. We celebrated not with gifts—despite last year’s sermon, but with the loving embrace of family and of course with the requisite Facebook and Instagram posts. Given that I am married to Susie—and of course tagged her in these photos—my posts received hundreds and hundreds of likes and comments. For a very brief moment, I felt like the center of the universe and as if the world revolved around us.

I am thinking of Simcha Bunim, the Hasidic legend, who said, “Carry in one pocket the saying, ‘For my sake was the world created.’”

Story number two. In June, a friend invited me to sail from Bermuda to New York after he raced his boat to the island in the biannual Marion-Bermuda race. I admit. I provided far more conversational know-how than sailing expertise to Robert and his fellow sailors. I also admit I had little notion of what I had signed up for. Until a few weeks before I never even looked at a map to discover that Bermuda sits all by itself way out there in the Atlantic over 700 miles from home. As we left Bermuda the experienced sailors went over the safety procedures: how to wear the safety harness, how to clip yourself to the deck, how to inflate the life raft (make sure it is tied to the boat before pulling the inflation cord) and other such details. After a few minutes of this talk, I said, “Worst case scenario the Coast Guard will come and rescue us.” And they responded, “Those Coast Guard helicopters can only go 150 miles from the coast—hence the name Coast Guard. We are on our own out here. It is just us and this big ocean. If we have to abandon ship,” they said, “we are on that raft until another boat responds to our distress call, changes course and picks us up.”

As the sun set, Bermuda faded in the distance. In the course of five days, there were moments of sheer terror when in the middle of the night twelve-foot waves crashed over the boat, rain pelted us from every direction and lightning struck all around us. And there were other moments of pure delight when the boat seemed to sail almost effortlessly. I thought then of ancient voyagers for whom this was the only mode of travel. I imagined my hero Yehudah Halevi’s journey from his native Spain to the land of Israel in 1140. He writes: “The sea is the color of the sky—they are two seas bound together. And between these two, my heart is a third sea, as the new waves of my praise surge on high.” (The Poet Imagines His Voyage) As my heart, as well as my stomach, surged, I gained a newfound appreciation for our ancestors who endured untold difficulties to reach the promised land or for my grandparents who suffered in steerage to reach our country’s shores.

And finally, there were moments of absolute wonderment and awe. We were alone and at one with the sea. We saw two other boats, and they were cargo ships, until sighting Montauk. Even though the ocean is ferocious it is also so vast and oh, so extraordinarily beautiful. It was just ocean and sky. The waves give voice to more poems. Pablo Neruda, the 1971 Nobel Prize winner, writes: “I need the sea because it teaches me./ I don’t know if I learn music or awareness,/ if it’s a single wave or its vast existence,/ or only its harsh voice or its shining suggestion of fishes and ships./ The fact is that until I fall asleep,/ in some magnetic way I move in/ the university of the waves.” (The Sea)

Simcha Bunim again. He says, “Carry in the other pocket the saying, ‘I am only dust and ashes.’” And it is this pocket about which I want to dwell this morning for that is the feelings I discovered on that sailboat.

My question is how do we inculcate such feelings of wonderment and awe without going to sea? How do we instill in our hearts an appreciation of the vastness and grandeur of this world? How do we train our souls to feel that our earth is beautiful and precious, fragile and majestic? How do we create these feelings of awe? In terms of the balancing act between the two pockets of which Simcha Bunim speaks I think we are doing a really, really good job of creating this feeling that the world was created for me and not such a good job of teaching I am only dust and ashes. You don’t have to be married to Susie to garner hundreds of likes. Anyone can do it. Just ask my students. You should not have to go on a sailing adventure, and throw up over the rail, to figure out that the world is awesomely vast, and I am so very, very small. (That’s not a height joke.)

So here are the lessons I learned from the university of the waves. I offer three simple suggestions for how to rebalance our lives and rediscover I am only dust and ashes. #1. Go explore the natural world. Get out there. Find your path to nature. It’s simple. Join us on our synagogue’s seasonal hikes at Sagamore Hill. These are not challenging hikes, but they are nearby and there’s plenty there to take in. There is the beautiful Long Island Sound. It is different every season. No matter how many times I walk that sandy trail to the water’s edge it is never the same. It could be high tide or low. The water can reach the bottom of the wooden bridge or not. Teddy Roosevelt loved the natural world and left us this gift right here in our own backyard.

