Rabbi's Blog

When Moshe stands before Israel and declares in Deuteronomy 32:39, “See now that I, I am He, and there is no god beside Me,” Moshe is revealing something profound about the nature of reality itself.

The verse begins with an unusual doubling: “I, I am He” — ani ani hu in Hebrew. Why the repetition? Our tradition teaches that this isn’t stuttering; it’s emphasis on an overwhelming truth. God’s oneness is so complete that even language struggles to contain it.

Think about yourself, and your many names. I am sure you remember how you were called in your childhood, by your parents, by your friends. I know that you, most probably, had a name you were called by someone who loves or loved you romantically. I am sure at a certain point you were called by a title, whatever it is. In that case, dad, mom, gramps, pops and so on are titles too. And even though people relate to you differently, and these titles reflect a different you, you are you. You are able to say “I am I”. And still we feel those separations, and we walk in this world using those separations: our relationships are dependent on those names. We alone try to have a holistic view about ourselves – those of us who are aware. The same happens to God in the sense of the oneness – we relate to God in different ways, we give God different names, but God, as One, is a oneness so complete we cannot fathom.

When we recite the Shema — “Hear O Israel, Ad-nai our God, Ad-nai is One” — we’re not just proclaiming monotheism. We’re declaring that the Divine unity is absolute and indivisible. But here’s where it gets beautiful: if God is truly One, if there is nothing beside God, then where is God?

Our sages teach us that HaMakom — “The Place” — is one of God’s names. Why? Because, they explain, God is the place of the universe, but the universe is not God’s place. Think about that. The universe doesn’t contain God; God contains the universe. Every table, chairs, human, atom, star, even every breath you take exists within the Divine presence.

This is what Moses is telling us in Deuteronomy 32:39: “there is no god beside Me.” Not just that other gods don’t exist, but that there is no “beside” at all. There is no outside, no beyond, no separate realm. Everything exists within the One.

When we understand this — and when we truly feel it — our entire relationship with the world transforms. You as an individual can understand that you’re not separate from the sacred. You’re not trying to reach toward some distant deity. You’re already embraced, already held, already home. Every place you stand is holy ground because every place IS God’s place.

The Shema becomes not just a declaration but an invitation: Open your eyes. Listen deeply. The One you seek is not out there, over there. The One is here, now, in this breath, in this moment. You are not in the universe; you are marinating in God’s presence. We all are.

And in that recognition comes the deepest comfort Moses offers in that same verse: “I make die and I give life; I wounded and I will heal.” The same One who encompasses all also tends to each particular soul with infinite care. The Infinite is intimate. The Transcendent is present at every time.

This is why the Talmud, when discussing blessings, affirms that we are to bless God for both good news and bad. From the pages of the tractate Brachot come the words “baruch dayan haemet”, blessed be the true judge. And from those same pages, from that same discussion, come the words “baruch hatov vehametiv” blessed the one who does good and makes even more good. Because the rabbis challenge us – if God is one, all comes from God. Isaiah on chapter 45 says “I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am Ad-nai, the doer of all these things.”

This is not an easy concept, and yet – this is a concept present in our tradition since the days of Isaiah – and by the way, the consensus is that he lived sometime between 740 and 700 BCE, or 2,765 years ago more or less. In part because we have the impulse of equating God with good in our terms, we fall short from that vision. People often ask “why me?” when things are not good, when one wins the lottery they typically do not ask ‘why me?’

This is our inheritance, our truth: We live, move, and have our being within the One. May we have eyes to see it, hearts to feel it, and souls courageous enough to live from that awareness.

Haazinu – God is one

In the arc of the story, Moshe is giving his parting words to Bnei Israel. Haazinu is one of the last poems in the Torah. It is as if Moshe realizes he has to appeal to our emotions, too, not just our brains.

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In Parshat Ha’azinu, Moses opens with words that shake heaven and earth: “Give ear, O heavens, let me speak; hear, O earth, the words I utter!” (Deuteronomy 32:1)

Why does Moses call upon heaven and earth as witnesses? The simple reading suggests they’re eternal, enduring longer than any human generation. But the Lubavitcher Rebbe has a teaching that points to something far more personal, far more urgent.

Heaven and earth, the Rebbe teaches, are not parts of the reality summoned up because they will outlast us. They represent mitzvot in themselves – the commandments that structure our lives and relationships.

“Heaven”, in his reading, is a symbol for the mitzvot bein adam laMakom, between person and God: prayer, Shabbat, kashrut, tefillin, studying Torah – all those intimate moments when mitzvot are there to reinforce our relationship to the Transcendent, when we are reaching upward, doing certain things because they connect us to God.

“Earth” in this reading, represents the mitzvot bein adam lachavero, between person and person: tzedakah, honest business dealings, visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, loving your neighbor. This is when mitzvot are there to connect us laterally, to other people.

These are our witnesses. Not abstract principles, but the actual choices we make, the actual relationships we build, the actual holiness we create in this world.

There’s a beautiful story which I wanted to remind you of today, because I am sure you have heard it before:

In a certain kingdom, it was known: every time a person was summoned to the castle, to see the king, she or he would never come out of the castle ever again. No one really knew what happened to them. Not a single citizen ever came back to tell the tale.

A man received a summons from the king. He must appear before the throne. Naturally anxious, he turns to his three closest friends for support.

The first friend, one who the man considers his BFF – best friend for life! – the one he’s spent the most time with, invested in the most, perhaps even obsessed over – hears the request and refuses. “I’ll accompany you to the door of your house,” this friend says. “But no further.” Oh, the man is so disappointed. This is not the BFF he thought!!

The second friend, whom he also loves dearly, agrees to do a little more: “I’ll walk with you through the streets, even to the gate of the castle,” this friend promises. “But I cannot enter the king’s palace with you.” The man, again, feels disappointment and fear. He turns to the third friend, already  expecting disappointment.

The third friend was the one that the man didn’t really pay attention to. He neglected that friendship most in life, the one he didn’t always prioritize. So the man is obviously thinking: the two others didn’t come, of course this one will not. How surrised he is when the thirds friend says: “I will go with you all the way. I will stand with you before the king. I will even speak on your behalf.”

The first friend represents our material wealth, our possessions, all the things we accumulate. They come to the threshold of death and stop there. They cannot follow us. The second friend represents our family, our loved ones. They accompany us through life, they mourn us, they bury us—but they cannot stand beside us in the World to Come. The third and last friend is our mitzvot. Our good deeds. The Torah we studied. The kindness we showed. The prayers we whispered. The justice we pursued. The love we gave freely.

Heaven and earth—our mitzvot bein adam laMakom and bein adam lachavero—these are the witnesses Moses calls. They don’t just observe our lives; they defend us. They speak for us when we stand before the ultimate King.

When you embrace this teaching, you can hear that Moses isn’t threatening us. He’s empowering us. Every time you choose caring over indifference, you’re creating a witness who will testify on your behalf. Every time you make a moment holy with blessing, every brick you put in your own castle in time, you’re building a relationship that transcends death itself. Every act of integrity, every word of Torah, every gesture of genuine care—these become eternal companions.

The question isn’t whether we’ll be called before the King. We will. The question is: Who will walk with us? Who will we have befriended along the way?

Moses calls heaven and earth to remind us: You’re not building a life for yourself. You’re cultivating relationships that endure forever. The mitzvot you might think are burdens? They’re actually the truest friends you’ll ever have.

