From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

August 13, 2022

I have a confession to make. Many of you know that I love fishing—a passion I discovered after I met Solomon. But I haven’t been completely truthful. Because, you see, it’s not just that I love fishing, I particularly love beating Solomon at fishing. Ever since our first fishing trip together, I have always managed to catch more fish and better fish than Solomon. From the beginning, Solomon joked that I had an advantage—that the fish were drawn to a spiritual connection. Every time we would go, Solomon would laugh and tell the crusty old boat hands about his wife, the rabbi, who catches more fish and better fish even though she has only been fishing now for a couple of seasons. But all that changed on our recent trip to Canada. We went out cod fishing out of Lunenberg, Nova Scotia. As usual, we joked about how long it would take me to catch my first fish. But when we sunk those lines into the water, I was in for a surprise. Unlike every other fishing trip, my line was quiet and still. But Solomon was catching fish like there was no tomorrow. Within a short window, he caught enough cod to feed the 12 friends we were visiting that night, and then started offering fish to the families around us who did not have his incredible luck. He quickly became the most popular client on the boat. I quickly became the world’s worst sport. Up until that point, I hadn’t realized how much of my love of fishing had to do with my luck in fishing. Also, up until that point, I hadn’t thought it was luck, really. Somehow, I had convinced myself that I was just a superior huntress, that all the years of knitting and piano had made my fingertips more sensitive, that I had an intuitive sense of the fish. But on that boat in Canada, I employed exactly the same strategies I do on every boat, I was the same person with the same skills and the same track record, but my result was so different. The next day I demanded that we go again.

July 30, 2022

Dr. John Fryer was a man of uncommon brilliance.  As a child, he learned so quickly and completely that his teachers called him a prodigy.  He was just five years old when he started second grade, 15 when he graduated from high school, and 19 when he graduated college and enrolled at Vanderbilt University Medical School where he became one of the youngest students ever to study psychiatry.  He graduated in 1962. Dr. John Fryer was also gay.  Back then, homophobia was codified and enshrined by the medical world and criminalized by law, a legally sanctioned form of hate. It was legal to fire someone or refuse to rent to someone based on their sexual orientation.  It was even legal to arrest someone simply for the “crime” of holding a lover’s hand or for being served alcohol at a gay bar.  Fryer was taunted on the playground and in the classroom, and even in medical school, he found no reprieve.  The foundational diagnostic text used by all psychiatrists, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM, listed homosexuality as a mental illness.  In other words, Fryer was literally taught that the way he felt, who he was attracted to, was a disease. Fryer wanted to be seen and loved for who he was.

Rabbi David Wolpe tells the story of the time that Ralph Waldo Emerson went to church one Sunday morning and was displeased with the minister’s sermon. The minister revealed nothing of his own life story, Emerson complained.  He just talked about ideas and texts. Tell me how your life experience connects with my life experience connects with our life experience. In that spirit, I want to talk about the fact that two weeks ago, on July 3, Shira and I were in Italy for the wedding of our son Nat to his husband Davide. I share this with you not just to talk about the wedding, which was joyful and beautiful, but for a way in which a struggle I had on that day might connect with your own version of a similar struggle. What do I mean?

July 9, 2022

Chaplain, Colonel Larry Bazer shares some special experiences of serving as a full-time National Guard Chaplain in light of Parshat Korah and our nation’s 246th birthday, as well as personal insights regarding the last few challenging years for our country, as he oversaw the National Guard's religious response during the pandemic and the tumult of these last few years.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court struck down a New York law which required citizens to demonstrate “proper cause” to carry a firearm in public.  Yesterday the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.  Next week, the Court will hear West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency and will almost certainly strike down the right of the EPA enact rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions and to fight climate change. Whatever your political affiliation, whomever you voted for in these past elections, we should all be concerned about these decisions.

Do you know what the word dox means—d-o-x? I had never heard of the word before this week. I learned its meaning as our community has encountered something you might have heard of, a website called The Mapping Project of BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction) Boston. The dictionary definition of dox is to publish private or identifying information about a person or organization on the internet with malicious intent. BDS Boston engages in a massive doxing of both Jewish institutions and individuals, including many who are members of our own community. It lists names and addresses of institutions and individuals, while the people responsible for this website refuse to identify themselves. BDS Boston is ostensibly about Israel and Palestinians. But in fact it does not discuss Israel. Does not discuss Palestinians.  BDS Boston is about us, the Jews of Boston. They are not after Israel. They are after us. Cloaking themselves in anonymity, they pursue a double agenda.

This past week in the holy city of Boston, a miracle happened not once but twice. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, Paul McCartney, who is eleven days shy of 80 years old, rocked on at Fenway Park. Fenway was jammed to the rafters, and this 80-year old singer wowed and captivated a full park for two and a half hours. Thirty songs. Did I mention that he is 80? How does an 80-year-old still have the energy, the charisma, the voice to hold that big of an audience for that long? How does a performer continue to perform the same songs that he has been singing, some of them Beatles classics like Can’t Buy Me Love, Hey Jude and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da for 60 years, with fresh energy? Can you do that? Can you do the same thing for 60 years, with fresh energy? Could I give the same sermon for 60 years, with fresh energy? Could you hear my same sermon for 60 years, with fresh energy? How does he do that?

Is self-care (the agenda of summer rest, renewal and relaxation) a Jewish value? Did Jeremiah go swimming? Did Rabbi Akiva go to the beach? Did Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi go off the grid so that he could recharge? Did Elijah ever need “me time”? Jewish sources talk about learning (Talmud) and doing (ma’aseh).  Do Jewish sources value doing neither of those in the interests of recharging? How does our context figure into this question? Since the world, and our country, are in such a challenging place now, is thinking about the next few months as a sanctuary in time where we get to focus on our own healing and our own welfare an abdication—or it is essential for the work that lies ahead?  What Jewish sources speak to this question, and what do they say about this moment?

Shavuot 5782 June 6, 2022

Shabbat Shalom, Everyone! What a morning! I am utterly overwhelmed and so deeply blessed to be a part of this truly special community. As I reflect upon what has been most important to me on this extraordinary journey as an educator, I’d like to share three of the “principles” that have motivated and guided me.  But first, a disclaimer: You may hear things about me that will surprise you. As they say in the commercials, don’t try these at home…or at Religious School!!

For many decades, Rabbi Simon Greenberg would teach his students at the Seminary: Never preach about the binding of Isaac, Genesis 22 , the Torah reading for the second day of Rosh Hashanah. A parent sacrifice his child? Who would do a thing like that? A parent place some principle above the life and health and welfare of their own child? Who would do a thing like that? The whole premise of the binding of Isaac is so unrelatable, Rabbi Greenberg taught, that real people cannot relate to this opaque tale of a parent prepared to sacrifice his own son. Better to not talk about it. I have been thinking about Rabbi Greenberg’s question: Who would do a thing like that? It is now clear that the answer is: we would. Our country would. Our country does. It is now clear that Genesis 22, this opaque tale of a parent prepared to sacrifice his own child, is our current, foundational American story. Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac for his principle, the commanding voice of God. America is prepared to sacrifice our children for the commanding voice of the Second Amendment, and the unfettered right of every American to own a gun, including assault rifles. We know about Columbine, Newtown, Parkland and Uvalde. But the Daily’s discussion of Uvalde taught me something I did not know. 

How do we think about the person whose views are not only different from our own, but antithetical to our own? What they stand for, we stand for the exact opposite. And yet we share a planet, we share a country, we share a community, perhaps we even share a family. They are not changing. We are not changing. They are here. We are here. How do we see this other human being on the other end of a contentious issue in a contentious time?