Go and visit any one of our country’s extraordinary national parks. They are an unbelievable treasure, and they are indescribably awesome. This summer I ventured to Utah and went to Zion and Arches national parks. At Zion it is as if God painted different hues of red, orange, yellow and gold on the canyons’ walls and at Arches chiseled perfect stone canopies under which to find shade. I was flabbergasted by these parks’ beauty and grandeur. Take your children there. Nature offers a new discovery every single day if we but open our eyes to it. Or if we open our ears to it. Open your windows. Listen to the sounds of insects after the sun just sets, how the night comes alive with noise. Take in the chirping of birds as the sun begins to rise and a new day begins.

Too often we view nature as something to be conquered or tamed. Think about the language we use. If you love to mountain bike, then it is high praise to say, shredding the trail. If you are skier, then it is positive to say that you are tearing up the slope. Even our language does violence to the earth. Don’t get me wrong. I love my sports. I love your sports. (And apologies to the many golfers among us, but those poor little birdies you keep hitting.) I think such sports are great, especially those that bring us out into our world. But let’s pause and think about how we interact with the world. Too often our words are about how we control nature and how we successfully use it for our enjoyment and our accomplishments. We say things such as, “You crushed it. I killed it.” That’s not how we should be thinking about the earth.

Back to the university. The thing about sailing is that the wind often determines the path. We cannot always carve it the way we want. I exclaim with the Psalmist: “Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult; let the sea and all within it thunder, the fields and everything in them exult; then shall all the trees of the forest shout for joy.” (Psalm 96) The earth shouts for joy each and every day if we but listen, if we but stop and look. Go, explore the natural world. It is teeming with life. It is overflowing with joy. It is waiting to be discovered. Slow down. Listen. Look. Tear up less. Take in more. Find your path to nature.

Suggestion #2. Reclaim Shabbat as a moment to be at one with nature. Too often we think that Shabbat is only what we do here in the synagogue. It is the prayers that we sing. It is about the services. Or it is about the foods that we eat. Love that hallah. And especially love that wine. Shabbat is more importantly about our connection with nature. According to the Torah it is the day that God rested from making everything. Listen to the Bible’s words. “The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. On the seventh day God finished the work that had been undertaken: God ceased on the seventh day from doing any of the work.” Vayakhulu hashamayim v’haaretz. (Genesis 2) There is a sense that God not only rested on that first Shabbat but looked back at the work of the prior six days. Shabbat is an opportunity to take in God’s artistry—not ours. We are to breathe in the majesty of this day. We are to be at one with nature. We need to reclaim Shabbat for Reform Jews. Let us not think of it as a litany of forbidden don’ts but instead as an affirmation of nature.

Speaking of those don’ts the best part of the tradition’s prohibition against driving is the insistence on walking. I know it is impractical and I am not planning on walking from Huntington to our synagogue, but there is something about walking as opposed to driving. When we walk, we become better aware of our surroundings. The drive is about getting from point A to point B in the quickest and most efficient way. It is about not getting stuck in traffic or delayed at a light. The drive is harried and rushed. There is so much to do, so many tasks to squeeze into a Saturday. I have to get to the market, get this child to soccer practice and then another to the bat mitzvah party. There’s no time.

The walk is slow and refreshing. Even on my runs I am plagued by monitoring my pace and bettering my effort from my previous attempts. The walk is the antidote to this plague. Think about this. That Hannah Senesh song that our cantor sings so beautifully, “Eli Eli—my God, my God, I pray that these things never end. The sand and the sea. The rush of the waters. The crash of the heavens. The prayer of humanity.” is not really called “Eli, Eli,” but instead “Halichah L’Kasariya—A Walk to Caesarea.” It is not about so much about God but instead about discovering God in nature and in particular on the beach when going for a walk heading to a destination. It is about the unintended discovery of God when setting out for somewhere else. The intention of her walk appears to be to get somewhere. And then the serendipity of a poem appears. And there Senesh found not just God but the intimate “my God—Eli.”