So invest in that third friend. Strengthen those relationships with heaven and earth. Because when push comes to shove – and for all of us, there is a day when we must go into the castle, you want witnesses who won’t just watch from a distance, but who will walk with you all the way home. So maybe tonight – choose a mitzvah you haven’t paid attention to. Choose a mitzvah between you and God, and one between you and people, and invest in that relationship.

May this be a week in which our true friendships are strenghtened. Shabbat Shalom.

Thank you for being here as we build these holy hours together, the castle of Yom Kippur, with all the other Jews in the world. Our services are made possible by many minds, hands and hearts: Cantor Re’ut Ben Ze’ev, our prayer leaders Ruth Borsuk and Richard Kamins, Leah Adler and the ritual committee, the board, Joanna Schnurman, Julio Ramos, Honor Edmands, and Officer Dave providing security outside. I appreciate the opportunity to share some thoughts with you this evening.

Every Shabbat morning, very early, Nugget the dog and I walk Main Street, sometimes with my youngest. At the end of May, I began finding brightly colored papers taped to the four round wooden poster posts on Main. “Dear Israel,” said the first one, “take your bloody hands out of my pockets. Love, America.”

I walk with my kippah at all times. Always have, since rabbinical school. Here in Middletown, I’ve only experienced curiosity and kindness. People ask nicely, and I have my response ready: “Yes, women can wear yarmulkes, and I’m also the rabbi here in Middletown.” I’ve experienced nothing but love for the Jewish people here, particularly after October 7^th.

So I cannot convey to you how shocked I was by those papers. Shocked, but not surprised.

It was Shabbat, and yet I took them down, carried them to the nearest trash can, and deposited them there, while explaining to my youngest the principle “vechai bahem” – observe the mitzvot and live by them. I cannot look at hate written toward my people and do nothing.

Every Shabbat since then includes walking to Main Street with Nugget, stopping at those posts, reading them, and taking them down. [PAUSE]

Why am I telling you this on Yom Kippur? Because tonight we need to talk about memory, about antisemitism, and about who we choose to be.

Some of you know—and now all of you will know—that my mother has been battling Alzheimer’s for at least twelve years. Alzheimer’s is winning, and my mother’s access to her memories is declining. She has progressively lost her identities: biologist, mother, animal lover. But her personality remains—gregarious, passionate, opinionated.

I’ve learned from researchers who study memory and identity that what we remember, when we remember it, and how we remember it—these are the building blocks of who we are.

Our identity is not a stable building with floors stacked one on top of another. We are more like a Lego creation. The blocks can be switched around, by therapy, by healing, by teshuvah, by events that change us. Sometimes the entire structure is remade with almost no resemblance to what it used to be. [PAUSE]

Zachor – remember. This appears in Torah as a commandment. Traditional siddurim list six memories that we as Jews must recall every day. These six collective memories are the building blocks of our tradition:

• We remember the Exodus—we know redemption from oppression
• We remember Shabbat—we rest and connect deeply once a week
• We remember Miriam—we guard our speech from gossip and vulgarity
• We remember receiving Torah—we study and learn our values
• We remember the Golden Calf—we acknowledge how catastrophically we can fail
• We remember Amalek—the enemy who attacked the weak and vulnerable, who destroyed for the pleasure of destroying Jews

These memories aren’t pleasant. But they’re essential to remaining Jewish. Zachor – remember – means understanding our history and culture enough to guide us toward a more meaningful present and future.

The rabbis said already in the year 200 CE that Amalek is no longer a specific people. Amalek is a tendency, a spirit, both outside and inside of us.

Inside, Amalek is the tendency to let go of Judaism and Jewish identity, to be cynically indifferent to the world’s suffering, to disconnect from our hearts and values. To give up being Jewish. It is the cooling of the Jewish soul.

Outside, Amalek is the spiritual force that fights Judaism and Jews. We call it antisemitism.

And just as our understanding of Amalek evolved through the centuries, antisemitism has evolved and adapted across millennia. We must zachor – we must remember Amalek.

Through history, antisemitism has created three templates that repeat across time and place. Understanding them helps us recognize what we face today.

In ancient times, Jews were viewed with suspicion for being different. One invisible God in societies where gods were many. Laws and practices that set us apart: not working on Shabbat, circumcising baby boys, not eating with others, refusing to kill weak infants, supporting beggars and the disabled.

The rise of Christianity transformed this into systematic persecution. Early Christian theology cast Jews as Christ-killers, rejected by God, partners with the devil, cursed to wander. This curse passed from parents to children, erasable only through baptism.

When Rome converted to Christianity in 312 CE, this crystallized into systematic oppression. Jews were banned from most professions, forbidden to own land, couldn’t build new synagogues. Medieval Europe birthed myths that persist today—chief among them the blood libel.

My first encounter with it was as a university student in Brazil. A friend told me how angry she was “at you Jews” because her aunt said “Jews use children’s blood on Passover for their wine”. I invited her to a seder. To her credit, she came and embraced that her aunt was wrong.

But this accusation, which first appeared in Norwich, England in 1144, is alive and kicking. The ADL documents current cartoons depicting blood libel.

Barred from most professions and forbidden to own land, Jews were pushed into moneylending—often the only occupation available. This created the first dangerous template: Jews as simultaneously powerless and threatening, outsiders who could be blamed for society’s problems while being denied the means to defend themselves.

As Europe became “enlightened” in the late 1700s, antisemitism transformed from prejudice to “science.”

Voltaire, champion of reason, wrote viciously against Jews, proving we are “an ignorant and barbarous people.” This intellectual antisemitism gave hatred a secular veneer.

The 19th century saw the emergence of race theory. Humans were divided into races, with whites at the top. Jews, surprisingly to some, were not considered white but a distinct race, inherently different and dangerous regardless of religious beliefs or assimilation.

This created a second template: the Jew as the would-be insider, able to hide behind the mask of assimilation, but intending to destroy the host nation from within.

This is what made the Dreyfus Affair such a scandal. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer falsely accused of treason, divided French society. “Death to the Jews” echoed in riots across 55 cities, spreading even to Algeria.

The Dreyfus affair also introduced a third element: the replacement theory – Jews are bringing immigrants to replace Europeans.

In 1903, the same year as the brutal Kishinev pogrom, a Russian antisemitic newspaper published “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” claiming to have “discovered” a Jewish plan to control the world through manipulation of government, economy, and media. Though repeatedly exposed as a fraud, it has been translated into at least 16 languages. It remains influential among extremist groups worldwide, creating the myth of Jews as puppet masters controlling world events.

These three templates work together: Jews are dangerous outsiders (template one), but they can disguise themselves as insiders (template two), and they’re secretly controlling everything (template three).

American antisemitism followed a different trajectory but used the same templates.

Connecticut, for instance, forbade synagogues until 1843. Our own Puritan laws didn’t even allow Jews to have a cemetery.

As Jewish immigration increased in the late 1800s, familiar patterns emerged. The 1877 exclusion of the Seligman family from a hotel in Saratoga Springs marked the beginning of systematic discrimination. “Restricted” hotels, clubs, and neighborhoods became common. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and our own Wesleyan all restricted Jewish students in the early 20th century, some continuing until the 1960s.

Henry Ford’s newspaper spread “Protocols” conspiracy theories to millions of Americans in the 1920s. Father Charles Coughlin’s radio broadcasts reached 40 million listeners with antisemitic conspiracy theories wrapped in populist religious rhetoric.

