There are various collections of vignettes that Rabbis utilize to prepare themselves for the High Holidays. Like all the good rabbi stories, the one that I’d like to share with you has layers of meaning. As you read this, and digest it, see if you can get below the surface. ‘In the old country (where all these stories seem to take place), the synagogue was packed for Kol Nidre, the night that begins Yom Kippur.  When the pews were filled, and the sun had set, the congregation was ready to begin.  But there was a problem.  The Rabbi was not there. “Can you believe the Rabbi is late,” said one woman. “I hope that he is ok, and that nothing has gone wrong,” said another. Ten minutes, twenty minutes…an hour went by with the congregation waiting, and getting more and more concerned about his well-being. Finally, two of the teenagers who had been sent out to find him came into the shul, brushing winter snow from their coats.  “We found him!” they announced. “Nu?” the … [Read more...]

For the past eight days, I have been in Israel accompanying my first group from Honeymoon Israel. This trip has been an eye-opening experience. Together with seventeen couples from around the Atlanta area, we have traveled from Tel Aviv to the Golan Heights, and now we are ending our trip this Shabbat in the Eternal City, Jerusalem. Every time I come to Israel I enter with new goals, and I leave with a new perspective—this trip is no exception. I was accustomed to the familiar sites: the beaches of Tel Aviv, the natural beauty of the Hula Valley, and the golden stones of Jerusalem. However, nothing could prepare me to see this land through the eyes of this Honeymoon Israel community—most of whom have never been to Israel before. To frame our experience, we opened our first Shabbat in Tel Aviv with a poem by my favorite Israel poet, Yehuda Amichai. His poem, Tourists, describes a tour group in Jerusalem whose guide asks them to focus on the ancient Roman-era artifacts rather than the … [Read more...]

Marita and I recently took a 36 hour mission to the Arizona-Mexico border to see ‘the immigration issue’ with our own eyes. We privately toured with the U.S. Border Patrol, visited with families as they were released from Detention Centers, and spent time in a Detention Center hearing stories that I will never forget. We traveled to Arizona at our own expense because we felt a raw need to know…beyond what the various news coverage might tell us.  We were compelled to witness because issues of immigration are a real-time juxtaposition of ethics, politics, and Jewish values with very real consequences to our identity, and of our collective soul. One of the most famous lines from Torah is spoken by Cain to God after fratricide.  God asks Cain about his (dead) brother Abel, to which Cain famously retorts, “Am I my brother’s keeper”” (Genesis 4:9) From this, our sages pose the questions of who are our brothers and sisters, and who is not?  Can we ‘keep’ everyone like a … [Read more...]

On Shabbat, we begin Rosh Chodesh Elul. The month of Elul is our wake up call that leads us into Rosh HaShanah. It is during this month that the shofar will sound each day in Jewish communities around the world. A unified sound will drift across time zones as people arise, gather, and sound the shofar before the sun goes down. At Temple Emanu-El, if you’d like to hear the sounding of the shofar, you’ll be able to catch it during the days of Elul at 4:00 pm. The special nature of Elul comes from Moses’ second journey up on Mount Sinai to collect the second set of tablets. Moses spends forty days on the mountain top after he broke the first set tablets in a rage when he saw the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf. The date that he went back up is said to have been Rosh Chodesh Elul and that he did not return back to the Israelite people until Yom Kippur—forty days. Like Moses, we are called to engage in deep self-reflection and soul searching in anticipation of our own spiritual … [Read more...]

That was the unofficial title of the Monthly Talmud class that met this past Tuesday. We studied a tragicomic story from the Talmud* about the different ways men and women communicate. The story goes that about 1,500 years ago, a man moves from Babylonia to Land of Israel. The man marries a local woman, and the next thing we read is a request he makes of his new bride to cook him two lentils. So, she did as she was told. She cooked him precisely two lentils. The text says that he seethed with anger at her after this incident. The next day he told her, make me a barrel-full of lentils. So she made him enough lentils to fit in a giant barrel—way more than any single person could possibly eat. The story is a classic case of following someone’s instructions according to their literal meaning. The wife, dutifully doing as her new husband asks, follows his instructions. However, we get a sense that the husband might be talking figuratively and not literally. What transpires next is that the … [Read more...]