Carve out a moment on Shabbat. It is impossible to imagine that we can do this every day in our busy lives. But at least one day a week, go for a walk—with family or by yourself. Leave the phone at home or if you must because you view it as a necessary safety device, turn it on airplane mode.

And this brings me to suggestion #3. Not so long-ago airplane mode actually meant a respite from emails, text messages and the incessant notifications on our phones but now there is Wi-Fi at 30,000 feet and it’s free on many flights. And this was perhaps the greatest lesson from my sailing adventure and the university I attended for those five days. In the middle of the ocean there is no cell service. It is kind of like that spot on Northern Boulevard at the bottom of the hill in Laurel Hollow except much bigger and lasting not minutes but days. Guess what. The synagogue managed without my constant communication. My family survived without my daily “I love you’s.” and I without theirs. My friends organized bike rides without me.

And more importantly, I survived and managed without knowing up to date news alerts about Israel or Ukraine, the White House or Mar-a Lago. I survived without seeing Shira’s or Ari’s latest Instagram posts or without knowing which East African country Ari was in at that moment. I managed—and my home managed—without being able to check the many Wi-Fi enabled devices I have installed. Of course, we had a satellite phone for emergencies, but thankfully there was no such need. The funny thing is that when you are hundreds of miles out of cellphone range, a lot less seems like an emergency. Our phones make everything appear like an emergency. A friend looks up from her phone and exclaims, “Did you know that Bonnie is on a cruise?” I look up from my phone in the middle of dinner and shout, “Oh my God, they’re forecasting heavy rains for tomorrow.”

On the sailboat, it was only the big, blue ocean and us. It was only the wind and the waves, the sun or the clouds, the moon or the stars and six small human beings on a boat that appeared ever smaller as the days progressed. Technology is pushing us away from nature just when the world desperately needs us to get more acquainted with it. There are many answers to this summer’s climate shocks and what we might do to lessen climate change, but they all begin in the same place. Become more attuned to the natural world. And that starts in the simplest of places, disconnecting from our phones and unplugging from technology. Very little of what we think is an emergency is really an emergency.

People believe the internet expands our horizons but in actuality it shrinks our circle down to the self. I have seen my students sit around a table in silence as they all stare into their screens. They are present but not really. One day this past year my students were hanging out before class started and taking pictures of themselves and I thought they were taking so many pictures. And so, I asked, “Is there ever a day when you don’t take a picture of yourself.” The look I received in response told it all. They thought it was the strangest question they have ever heard. In unison, and while still swiping through their pictures to see which was the most flattering of themselves, they responded, “No.” This struck me as a revelation. I was dumfounded. They take hundreds of pictures of themselves every day! I remain bewildered.

Again, we are doing a really good job at “For my sake was the world created” and a poor job, if any job at all, of teaching “I am only dust and ashes. Thus suggestion #3. Disconnect from technology even if only for an hour-long walk. Let me be honest. I am preaching to myself just as much as to others. This is a plea to own soul as well as to others. I am attached to my phone. It lives by my side. It connects me to a son who lives in a far-off country, to parents who live in a distant city, a brother who lives a plane ride away and every one of you. And yet it also interferes with becoming attuned with the natural world. It is a distraction when we should become more immersed with the outdoors. Mary Oliver, the incomparable poet of the natural world, who died only a few years ago, teaches that attention is the beginning of devotion. She writes: “Teach the children. We don’t matter so much but the children do… Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms. Attention is the beginning of devotion.” (Upstream)

We think we can master our lives. We devote ourselves to establishing routines. We organize our days around detailed schedules. We believe nature can be controlled or perhaps harnessed or that technology will rescue us from the damage we are inflicting on our planet. Instead, we need to take a step back and start at square one. We need to become attuned to the natural world. I should not have had to go to sea to figure this all out. I should not have to travel to the West’s national parks to discover this. Beauty and grandeur are right here in our backyards. Attention is the beginning of devotion.

I don’t have it all figured out, but I can say that this summer has been clarifying. I did not set sail expecting these discoveries. I did not hike the trails of Zion and Arches National Parks expecting to gain an even greater appreciation of my own backyard garden. This summer blessed me with these adventures. I sailed. I walked. I have changed. We need to let go of technology a little more. We need to reclaim Shabbat if but momentarily. We need explore the natural world and become attentive to its rhythms. I am but a tiny speck in our vast and embattled world.