Most tragically, American antisemitism contributed to the abandonment of European Jews during the Holocaust. The MS St. Louis, carrying Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution, was turned away from American shores. In 1938, 60% of Americans opposed allowing Jewish refugees into the country.

Unlike other forms of prejudice that typically target the powerless, antisemitism portrays Jews as secretly powerful and threatening. This “punching up” dynamic makes it appealing across the political spectrum. Both the far-left and the far-right can and do embrace antisemitic ideas.

Antisemitism is also remarkably adaptable. It begins as religious hatred, transforms into racial theory, adopts economic theories, and today manifests in rhetoric that often crosses into antisemitic territory.

When societies face crisis—economic collapse, military defeat, social change—Jews become convenient targets. We are small enough to attack, different enough to other, successful enough to resent.

Social media amplifies conspiracy theories. Medieval blood libels get updated for modern audiences. Economic conspiracy theories adapt for global capitalism. Holocaust denial spreads despite overwhelming evidence. Prominent Jews are accused of all three templates: greedy, powerful outsiders who want to dominate the world through their insiders, controlling banks, media, governments, wars.

The papers on Main Street? “Take your bloody hands out of my pockets”—that’s blood libel and greed together. A twofer, if you will.

A recent one explained that a certain Israeli politician is “as Jewish as a slab of bacon.” What’s insidious about that one is that the writer decides who is Jewish and who is not.

This leads to a fourth dynamic we must recognize: the “good Jew” versus the “bad Jew.”

When someone—anyone—decides they can brand someone as a good or bad Jew, they create a false binary dividing our people into “acceptable” versus “problematic.” On both the right and the left, there are tests you must pass to be accepted: loyalty tests, behavior tests, acceptable words to say or not.

Jewish identity becomes conditional on non-Jewish approval. This assumes we must prove our worthiness. It creates standards where some Jews are blamed regardless. It forces us as individuals to distance ourselves from stereotypes.

Are you for-that or against-that? Are you one of the good ones, or not?

The moment we accept this framing, we’ve already lost. Jews are as diverse as any group – racially, economically, politically. There are no “good” or “bad” Jews. There are just Jews.

How do we respond to this history of hatred?

First: Zachor—Remember

Ours is a long history, and memory is key to making our Jewishness meaningful. It is one of those large building blocks of identity. We study antisemitism not to despair but to recognize its patterns and respond effectively.

But memory alone is not enough.

Second: Build Alliances

Besides defending our buildings, we must build bridges. Antisemitism rarely exists in isolation—it’s the canary in the coal mine for other forms of hatred that threaten pluralism itself. When we stand against antisemitism, we defend not only ourselves but the principles of democracy and tolerance that protect all minorities.

The Jeruzalemska synagogue in Prague, built in 1908, has an inscription in three languages—Hebrew, Czech, and German: “Do we not all have one father?”

We create alliances by being unapologetically Jewish, by grounding our positions in Jewish values, by engaging with knowledge and accurate information. And we must not fall into the “good Jew” trap—instead, we remind people that Jews are as diverse as any group.

Third response: Invest in Education

Your own Jewish education. Your children’s and grandchildren’s. Know our history, culture, and traditions well enough to have informed dialogue with others. Ignorance breeds prejudice; knowledge builds empathy.

Specific actions you can take:

• Learn Jewish history—take a class, read a book, ask questions
• Speak up when you encounter antisemitic tropes, even subtle ones
• Support local and national organizations combating hate
• Build relationships across lines of difference
• Teach your children what antisemitism looks like and how to respond
• When you see something, say or do something – even if it’s just a colorful paper on a wooden post

The oldest synagogue in Connecticut, Beth Israel, has this inscription outside: Ner Hashem Nishmat Adam—”God’s candle is the human soul.”

Through centuries of persecution, our collective candle has flickered but never been extinguished. In every generation, we have found the strength to rebuild, to create, to contribute to human civilization despite efforts to destroy us.

We are not victims of history but its survivors and shapers. We remember the darkness not to dwell in it but to kindle the light that drives it away.

My mother is losing her memories. The building blocks of her identity are being taken apart. But her essence—her warmth, her passion, her love—remains. And I carry her memories now. I am part of her Lego creation, and she is part of mine.

This is what zachor means. We carry the memories of our people forward. We build with those blocks. We create something new while honoring what came before.

The same tradition that commands us to zachor also teaches us Tikkun Olam—repairing the world. Our response to antisemitism must not be merely defensive but constructive, working to build a world where ancient hatreds have no place to grow.

When I walk Main Street with Nugget and take down those papers, I am doing two things: I am removing hate from my community, and I am teaching my child that we don’t stand by. We act. We remember, and we build.

[PAUSE] This Yom Kippur, I ask you: What will you remember? What building blocks will you choose? How will you build your Jewish identity in the year ahead?

May we remember in ways that become a blessing. May our being Jewish be a light to all nations, this Yom Kippur and throughout the year.

G’mar Chatimah Tovah – may we all be sealed in the Book of Life, proudly and vitally Jewish.

Shalom shalom lekarov velarachok, as Isaiah says, Shalom shalom to those who are close and to those who are far. I’m grateful for this opportunity to talk to you today, and I thank you for being here as we share holy time, and spend hours together in the great castle of time, in the castle of Yom Kippur, which we are building together with all the other Jews in the world.

Our services are made possible by many minds, hands and hearts: Cantor Re’ut Ben Ze’ev, our prayer leaders Ruth Borsuk, Richard Kamins; Leah Adler and the ritual committee, the board, Joanna Schnurman, Julio Ramos, Honor Edmands, officer Dave with security outside. Each has played a fundamental role in bringing us together yesterday and today.

On Rosh Hashanah I spoke about faith, and I hope to have gotten the message across that faith cannot the same as certainty.

Faith is not a blind allegiance to tenets.

Faith is trust, sturbonness, courage all rolled into one. Faith is about staying in relationship even when things are hard, even when we can’t explain it all. Jewish faith is always aspiration: the hope for a different future, for a different way of bring, for yourself and for the world. None of those, some of you may say, is a truly intellectual approach. It is all faith based in emotions, it does not define God. And you’d be right.

Yet even intellectually, there is a strand in Jewish thought that says that the more you know about God, the less you actually know, when we arrive anywhere, we arrive at a position of ignorance. Just like a child, who knows nothing and is trying to understand the world, some Jewish philosophers understand that after years of studying, debating and questioning, we arrive at the same place: the not-knowing place. Faith as the embrace of the mystery.

Today is arguably the holiest day of the Jewish year. The vortex of Yom Kippur draws in people who would not be caught dead in a synagogue the rest of the year. As the Kol Nidrei prayer says: anu matirim lehitpalel im ha’avarianim – we all pray together. We all connect today, observant people and transgressors, believers and non-believers. Everyone is here, in this castle we build with time, this castle named Yom Kippur, built by generations past, by Jewish communities everywhere: some are approaching the end of the fast already, some have just began. Everyone is here – even those who are not.

A friend of mine from high school looks every year on the calendar for Yom Kippur. And then, precisely at midday, he orders, pays and eats a bacon cheeseburger. I’m not pulling your leg. He doesn’t know, I think, that he is here too – in his devoted practice of opposing what he learned Jewish tradition is.

He thinks he sits outside of the gates of the castle, but clearly he still needs the gate to know where to sit.

A few of you approached me this year to know exactly where, politically, I sit, because, confusingly, you have not heard me speak from the pulpit about my political stance. One said, “I don’t really know where you stand in anything, really, rabbi”.

