Authentic, Compassionate Judaism For The Thinking Person

Drawing on the traditional meaning of the Kol Nidrei --"All Vows"-- prayer, plus the Mishnah and Talmudic tractates on the Nidrei (Nedarim: Vows), plus the philosophy of Ritual Drama and the recent psychological studies about Future Selves, Rabbi Caine constructs a vision of what the Yom Kippur experience is supposed to be, a drama of our envisioning our future selves and playing those parts through Tefillah, Tsedakah and Teshuvah that connect to the Nidrei, our New Year's Resolutions.

My Second Day 5784/2023 Rosh Hashanah Sermon explores the New Year's resolution ("neder" as in "Kol Nidrei") in Biblical, Talmudic, and Contemporary Jewish spirituality. What is the one resolution in your life that is "If not now, when?" and what can the Talmud tell us about how to be successful at it?

My Rosh Hashanah 5784/2023 (first day) sermon examines the understanding of God's image as multiple genders in Jewish theology, mysticism, and Rabbinic midrash. What are the implications for transgender, nonbinary, and queer identifications? And equally, what are the implications for the self-understandings of everyday cisgender folk? Using the work of Joy Ladin, Charlotte Fonrobert, and Elliot Wolfson, in addition to classical and mystical Rabbinic sources, Rabbi Caine lays out the urgency of radical inclusion both with each other and with ourselves.

As we begin the journey to High Holidays, I look at Matot the end of the Book of Numbers, where God is fastidiously concerned that we get right our relationship with the God of Judaism and, even deeper, the true God of the Universe.  When these fall short, we are asked through the Biblical spirituality of vows, do we even care about our own word and how we show up in this world?  This is a teaching for approaching the journey of weeks to the High Holidays.

Parashat Beha'alotkha begins with a memo to all the Israelites that doubles down on the top down hierarchy of Aharon and Moshe at the top, and then it continues with a series of amplified grumblings, complaints, and a continuation of the deterioration of the communal project and institution --now one year in-- that Exodus and Leviticus championed.  The crux is that the top down structure operates through directives, orders, and job descriptions, and with each person now operating out of their tent-and-family --unlike before when slavery, Sinai, and mishkan construction were in person collective activities.  It is an apropos description of the change from in-person to remote-work that we have experienced in the last four years, and the insoluble fractures it is causing are not only not resolved, but continue to tear apart the fabric of collective identity for the next several parashiyot in Numbers.  How fitting we are reading this when the top tech companies, who created and sustain remote work, claim they can

The longest parashah of the Torah's is Numbers' Naso, which begins with the theme of the tabernacle of roving ritual performance, like a traveling theater group, and then describes four ritual dramas that take publicly:  the financial penitent, the jealous husband, the addict, and the arrogant prince.  What do these have in common?  Rather than seeing ritual function to impose comformity and social roles, I examine this through the theory of Victor Turner, who posited that rituals actually subvert conventional roles, and in a theatrical way, use fixed theater scrips and actions to subvert them, and you.

The Rabbis are understandably preoccupied with why the Torah was given bemidbar Sinai, in the wilderness of Sinai, rather than in the Land of Israel.  Entire commentary collections are devoted to this one profound fact.  In fact, the fourth book of the Bible, Bemidbar, even means "In the wilderness" and often occurs just before the holiday of Shavuot, where we collectively re-experience the gift of Torah happening in the wilderness.  A teaching developed that the meaning of the Torah being "a gift from the wilderness" means that in order to receive Torah and wisdom in your life you need to "make yourself a wilderness," meaning that you make yourself a holy receptive vessel through becoming a midbar, a wildnerness.  I teach some traditional teachings of practicing that in your own life. 

In this teaching, I note how there are two sorts of social legislation that emerge out of the Holiness Code of Leviticus (as well as other places):  the kind that is aspirational --invitations to become a holy people through holiness of giving, holiness of speech, holiness of conduct, holiness of caring-- and the kind that is deeply uncomfortable structural change -- i.e. so aspirational that you really want to just leave it as "in heaven" (an unreachable ideal).  An excellent example of the latter is the Jubilee Year, or Jubilee Reset, when not only does the Land receive extra ecological dispensation (terrifying for an agrarian culture), not only are most debts forgiven, but the Biblical basis of capital, the Land itself, is returned to an original apportionment.  I compare the Jubilee Reset of capital once every 50 years to the Estate Tax, a way to prevent generational wealth from accumulating so far that the society cannot overcome the class divisions it creates of structural poor and structural privilege.

In honor of Lag B'Omer, I succinctly recount the Jewish mystical practice of embodying God's attributes during the period of Counting the Omer.  Specifically, in the transition to the week of Lag B'Omer, we transition from practicing in our lives the form of leadership that involves pushing people, and yourself, to get through tasks, the kind of action in which you feel you're carrying people to the finish line so the team gets there, to a different mode of leadership from God's attributes, the leader who says little at the team meeting, and then when they need to, utters just a few humble words (like "Isn't who we are really about X?") that change everything. Netzach (pushing through) and Hod (winning by stepping aside, like in martial arts) interplay.