Rabbi Simcha Bunim teaches: Every person should have two pockets. In one pocket should be a piece of paper saying: "For my sake was the world created.” When one is feeling disheartened and lowly, reach into this pocket and take out this paper and read it. In the other pocket should be a piece of paper saying: "I am only dust and ashes." When one is feeling too proud, reach into this pocket and take out this paper and read it. (Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim Later Masters)

For years I thought this teaching was about achieving the proper balance between it’s all about me and it’s all about the world. These days I am thinking we are out of whack, and we need to rebalance ourselves. While I am all for self-confidence and building up self-esteem, we have to expand our horizon of concern to the very trees that give us life and the ocean that nurtures us. The answer is to get out there and experience this world. Let us instill in our hearts a love for the natural world.

Say less “For my sake was the world created” and more often “I am only dust and ashes.” Our soul depends on it. Our world depends on it.

New Beginnings

Jimmy Buffett once said, “I’m not the best singer.  I’m not the best guitarist.  But I’m the best Jimmy Buffett.”

On the High Holidays we reflect on the memories of those we mourn.  We not only dwell on the lessons they offered us but on working to become the best versions of ourselves.  We improve our lives by refining our character.   How can we do better?   

We begin by approaching others. We offer apologies to those we have wronged.  We grant forgiveness to those who have slighted us.

No one is completely righteous.  And no one is wholly evil.  Most of us spend are days hovering around the middle ground, struggling to accumulate more good deeds than bad. 

We say, “I am in such a rush!  I am not letting another car in front of me.”  Other times, we wave another driver on to the busy road.  There are times when we embrace family we have not seen in years.  And then moments when we get angry with loved ones.   There are times when we are short tempered.  And then others when we offer a kind word to a stranger. 

Our days are filled with countless ordinary acts.  Some are generous.  Others, we realize upon reflection, are short sighted and ill advised.  To be human is a gift and a struggle.  We exist in companionship with others.  Sometimes we are kind.  Other times we cannot summon the strength that kindness seems to demand.

Rosh Hashanah is the corrective to this demand.  It does not wipe the slate clean, but it does offer an opportunity to reflect and ask, “How can I do better?  Where have I failed?  How might I realize my God-given potential?  How might I bring an extra measure of happiness and joy, kindness and generosity to this world of ours?” 

Rosh Hashanah offers an opportunity to change. 

Everyone can do better.

These High Holidays celebrate the potential for new beginnings.

Jimmy Buffett again.   “Don't try to explain it, just bow your head/ Breathe in, breathe out, move on.”

Hidden Goodness

There is a legend about thirty-six righteous individuals who are so extraordinarily good and noble that the world is sustained by their deeds and by their deeds alone. They are called the Lamed Vavniks (the Hebrew letters lamed and vav add up to thirty-six). Crucial to this legend is the fact that their identities must always remain obscured. If but one of their names is revealed, another must take his (or her) place. Otherwise, the world might teeter and even collapse.

It is fascinating to contemplate that our well-being is placed in the hands of a few righteous individuals. Even more significant is the fact that their identities must remain concealed. Why is it so important that the Lamed Vavniks’ names remain hidden? Why is it so crucial that no one can know who they are?

It is because the world requires hidden sparks of goodness.

Doing good should not be predicated on recognition or reward but instead on the needs of others, on the requirements of the world at large. That is the message of the Lamed Vavniks. They do good for one reason and one reason alone. The world needs it. Their recognition is insignificant. Their reward remains in God’s hands. The Torah teaches: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God.” (Deuteronomy 29)

The Hasidic rebbe, Menahem Mendle of Kotzk opines: “The world thinks that a tzaddik nistar—a hidden righteous person—is a person who conceals his (or her) righteousness and his (or her) good deeds from others. The truth, however, is that a tzaddik nistar is one whose righteousness is hidden and concealed from him (or herself), and who has no idea whatsoever that he (or she) is righteous.”

How different the world might be if good was so ordinary that even the doer remained unaware of its goodness.

How extraordinary the world might become if recognition and reward were not part of our motivation or calculus but instead doing righteous deeds.