So let me come out. My political stance is faith in our people. And in humanity. And in Torah. And in mitzvot. And in kindness. And in compassion. And in understanding. And in empathy. And in a better world. And in peace.

And I have faith that every single one of you stands for those same things, because I know you, and I know that your soul is aligned with goodness.

There is a wonderful story about the Kotzker rebbe, who is approached by a Jew who is in a crisis of faith. Rebbe, the student says, I don’t know if I believe in God. The Kotzker says “what do you care?” The student says “what do you mean, what do I care?! If there is no God, what is the Torah anyway?” The Kotzker says “nu, what do you care?” The student says “what do you mean, what do I care?! If there is no God, and I don’t know what the Torah is, what am I doing with my life?” The Kotzker says “ach, what do you care?” Finally the student starts screaming: “Rebbe, if there is no God, and I don’t know what the Torah is, and I don’t know what am I doing with my life, and I don’t know what the meaning of anything is, what do you mean ‘what do I care?!’ I care!!!!” The Kotzker says: “ah, do you care? Du bist a kshrer yid, you are a kosher Jew. You are a fine Jew.” Meaning, it’s not about having the answers and having certainty, it’s a passion about caring.

Because we have this infinite capacity to care, we can be easily swayed by what we see, read, and hear. We live in a reality where our attention has become currency — and keeping us cycling through anger and anguish, keeps us coming back. Those who create the feeds and articles aren’t just giving us information; they’re shaping our emotions. We need to embrace the difficult reality that what we know is filtered through someone’s interests. We need to be aware of that precisely because we care.

The Mishnah teaches us that Yom Kippur atones for sins between a person and God, but for sins between one person and another, forgiveness must first be sought from the one who was wronged. It has become easy to wrong people without even noticing. This world pushes us into our corners, demanding we take sides and have strident opinions about people we’ve never talked to and situations we’ve never experienced.

We can log onto social media, become beasts biting people’s heads off, log out, and continue as if nothing happened. Behind fake names and profiles, we forget we’re speaking to real human beings. And this year we have seen photographs curated to show a specific reality, one that exists, however, one of which the iconic photos were not really depicting. AND the furor they caused was real. The newsplatform did issue an apology – hidden somewhere in the internet. And now AI has made this worse – there are videos so convincing you need to remind yourself that a six-month-old cannot actually speak.

We need healthy skepticism, but emotions arrive first. And hate doesn’t only hurt those who receive it — it hurts those who put it out into the world.

The words make a mark. The anger seeps into our lives beyond the screen. We’ve been conditioned to see the world as binary, and when we feel impotent to change things, we lash out in big and small ways. We pass along the hurt  – some with words, some taking violent action.

Now our tradition holds disagreement for the sake of heaven, the “machloket l’shem shamayim” in very high regard. It is an enduring value. The classic example is the debates between Hillel and Shammai, two great sages and schools of thought who rarely agreed on matters of Jewish law, yet whose disputes enriched our tradition immeasurably.

On this Yom Kippur, I invite us to reflect on how we can disagree, work towards finding common ground and return to each other with love.

Today, as we gather as a community seeking forgiveness and renewal, we carry forward Jewish wisdom: one that reminds us that we are bound together not because we agree with each other, not by uniformity of thought, but because we care. We share deep threads that weave themselves through our shared story: our commitments to continuity, to justice, to our responsibility to one another, and to our hope for a better world.

Israel – Eretz Yisrael – occupies a unique place in Jewish consciousness. For thousands of years, it has been the focal point of our prayers, our dreams, and our longings. “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning” – these words have echoed through generations of Jewish hearts, from Babylon to Brooklyn, from Spain to Stockholm.

This connection transcends politics. It lives in our liturgy, in our holidays, in the very rhythm of our spiritual lives.

When we break the glass at a wedding, we remember Jerusalem. When we celebrate Passover, we declare “Next year in Jerusalem.” Those same words will be said tonight before break the fast. When we mourn on Tisha B’Av, we recall the destruction of Jerusalem.

Today, Jews all around the world hold different opinions about the State of Israel – about its policies, its future, its relationship with its neighbors, its government. Some see it as the national liberation of the Jews from European antisemitism, as even before the Holocaust there were Jewish people striving to live in that land. Some see it as a miracle and a refuge born from the ashes of the Holocaust. Others view it as the fulfillment of ancient prophecies. Still others focus on its role as a center of the renewal of Jewish learning and culture.

From our love of that land and our despair of antisemitism came six different strands of Zionism, and there is still a seventh that says ‘who cares about ideas, beit yaakov lechu venelcha, let’s just go up already.’ And yes, many of us struggle with aspects of its current reality while struggling to maintain deep love for its promise.

These different perspectives don’t make any of us less Jewish or less connected to one another. Every single idea is rooted in our ability to care – for the 7.2 million Jews that live in Israel, for the 8.1 million Jews living in Diaspora. All those opinions about Israel reflect the complexity of being a people scattered across the world, yet bound by common memory, shared destiny, and our comitment to continue the light of the Jewish people. If you care, Du bist a kshrer yid – you are a kosher Jew.

In 70 CE, when Jerusalem was under siege by the Romans, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai saw the many political divisions inside the Jewish people. He knew – the unbending quality of each political camp was going to bring a destruction so profound that nothing would remain if he did not do something. So he asked for Yavneh and its scholars – he understood that Jewish continuity depends not on unanimity, not on carrying just one voice, but on our commitment to learning together, questioning together, and building community together.

The Mishnah teaches us about the students of Rabbi Akiva, who died because “they did not treat each other with respect.” The lesson isn’t about not having disagreements – it’s about maintaining honor and dignity in our disagreements, it’s about caring. If you care, Du bist a kshrer yid – you are a kosher Jew.

On Yom Kippur  we ask: What does this mean, maintaining honor and dignity while we disagree? As we beat our chests during the Vidui and confess our shortcomings, we must also examine how we treat each other when we profoundly disagree with them. Do we label them and close off dialogue? Do we despair of ever changing their minds and therefore do not even try? Do we try, for a moment even, to see and listen to what they see and listen? Or are we so certain of our own positions that any disruption to our system is dangerous, so we refuse to see and listen, content in our certainties?

Maintaining honor and dignity while we disagree means we can hold different views about Israeli policy while celebrating the revival of Hebrew as a living language. We can debate politics while taking pride in Israel’s contributions to medicine, technology, and human knowledge. We can dispute the responsibilities of power and powerlessness while embracing Israel as a center of revival of Jewish dance, theater, music, sports and spirituality. Precisely because Israel is not only war: Israel is the creative impulse of the Jewish people in all its glory, in all its creative tension.

I have seen too many families destroyed by conflict – and I am not talking about the war raging in the Middle East right now. The war I am talking about is the war I see in families, conflict that breaks apart familial bonds. It always begins with forgetting that we are all coming from a good place – we are all, with no exception, rooted in goodness.

Every generation has had conflicts. It used to be the place of women. It used to be interfaith marriages. It used to be LGBTQ acceptance.

Do you remember how bitter those fights were, and in some communities, still are? Families who survived those survived because of their faith on their relationships, their deep commitment to love, and were able to work their positions because they assumed that all involved were steeped in  commitments to continuity, to justice, to responsibility to one another, and to hope for a better world.

There is a profound teaching in our tradition, in which when we die we will be asked six things. Each and every one of these questions represents a probing not just of our accomplishments, but of our overall character.

