Yesterday, your Temple Emanu-El rabbis had the honor of sitting as a beit din (tribunal) with an individual seeking conversion to Judaism after more than a year of study, prayer, and Jewish communal participation. Judaism has the highest respect for converts (gerim), and I’m often incredibly inspired by their journey. In the course of our conversation, the young man before us shared that he has taken to wearing a kippah…sometimes. “When?” We inquired. “When I feel like I am entering holy time,” he replied. As much as I like the fact that he is experimenting with outward expressions of Judaism, I love that he is conscious of garments that can delineate regular time from that which is meant to be elevated…kaddosh…sacred. Your clergy and lay-leadership are hard at work putting final touches on a very intentional set of High Holiday services. Our hope is that, for you, the optics are smooth and meaningful; but rest assured, we are agonizing over how to deliver selected liturgy and … [Read more...]
Tell Me About the God You DON’T Believe In
Again and again, in meeting with geyrim (candidates for conversion), b’nei mitzvah students, and many, many adult learners, the topic of God is a fraught one. “The God Talk,” as I have come to think of it, usually begins with reading a section of the Torah much like the one in this week’s parasha, Ki Tavo. Ki Tavo lists functions of God that seem unbelievable to most modern Jewish readers. Divine curses are tied with the exact observance of the commandments that affect crop yields, birth rates, climate change, and even plague. We read these verses with cognitive dissonance and say to ourselves, “well, that’s not the God I believe in.” Today, we find ourselves in the midst of one of those curses mentioned in our sacred text, a plague ravaging the globe, but no one (at least no one of sound mind) is saying that COVID-19 is the result of our failure to follow the commandments. So, if God isn’t found in the curses, God must be found somewhere else. “The God Talk” is much easier when we … [Read more...]
What’s on your mind?
I find that at this time of year, when Yom Kippur is beginning to be on our radar, many of us have ‘forgiveness’ on our mind. Usually this is not in the ivory tower of theology, although one could argue that the entirety of Torah is God’s attempt to work through a dysfunctional relationship with human beings. In these days approaching the Days of Awe, for many of us, ‘forgiveness’ is very much in the dirty trenches of what we would call ‘family dysfunction.’ Almost every extended family has some of it. It is messy, and hurtful, and often takes on characteristics of being chronic. The reasons for family dysfunction are in some ways simple: human beings are complicated, and family dynamics are complex. But the longer it goes on, the harder it seems for us to find resolution other than acceptance that this is just ‘how it is.’ Sound familiar? As a rabbi who engages in a good deal of pastoral care, it’s clear to me that hurtful family dynamics are present all year round. However, the … [Read more...]
New Beginnings
After the unique experience of maternity leave under a global pandemic (though I do not know the experience of such leave under any other circumstance), it’s SO nice to be back “in the office.” With just one deep exhalation, that first phone call, and the wheels of creativity are turning again. That first call came from one of our teens: The Questions: “You’re back soon, right? We can get started on planning programs for our new reality, right? We’re still going to have a youth group, right?” The Answers: “Yes, absolutely, and of course.” We went on to talk about how this year will look like no other year in the life of Temple Emanu-El. In dreaming of what will be, I can’t help but parallel the upcoming experience for Temple Emanu-El, to my own life, as I begin this simultaneous journey as a new parent. Perhaps you too have new beginnings in your life, whether it is a new job, a job hunt, a work-and-home-school balance, a new grade level at school, or something entirely off the wall — … [Read more...]
Want a Life of Blessing? The Choice is Yours.
The rabbinic imagination is incredible sometimes. For those of you who have learned Talmud with me, you know that each page of Talmud is as likely to contain pearls of wisdom as fantastical tales of beasts, the Heavens, and the role of human beings. This week we read in our Torah portion the ultimate affirmation of free will and the rabbis take it a step further: See, this day I set before you blessing and curse: blessing, if you obey the commandments of Adonai your God that I enjoin upon you this day; and curse, if you do not obey the commandments of Adonai your God. We are the ones to choose our actions. No one but ourselves can make the right decision. God tells us to choose between blessing or curse. But the rabbis go a step further to say that we can make a new choice every day. In the rabbinic mind, from when we go to sleep to when we wake up, in that time, we enter an entirely new world. The prayer called, “Yotzeir Or,” said in the morning just before Shema, affirms this: In … [Read more...]
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