From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life
Summary: Bringing weekly Jewish insights into your life. Join Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz, Rabbi Michelle Robinson and Rav-Hazzan Aliza Berger of Temple Emanuel in Newton, MA as they share modern ancient wisdom.
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- Artist: Temple Emanuel in Newton
- Copyright: Temple Emanuel in Newton
Podcasts:
February 12, 2022
Robert Leikind, the Regional Director of AJC New England, brought us a special sermon on a recent Amnesty International report and and shared what we, individually, and we as a community, can do to support our beloved Eretz Yisrael.
February 5, 2022
January 29, 2022
January 29, 2022
How do you process a world in which doing the right thing, the kind thing, opening your doors and offering warmth and tea to someone in need, could result in someone holding a gun to your head and taking you hostage? How do you process a world in which synagogues around the country go through security trainings about evading shooters and deescalating terrorist attacks as a matter of course? A world in which our kids are so accustomed to active shooter drills, and so inured to the possibility of sudden violence, that they take news of this trauma in stride. They are not shocked. And how do you process a world in which someone could decide to fly across the world to find Jews to use as pawns for his hateful aim? A world in which someone is so stewed in antisemitic tropes that he believes that Jews run the world and would be able to pull some strings to make his hateful wish come true? How do you process a world in which Jews, who constitute less than 2% of the population in this country, are victim to almost 60% of religiously motivated hate crimes, according to the FBI? And how do you process the fact that our FBI, which produced the report on religiously motivated hate crimes, refused to acknowledge that the hostage situation was an act of antisemitism until Thursday, calling it instead a “terrorism-related matter”? For us, this was not unique. But it was uniquely heartbreaking.
January 22, 2022
Last Saturday night Shira and I had friends over for dinner, a lovely couple we had come to know after Shira had met the wife on a CJP mission to Israel. They walked through our front door bearing gifts. A lovely bouquet of flowers. Very nice. And then something else. Something we had never before received from any guest ever. The husband walked into our living room and presented me with this: a collection of gorgeously bound, all Hebrew, very religious looking, books, a five-volume set, the kind of books one would find in a yeshivah.
January 15, 2022
From March 13th, 2021.
For the last thirty-one years, until last year, January 6 had been tied for the very best day in our family’s calendar. Thirty-one years ago our son Sam was born on January 6. In addition, the birthday of our beloved colleague Joan Mael is also January 6. For years, before the pandemic, our colleagues would take Joan out to Legal’s for lunch. At home and at work, I just loved January 6. And then came last January 6, and the day obviously became a whole lot more complicated.
January 8, 2022
In 1949, David Schacker’s life was radically transformed. Up until that point, he had been a healthy, bright-eyed, 10-year-old boy who loved running and playing tennis. He had the kind of raw talent that promised opportunity. Everyone knew he would get an athletic scholarship somewhere fabulous and looked forward to watching him succeed. But that dream was not to be. At ten, Schacker was diagnosed with Polio. Instead of running outside and playing tennis, he spent the year cooped up in St Giles hospital in physiotherapy and treatment.
Please enjoy this Shabbat Sermon with our wonderful Rabbi Michelle Robinson!
Adam Grant, the teacher of organizational psychology at Penn, a noted Ted Talk speaker, and the author of best-selling books, was recently on NPR sharing two very different takes on the phenomenon of being wrong. The first take concerned Adam himself when he was a teen-ager. He and a friend disagreed about a particular song in a Broadway musical. Each thought he was right. Eventually his friend summoned proof that he, the friend, was right. Adam was wrong. Adam could see the proof. Knew the proof was irrefutable. But could not get himself to acknowledge the error of his ways. His friend said: Adam, admit you are wrong. Adam could not bring himself to do it.