1. Nasata venatata beemunah? Did you deal justly with other human beings in business? Meaning, would we define ourselves as givers, or takers? Were we generous with what God gave us?
2. Kavata zman letorah? Did we fix set times for studying Torah? Meaning, did we establish a discipline of life, whereby human needs, ours and other people’s, were intertwined with our spiritual pursuit?
3. Asakta befriah urviah? Did you participate in the commandment to be fruitful and multiply? Meaning, did we see ourselves as a finite end in and of itself, or rather as a link in the ongoing, eternal chain of the generations? Were we only for us, or were we genuinely concerned for others and their welfare? Did we restrict ourselves to self-indulgence, or did we find a way to make a difference in the world at large? If we personally were blessed with offspring, did we also lend a hand, a shoulder, an ear to others who were not so fortunate? Did we make life easier for the needy, so they would be able to maintain their families?
4. Pilpalta LeChochmah? Did you engage in the pursuit of wisdom? Meaning, did we engage in pursuing that which challenged our intellects, or did we spend too much time in mindless pursuits? Did we ask deep and important questions to ourselves, seeking answers that would give meaning to our life?
5. Yirata et hashem? Did you hold God in awe? Meaning, did we live with a daily awareness that this world in general and our existence in particular is perilous and precarious, held together only by divine kindness? Did we stand in awe and appreciation of the magnificent world which God provided us on a silver platter?
6. And finally, Tzipita le’yeshua? Did you antecipate redemption? In many translations, the last question is ‘did you wait for redemption’.

But Shai Held translates it differently: did you make pockets of redemption around you? Meaning – did you create a better world where you are? Did you help those around you? Were you able to seed this world with kindness? Were you able to have faith in those whom you love, and if you weren’t able to find common ground, at least treat them as fellow human beings rooted in goodness, just as you are? Were you able to fight the urge to scream your righteous position from the rooftops?

Now we know that seven is the “magic number” in Judaism. So I would like you to figure out what the seventh question should be. My seventh question would be: did you care about people’s suffering? Because I believe that the Torah, by opening with the idea that every human being is created in the image of God, betzelem e-lohim, commands, begs, reminds us, that we do care – about human suffering. All suffering. Jewish suffering, Palestinian suffering, human suffering. And in our current moment, even saying this — even saying I care about all people — can feel like I am taking sides. [lament] That itself is a real tragedy.

In our Shabbat morning services, a couple of months ago, we had a moment. Someone brought up Gaza in the discussion, someone else objected, emotionally and loudly. The discussion was dropped. All who were present saw that. What most did not see is that both of those involved hugged afterwards during kiddush. And on the next Shabbat, they hugged as well. I, personally, had not seen them hugging ever before.

The Talmud tells us that Jerusalem was destroyed because of sinat chinam – baseless hatred between Jews. The antidote isn’t enforced agreement; it’s cultivating ahavat chinam – baseless love, love that exists simply because we share this remarkable journey of being Jewish. This is the power of this community.

My greatest wish for all of us is that we see and embrace Adath Israel as a place for all Jews, one in which we are here to use the creative tension in conflict to grow.

As we seek forgiveness today, it means recognizing that the Jewish woman in Tel Aviv worried about her children’s safety, the Jewish student on campus facing antisemitism, and the Jewish activist concerned about justice are all part of our story. As is my religiously Yom Kippur bacon cheeseburger eating friend. Their experiences may be different, but their Jewish hearts beat with the same ancient rhythms.

On Yom Kippur, we acknowledge that we are all equally in need of compassion, understanding, and mercy, both divine and human. Our community’s strength lies not in thinking alike, but in caring about each other deeply enough to engage in these difficult conversations with respect and love. When we sit together at Pray Eat Sing, when we comfort each other in times of loss, when we celebrate each other’s joys – these moments matter more than our political agreements or disagreements.

I will close with a story. About a year ago, Clive Ch’itiz, father of fallen soldier Yaron Chitiz was traveling back to Israel from Heathrow. He was told that his Thursday night flight was delayed to Friday morning. When he showed up for the flight on Friday, as he was being checked in by the ElAl security representative, he told her that he really needed the flight to leave on time so he could make it back to his synagogue in Ra’anana for Shabbat so he could say the mourner’s kaddish for his fallen son. He explained that he promised himself that he’d say the kaddish at least once a day and because he was staying at a random hotel after the flight was delayed, he couldn’t say the kaddish, so he needed to be back on time. The representative explained to him that she’s only on the security team and she had no say or information about the flight’s departure. Clive thanked her and started walking toward the gate. A few minutes later, he got a phone call.

“Hi, this is Jasmine from security. To be honest, I didn’t even know what kaddish was, so I Googled it. I learned that to say the kaddish, you need 10 men above the age of 13. So I asked a few men to meet me by the gate so you can say kaddish before you board; at least that way you will fly with the peace of mind knowing that you already said kaddish today.”

Clive began to cry and ran towards the gate. When he got there, he did not find 10 men. He found EVERY SINGLE man above the age of 13 who was on the flight waiting for him at the gate. Religious. Ultra Orthodox. Secular. All waiting for him. They recited a few chapters of Psalms and he was able to recite the Kaddish for his son. If you know anything about the profound disagreements in Israeli politics today, you know how even more beautiful this story is. It is a reminder that we are all family. We may disagree, dispute, but we are all in this together.

The Talmud tells us that on Yom Kippur, Satan, the Accuser, has no power to accuse. On this day, we are given the gift of seeing ourselves and each other with new eyes, free from the harsh judgments that can divide us throughout the year.

As we face the complexities of our time, let us remember that we are part of a people that has survived and thrived precisely because we learned to hold multiple truths simultaneously. We are a people of questions as much as answers, of debate as much as consensus. And on this day of return, we commit to returning not just to God, but to each other. Let us use our holy time in the castle of Yom Kippur to commit to creating spaces where all members of our community can express their hopes and concerns about Israel, about Judaism, about our future. Let us listen to understand and to build, not just to respond. Let us assume good intentions even when we disagree with conclusions. This is the teshuvah we owe each other.

In Ne’ilah, in a few hours, we ask God to open several gates for us and all Israel: “light, blessing, joy, gladness, splendor, good counsel, merit, love, purity, salvation, atonement, kindness, pardon, consolation, forgiveness, help, prosperity, righteousness, uprightness, complete healing, peace, repentance.”

Today, let us also commit to keeping the gates of conversation open, the gates of compassion open, the gates of listening open, the gates of community open to all who seek to journey with us.

G’mar chatimah tovah – may we all be sealed in the Book of Life, together.

I want to begin tonight by saying that this is my favorite crowd. Not many people show up for the second night of Rosh Hashanah, and your presence feels me with love and awe. I see your devotion to recreating yourself, to being part of the community, to take leave from the hustle and bustle of an ever busier world to go inward and connect with the version of yourself that brings light and love to our community.

Songs, sentences and words dominate our machzor, the prayerbook for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This is the time, says our tradition, in which we examine ourselves as if we were God, through God’s eyes.

The shofar’s call on Rosh Hashanah serves as both awakening and warning — awakening us to teshuvah, warning that there is a real internal war going on, above and beyond the many wars we see in the news.

Many of the prayers remind us of the power of our words. Just as the shofar’s blast can carry across great distances, so too can our speech reach far beyond what we intend.

Many years ago, I was hanging out with a girl who was studying in an Orthodox seminary, and she was always gossiping about other people and criticizing them quite harshly. When I balked at something she had said about another friend, she turned to me and said “lashon hara, lamed hey, let’s go to gehenah the easy way”. Gehena is the Jewish version of hell. And yet she laughed and simply continued. Needless to say, our friendship never really took off.

