Authentic, Compassionate Judaism For The Thinking Person

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?  

For too long, Jews have associated the Recovery movement with Christianity, and we have seen those in recovery, or with addictions, as outsiders to Torah.  This is far from reality.  The main example of vows-of-change --the essence of High Holidays-- in the Torah itself is the vow to abstain from alcohol and other intoxicants, involving emulating priestly service and separating for a period from one's family and social triggers.  The very process of High Holiday teshuvah is recognizing our wrong behavior, feeling bad about it, and then releasing that guilt feeling through doing a cheshbon nefesh --an accounting-- of exactly how we have harmed others and ourselves, then making amends, then embracing a different path, and then serving God and others.  This is the teaching of 12 step.  (Jewishly, the teshuvah steps are enumerated sometimes as 4, sometimes as 6, and sometimes as more steps, but they essentially mirror the 12 steps of recovery.) Whether the 12 Step Movement has roots in Christian founders is irrel

My Yom Kippur sermon in 2022.  Using Ethan Kross's book Chatter along with Jewish sources and my own observations about life, I challenge us to form our relationship to God through our relationship with our inner voice, which these days tends to be taken over by CHATTER, the stress brought on by the takeover of our inner God voice through the Satan voice.  It's time we challenge it head on.

I share Ilana Kurshan's teaching on rabbinic midrash seeing Moses as a mother in transition, as they question whether, at the promised land border, God's refusing his entry is frustrating his desire to mother the people more, or frustrating his desire to claim "his turn" to actually have a life now that the children are leaving the nest.  I include my own glosses, but make no mistake that this is Ilana Kurshan's teaching.

In this d'var Torah, I discuss how parashat Eikev is the section of Torah most frought with ambivalences, from the text itself through the Rabbinic commentaries: blessing as bounty and overextension, independence and dependence, hardship and privilege, closeness and distance. I relate this to our lives directly in the examples of the college experience and of our relationship with God.

How do we relate to the Torah's insistence that the kohanim who do the major rituals be without blemish or disability?  Isn't that grossly ableist?  I suggest the following.  First, the Torah is not an idealistic description of a utopia of saints -- it forces us to recognize truths about human nature, and then create a society for real people like us, so it forces us to recognize our own prejudices and ableism, which are also active today.  Second, there is a serious issue at stake involving the Offerings of Damaged Goods, which is a massive problem in our society today --which tells us a lot about ourselves and how we give.  And third, I use the commentator Bartenura's commentary to offer a way the tradition is accepting human nature but leading us to how to refine it into inclusivity.

In this presentation, I present the Talmudic sources on Judaism's discussion of the status of the fetus, and I argue that what's been missing from the discussion --including the discussion of Jewish views -- is the fact that Judaism leaves open what the status of the fetus is between 40 days and full viability, but does importantly say that men have no say in it, and God transfers His authority to the prospective mother.  In other words, the issue is not freedom of religion in the sense of one denomination versus another, but rather the freedom of the prospective mother to have her own relationship with God, as she possesses the authority to consider that in-between state of the fetus she carries, and what it means to her and to God as she makes her decision, and not let others tell her what it is or not.  (One issue I wish I had made a bit clearer:  around the 11 minute mark, I talk about the fact that Tractate Niddah specifies that between 40 and 80 days, the miscarriage is more than a normal period, and th

One of my "standing on one foot while answering a humungous theological question" podcasts.  "Rabbi, what do we mean by miracles?  What is up with the Red Sea splitting?"  I give my on-one-foot 5 minute answer, but we should all go and study (as Hillel famously said after answering his on-one-foot answer) afterward. By the way, I refer to seeing a red butterfly in the answer:  at a funeral and shivah I officiated at, it came up repeatedly that a butterfly would show up in their lives just at the time of remembering the widow's husband, who had a very special connection to butterflies.