Hope you're not having an Ecclesiastes month....

Drawing on so many articles lately, from the New Republic to Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, I use Nachmanides' commentary on a verse from the Golden Calf account, the verse that recounts Moshe's reaction to witnessing the events unfolding, with unflinching criticism of Aaron's (supposed) leadership, and using a rare Hebrew word to describe the scene, that sounds like the Nation is becoming Pharaoh.  How apt.

Using Rabbi Jane Kanarek's 2019 CJLS (Conservative Movement) halakhic responsum, I explain the complex development of Jewish head covering for both men and for women.  Though my conclusions from the sources are a bit different from Rabbi Kanarek's --who does not address issues of relative cultural gender standards-- I, like her, agree that the vast majority of Jews are uneducated to the halakhah of head coverings in awareness of God's presence and in representing the community before God -- a basis that is essentially independent of the familiar domains of female gender modesty and male Jewish identity.  Interestingly, today there is a movement of Jewish women under 50 to wear Jewish scarves and headbands, apparently in recovery of Jewish gender price and identity, but I believe many who do so are unaware of the complex roots that separate principles of hair covering and head covering.

I've always wondered why we repeatedly pray to God to be willing to grant us Shabbat, etc.  What does it mean to be willing, or to be capable of exercising one's will?  Free will and the exercise of will always comes up when trying to understand Pharoah's will and heart-hardening in Shemot, and so I use sources there to answer the question.  The conclusion touches on how our relationship to God is different from our relationship to Torah.  God, like Moshe, may not always be speaking or willing, but the Torah always is.

There are virtually no references to grandparenting in the Torah, until, by sharp contrast, we are told in Genesis 50:23 that Joseph got not only to grandparent but great-grandparent as well.  I reflect upon this startling exception using two articles from the New York Times, including a recent one that describes the recent increase of adult children in their 20's becoming roommates with their grandparents.

Using the interpretations of the Rabbis (including Nachmanides and Sefer HaYashar) to understand Joseph's assimilation (in name, dress, etc.), I compare him to an American hero very recently in the news!  I can't say more without ruining the suspense...

Yaakov's famous wrestling scene and renaming as Yisrael --one who wrestles with God and prevails-- is often understood as Yisrael wrestling with God as his opponent.  The Rabbis point out how problematic this is, since the opponent is listed as a "man," not as God.  Therefore some of the Rabbis see it this way:  the wrestling opponent looks identical to Esav, being his guardian angel (Rashi) or his projection, and wrestling "with God" (im elohim) means wrestling with God as a supportive ally.  Yaakov clearly is the Patriarch of Anxiety, and in this climax, we see a powerful message:  one does not vanquish anxiety, but rather "one who prevails" is one who does what they love (say, acting, healing, teaching, parenting, etc.) while experiencing panic and anxiety at the same time.  This is the powerful message which is both true according to science and according to Torah.

Is it right to use arable land --often very expensive in populated areas -- for graves, then pollute the environment by keeping them "dignified" through maintenance and pesticides, with the hollow promise of "perpetual care," and say this is all required by Jewish Law, when Jewish Law itself is the source of the requirement for eco-decomposition and of prohibitions against costly burial?  I explicate the sources using the Conservative Movement's oficial responsum, "Alternative Kevura Methods" by Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky, which can be found at bit.ly/3tMa4RG

In this ten minute teaching I used to begin the 10 Days of Awe, I connect several teachings.  The first is the Rabbinic teaching that following a calamity upon a village, one should try to give the luxury rations to those who are used to luxury because being unaccostomed to hardship, their anguish might be even greater than others' though we are tempted to believe the opposite.  The second is that during Yom Kippur, we approach ourselves and our relationships in a state of aninut, of affliction -- the same word used when one has suffered calamity, and the same word used when one is burying a loved one and then heading into the week of shivah grieving.  The third is that it is forbidden to say, "How are you?" to someone who has just experienced aninut, and instead one must practice a special form of active listening.  Following two years of calamitous pandemic, where many of us put on brave faces because we are scared to share our emotions due to our perceived privilege or we may not have suffered as much as o

Is the Jewish concept of history that of linear progress, or that of Ecclesiastes' cyclical vanity?  This teaching was delivered during a 12-Step friendly Serenity Shabbat.

The theology of the haftarot of the exile prophets like Deutero-Isaiah is hard for most people to relate to:  "You are in exile, your life is full of tragedy, and I love you, I remember you as you were before, but I won't be getting you out of the situation you got yourself in, and which I warned you repeatedly about."  This is the kind of "unloving" God that Christian theologians for millenia have accused Jews of having.  Yet do those in Al-Anon understand it in a way they can teach us?