A Brazilian psychologist, José Ângelo Gaiarsa, wrote a brilliant book called General Treatise on Gossip.

In it, Gaiarsa makes a sociological, philosophical, historical and psychological analysis of gossip. He states that when we gossip about an individual, we project onto them all the prejudices that are within us. And by doing so, we automatically free ourselves of any flaws, making ourselves models of perfection.

The consequences, he says, are serious not only for the people we talk about but also for us: besides harming the other person, we frustrate any and all possibility of internal change that could lead us to a higher level of consciousness.

In the Jewish tradition, lashon hara — literally “evil tongue” — refers to derogatory speech about others, even when truthful, that serves no constructive purpose. This is the crux of it: constructive purpose. If you are criticizing someone, it has to be in a way that builds them up, and not tears them down.

Lashon Hara encompasses gossip that damages reputations, has the power of embarrass people publicly, or is able to diminish them in others’ eyes simply for our own entertainment or social bonding. Lashon Hara is not about making up stories or creating lies or exagerating things for entertainment. These fall in  different categories, motzi shem ra and ona’at devarim. I am not focusing on that today, but on what we could call the garden variety of evil speech. The speech that is actually about truth. Unlike outright lies, lashon hara is specific in that it hides behind the shield of truth while still causing real harm.

The centrality of speech in our spiritual development becomes clear when we examine the vidui, our confession. As we beat our chests on Yom Kippur, many of the sins we acknowledge relate directly to our words: al chet shechatanu lefanecha b’dibbur peh (for the sin of idle chatter), b’lashon hara (for evil speech), b’siach sitnah (for causeless hatred expressed through speech), and b’vidui peh (for insincere confession). This last one is amzing: look at us, even as we confess we don’t really mean it. The liturgy recognizes what the sages knew — that our words are among our most powerful and dangerous instruments.

The Talmud teaches that lashon hara is so powerful as a weapon that it “kills” three people: the speaker, the listener, and the one spoken about. But its destructive power extends even further—it tears at the very fabric of community itself.

Each piece of lashon hara is like pulling a thread from a tapestry; individually, it may seem insignificant, but collectively, these conversations unravel and weaken, bit by bit, the trust and solidarity that bind us together.

When we engage in lashon hara, we don’t just harm individuals — we poison our communal life, we create an atmosphere of suspicion where people wonder what others might be saying about them behind closed doors.

On Rosh Hashanah, we think of God as the Judge, capital J. But we must remember that we ourselves are judges every day. Every time we engage in lashon hara — sharing that truthful but unnecessary negative story, making that accurate but cutting observation, sharing that juicy piece of information to get eyes on us for a few seconds — we become prosecutors rather than advocates for our fellow human beings, and architects of division rather than builders of relationships.

The midrash tells us that on Rosh Hashanah, our words from the entire year are weighed alongside our deeds.

Every piece of gossip, every moment we chose entertainment over kindness, every time we spoke truth without constructive purpose — all of this testimony comes before the heavenly court.

But the midrash assumes we embrace unthinkingly the imagery of a heavenly court – we, modern people, chafe at that. But in reality, lashon hara is, as some people like to say “a thing”. You don’t have to buy into the imagery of a heavenly court to judge yourself. Today, regardless of how you deal with the ideas of God as a king, of angels trembling before a Judge, we are lovingly nudged and invited to consider how our speech patterns have either strengthened or weakened the sacred bonds of our community, our friendships and our families.

Here lies our opportunity: just as the shofar’s different sounds each serve a purpose in our spiritual awakening, so too can our speech serve constructive purposes. We can choose words that heal rather than harm, that build up rather than tear down, that weave communities together rather than unravel them. When we must share difficult truths, we can ask ourselves: is this necessary? Will it prevent harm? Am I the right person to say this? Am I saying it in the right way? Will this strengthen or weaken the fabric of our community, our family, our relationship?

As we enter this new year, let us commit to transforming our speech into a tool of teshuvah and community building.

When tempted to share that juicy but purposeless story, when we are tempted to criticize someone without them being present, may we remember the shofar’s call and choose silence or, better yet, choose words that bring blessing, repair, and unity into the world.

May this year be sweetened by the discipline of thoughtful speech and the honey of kind words that bind us together in sacred relationships, be they community, family, friendships. L’Shanah tovah tikatevu – may we inscribe ourselves and others in the book of life.

Shanah tovah! Welcome to Rosh Hashanah, our Jewish New Year. Thank you for being here as we begin this holy time together. I’m grateful for this opportunity to share thoughts from our tradition with you tonight.

Our services are made possible by many hands and hearts: Cantor Re’ut, volunteer prayer leaders and shofar blowers, Leah Adler and all of the ritual committee, the board, Joanna Schnurman, Julio Ramos and Honor Edmands. Each person has played a vital role in bringing us together for tonight’s service and for the days ahead.

My dear friends, welcome home. Welcome to our yearly reminder of transformation, to a spiritual homecoming that reminds us of something fundamental about being human: we can change. There is a miraculous possibility of transforming who we are at the deepest level.

I want to share with you a story that captures the essence of what this moment wisely require of us. There was once a person who looked in the mirror every morning for seventy years. One day, his grandchild asked him, “Grandfather, don’t you ever get tired of seeing the same person?” The grandfather smiled and replied, “Bubaleh, I’ve never seen the same person twice. Each day, I see someone who has learned something new, who has the chance to be better than he was yesterday.”

This story embodies a profound teaching that Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Piaseczna, the holy Rebbe who continued to teach Torah even in the darkness of the Warsaw Ghetto. He challenges us with these words: “If it is your desire to be spiritually close to God and to elevate your consciousness, then don’t show up in the 70th year of your life as you did on the day of your bar mitzvah!”

The Piaseczna Rebbe lived this teaching in the most extraordinary way. Here was a man who could have frozen in his pre-war identity as a respected rebbe with a large community of followers and never change his Torah. But when the Nazi persecution began, when he was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, when his world literally crumbled around him, when his only son was killed —he reinvented himself. He continued to guide people, observant or not, through a darkness so deep we can only imagine. His weekly sermons in the ghetto, later published as Esh Kodesh (Holy Fire), show us a man who refused to be the same person he was before the catastrophe struck. He evolved, he grew, he found new depths of wisdom and spirituality precisely because he understood that each moment demands a new version of ourselves. The war demanded of him a complete renewal of everything he had taken for granted.

The Rebbe’s challenge continues, in a tone that is both simple and revolutionary: “Every year, set a goal for yourself. Picture it in your imagination. If your name is Reuben — for example — which Reuben will you be in the coming year?”

This is not mere self-improvement advice. This is a fundamental reorienting of how we understand time, growth, and identity itself.

Think about this deeply. Kalonymus Kalman is telling us that we have to use the power of our own imagination to author a new version of ourselves. Imagination is not a part of us to be relegated to our childhood. Every time we worry, we imagine. Every time we plan, we imagine. Imagination is part of being human, and we are to use all that we are in the service of God, however you understand that word today.

Being comfortable with who we are and have always been, remaining prisoners of gilded cages of our past patterns, the invisible shackles of our self-imposed limitations, the constraints of our routines makes us no different than a violinist who owns a Stradivarius but plays only “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” for her entire life. The instrument is magnificent, the potential breathtaking, but the music never evolves beyond its simplest form. We become like trees that stop growing while still alive, taking up space in the forest but no longer reaching toward the light, no longer deepening their roots, no longer offering new shade or bearing fresh fruit. Or perhaps we’re like actors who memorized one role decades ago and continue performing the same lines, the same gestures, the same character night after night, year after year, even as the world around us changes and calls for new stories, new depths, new expressions of the human experience. Or like a teacher who, once having the teaching plan for a class, continues to use the same exact strategies and words throughout his twenty five years in the same school, never changing.

The tragedy isn’t that we’re broken or worthless—it’s that we’re magnificent instruments settling for playing elementary scales when we could be creating symphonies. We have to embrace change, as change is thrown around us with increased speeds every day. And with change, we have to embrace growth.

The Piazeczna rebbe, Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, wants us to imagine our best, work on our selves through the year, and assess this “new me” against that best imaginary “us” every year. Don’t show up at age 70 as who you were at age 13.

Now, showing up as if we were 12 or 13 on the High Holy Days is more common than we care to admit. This is because our deepest encounter with our tradition, with our thoughts about God and our first experience of public speaking and leadership, all happens during that year. We all know how formative the teen years of our lives are, and how impactful the experience of going through the year of bar, bat or b-mitzvah is. But we can’t stop there.

Just as the types of books that move us today are more mature  than the ones that moved us in our teens, just as our knowledge of science is more advanced today than it was then, just as our understanding of history has changed since our teens, so too our relationship with God and tradition needs to evolve. We need to grow spiritually as well – but that growth, says Rosh Hashanah, has to be mindful, conscious, or it may not happen.

The Rebbe of Piaczeczna, Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, continues: “If, when next year comes and you assess yourself, and you see that you haven’t even reached the ankles of Reuben-of-the-coming-year, look at it as though — God forbid — you haven’t really lived another year.”

What a powerful image! To live without growth is not to have lived at all. It is to have occupied time without inhabiting it, to have existed without truly being present to the possibilities that each moment offers.

This connects beautifully to Reb Nachman of Bratzlav’s insight about the power of consciousness and intention. He says: “You are where your mind is. Make sure that your mind is where you want to be.” Rosh Hashanah is precisely the time when we get time to relocate our minds, to consciously choose where we want to direct our spiritual GPS for the year ahead.

Here’s the essential core of both teachings: the reinvention of the self, the recreation that Rosh Hashanah is asking us, is not about becoming someone else — it’s about becoming more fully who we are meant to be. When the Torah says “Abraham was old, advanced in years,” the Piaseczna Rebbe explains this to mean that “the Abraham of today would show up, not the Abraham of yesterday.” Abraham didn’t become someone other than Abraham; he became a more complete, more developed, more spiritually mature Abraham.

The same is true for us. The question is not “Who should I become that I’m not?” but rather “What is the fullest expression of who I am that I haven’t yet accessed?” What aspects of my soul have been waiting patiently for me to develop them? What spiritual muscles have I left unused? What capacity for kindness, for wisdom, for courage, for joy, lies dormant within me?

This year, as we hear the shofar’s call to awakening, let us not just resolve to fix our mistakes or improve our behavior — these are important but belong to the superficial world of actions. The Piaczezna rebbe is asking all of us to go deeper, beyond, higher: let us commit to the deeper work of conscious self-creation. Let us envision who we want to be twelve months from now and then ask ourselves: What would that person think about each day? How would that person treat others? What would that person prioritize? What would that person let go of? With what words and images would that person surround him or herself or themselves? How would that person spend their time in this earth?

And then, with the inner strength that sustained the Piaseczno Rebbe even in his darkest hour, let us trust that we have within us the power to become that person. Not through force or harsh self-discipline, but through the gentle, persistent work of aligning our daily choices with our highest vision of ourselves.

As we enter this new year, may we have the courage to meet ourselves fresh each morning, to show up as the person we are becoming rather than the person we have always been. May we follow Reb Nachman’s guidance and ensure our minds are where we want them to be — focused on growth, on possibility, on the sacred work of becoming, consciously turning away from the infinite distractions that surround us. And may we heed the Piaseczna Rebbe’s call to spiritual evolution, creating new versions of ourselves that honor both our deepest essence and our unlimited potential.

Shanah tovah u’metukah – May this be for all of us a year of sweetness and transformation.

Shanah tovah! Welcome to Rosh Hashanah, our Jewish New Year. I’m grateful for this opportunity to share thoughts from our tradition with you tonight, and I thank you for being here as we begin this holy time together.

Our services are made possible by many minds, hands and hearts: Cantor Re’ut Ben Ze’ev, our volunteer prayer leaders and shofar blowers, Leah Adler and all of the ritual committee, the board, Joanna Schnurman, Julio Ramos and Honor Edmands. Each has played a fundamental role in bringing us together yesterday, today, tomorrow and the High Holy Days ahead.

This is a wonderful beginning of the season of transformation, our Yamim Nora’im, our High Holy days.

Transformation, the recreation of the self, is what our tradition invites us to these days. We take leave from the world to embrace the possibility of transformation.

Now, I was seven and a half years old when I witnessed my first and most amazing moment of transformation – and that was… Clark Kent becoming Superman. As we had moved to Argentina, and settled in a tiny sleepy little town of 2,000 families, Pergamino, my parents decided to treat us, children, to an amazing experience – and took us to the movies. Superman was playing on the local cinema. The fact that he spoke English, and you had to read Spanish fast to catch up to the story, made no difference. I was smitten with the man of steel.

I mean, who wouldn’t? A completey good guy, someone who can fly faster than a speeding bullet, who is more powerful than a locomotive, and who, in a single bound, can leap tall buildings, can go backward in time, fix all problems and defeat evil. And to top it all, incredibly handsome. Blue, earnest eyes, and black waivy hair.

So it should come with no surprise that Mark and I, along something like 60 million other people worldwide, took our kids to see the new Superman movie this year. And as I revisited this powerful first example of transformation, I of course I hit the books, I learned something amazing: the man of steel was actually forged in the shtetl.

We all know Clark Kent is Superman, but I learned that both Clark Kent and Superman are Jewish. Books like “Up, Up, and Oy Vey” and “Is Superman Circumcised?” tell us a story that is actually hiding in plain sight:

In 1938, two Jewish kids from Cleveland, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, lived the immigrant story. Their families had fled Eastern Europe in the great Jewish migration of the late 1800s, and they understood what it meant to change your name, blend in, and yet never forget where you came from, who you were, which are your values. They made that story into a character: they called him Superman.

Siegel and Shuster imbued that creation with a deep, hidden identity. Consider the core elements of Superman’s story: his given name, Kal-El, is Hebrew for “voice of God” or “swift is God.” El is the ending of many names for angels in our tradition, that became regular names used by Jews and non-Jews alike: Michael, Rafael, Gabriel. Kal means swift, and Kol, which can be written as kal, depending on how you transliterate, means voice. Kal-El. What a Jewish name.

Now Superman, as a baby, was sent away from a dying world to survive. That world was a grand world, but is no more, there is no expectation of ever getting it back. There is no return to that past. Superman was destined to grow up hiding his true identity, he is raised by two good people who love him deeply, know he is a wonder, gifted, and yet do not understand him completely. Those adoptive parents have to be hidden themselves from the bad guys.

And his story is even more complex than that. Superman has a secret. He lives his everyday life as Clark Kent, the mild-mannered reporter of the Daily Planet in the city of Metropolis. Clark is quiet, a bit of a klutz, a little incompetent and clueless, and wears glasses. This the opposite of his heroic self. This duality — the public, assimilated persona of Clark Kent and the private, powerful, and truly unique identity of Superman — is a powerful metaphor for the Jewish American experience.

For many of us, our lives are a balance between these two worlds. We live as Clark Kent, fully integrated into American society, speaking its language, understanding its culture, and fitting in seamlessly.

Yet, within us lies a powerful, ancient, and divine identity — the Superman within. The question for us today is not which identity is real, but how we can embrace both. And all the other identities that happen inside the life of a person in America in the 21^st century.

Nearly a century ago, Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan talked about Jews living in two civilizations – two identities. Kaplan meant that a Jewish American person could maintain kashrut while embracing democratic values, celebrate both Sukkot and Thanksgiving as meaningful cultural moments, and draw from both traditions to create a rich, authentic life.

This framework back then liberated many of us from the false choice between assimilation and isolation. We were happy to be both 100% Jewish and 100% American. That rung true and powerful in 1920s, when he was writing.

Nowadays, however, we know that there are multiple identities for any person, and certainly any Jewish person. The binary does not work anymore – we have Jews that are Black, Asian, Latino, LGBTQ+, say nothing of the political expressions that are used as identities these days.

Our tradition speaks to these many identities in different ways – living in the Diaspora and its tensions with Jewishness is as old as the Bible itself. Consider a beloved Jewish holiday, Purim. The story is in the Book of Esther, the redemption from Haman is celebrated every year at Adath Israel, with reading the megillah and our Purim carnival. The entire story of Purim revolves around a hidden identity – and antisemitism.

Esther, a Jewish woman, becomes queen in the court of the Persian king, Ahashverosh. At the urging of Mordechai, her uncle for all purposes, she keeps her Jewish identity a secret. She is a perfect Clark Kent, blending in so completely that no one suspects her true origins. But when her people are threatened by Haman, Mordechai delivers a message that forces her to confront her true self: “Who knows if for such a time as this you have attained royalty?” (Esther 4:14).

Esther realizes that her identity is not a weakness to be hidden, but the very tool of her salvation. She sheds her Clark Kent persona, reveals her Jewishness to the king, and ultimately saves her people. For many of us, there comes a moment when our Jewish identity is called upon, not just for our own sake, but for a greater good. It is in those moments that our hidden strength is revealed.

Take the true story of Shai Davidai. He was a professor at Columbia University, and in his own words not very public about his Jewish and Israeli identity until October 7^th.

As an Assistant Professor in the Management Division of Columbia Business School, his research examined people’s everyday judgments of themselves, other people, and society. A very universal theme. I first heard him speak on a podcast called Israel Story, which features “wartime diaries”, by Mishi Harman. There, Shai Davidai explains that prior to October 7^th 2023 his Jewish identity was important but never “out there”. Shai even looks a little like Clark Kent. As a good professor, he wears glasses. In the army, he served as a medic for the Navy. He self-defines as a left winger in Israel, usually critical of the government. Living in Israel, he explains, makes your Jewishness paradoxically less intentional – it is like water for a fish. In America, he and his wife found out, for the first time, that to remain Jewish you have to be intentional about being Jewish. So they spoke Hebrew at home. They read the Israeli equivalent of PJ Library to their kids. They made time to observe some of  holidays. They talked about values.

But the atmosphere he witnessed on college campuses (and specifically at Columbia), compelled him to speak up and speak out against Hamas. And let me tell you that on Twitter, on October 6^th 2023, he had 900 followers, most people who are self-proclaimed nerds of universities, professors, talking about research in economics. But once a video of him speaking off the cuff, about his experiences on October 7^th, and the experiences of his family in Israel, and what was happening on the campus, all that changed.

By March 31, 2024, he had 30,000 followers. Nowadays he has almost 108,000. Having found his identity and his voice, he also lost his job at Columbia University. He has a podcast, entitled Here I am. Hineini. This is a powerful Jewish sentence.

It was on that podcast, Here I am with Shai Davidai, that I heard the story of Debra Messing. Having been born in Brooklyn, but moving next to a farm in Rhode Island, Debra Messing had many encounters with antisemites. She was called names in second grade, her grandfather’s car was vandalized with a swastika and she was taunted by the other kids when she observed Yom Kippur. So she hid. She began lying to other children, telling them she was sick every time she had to stay home for a Jewish holiday. “I had decided I am just going to hide,” she explained. “I’m going to hide my identity. I’m gonna try and just blend in because that’s the safest way.”

Sounds like a great Clark Kent to me.

But for college she went to Brandeis University. That shook her awake, because the school is, I am quoting her here, “Jew U.”

She explained that not only they “had off for Yom Kippur, but everyone talked about Shabbat and all of the sudden I felt seen. And I over the years became proud and decided that I wasn’t going to hide anymore and that I was going to embrace my heritage, and be loud and proud.” Debra Messing has emerged as a prominent voice against antisemitism in recent years, as a side to her activism regarding marginalized communities seeking equity and inclusion. She also chose to say Hineini, here I am.

And this sentence, here I am – Hineini,  is a powerful Jewish sentence. Abraham is the first human to use it, as the Torah reading of today has told us: here I am. I am present at this moment – unapologetically Jewish. Now all of us can see the Superman behind the glasses. The Clark Kent persona was no longer.

None of them: Esther, Shai Davidai, Debra Messing, Superman are hiding their strength – they are all showing their essence, their soul.

This brings us to a second Jewish source for this morning, the very essence of Jewish existence. The Zohar speaks of the Neshamah, the soul, and the Guf, the body.

The body is the external vessel, the public-facing part of us that interacts with the world. But the Neshamah is the inner, divine spark, our true, spiritual self. Our soul. It is this hidden essence that connects us to God and to our tradition.

Our Clark Kent self is the Guf, navigating the complexities of the modern world in diaspora, in America of the 21^st century. Our Superman identity is our Neshamah, the part of us that remembers our covenant, our history, and our sacred obligations. It never forgets. It remembers its deep devotion to Life, with capital L.

In that, we are no different than our ancestors in other great Jewish Diasporas, like Spain in the early middle ages, like Poland in the 13^th century with the statute of Kalisz, when Jews were so accepted and integrated in the general community that they had to be intentional about their Jewish identity and practices.

The Jewish challenge has always been to ensure that the Guf never completely overshadows the Neshamah, but rather serves as its protective shield, a way to move through the world while keeping our deepest identity intact, coming out when needed to connect with the Transcendent, to defend Jewish peoplehood.

The thing is, we are different. We straddle two worlds: the world of religion and the world of peoplehood.

When a convert comes in, they are not signing up just for a set of beliefs and actions, they are signing up for a collective destiny: in Nazi Germany, for instance, a convert, even if they were 100% Aryan, had the same end as a born Jew.

But our Jewish identity cannot be constructed just by antisemitism. We can’t be Jewish just because others hate us. Ours is a tradition in which the main life-long intellectual exercise is to know enough to have a dialogue with the tradition. A few of my non-Jewish friends express surprise when they learn how alive and full of opinions Jewish Law really is, how diverse. This is because Christians come from a tradition, particularly if they are Catholics, that prizes agreement with tenets, and a collective path of decision making – in the Catholic tradition the Pope is the presence of God in the world.

But not us. The Shechinah, God’s presence, according to the rabbis, resides whenever one, two, three, ten people are studying and debating together. God’s presence is inside every Jewish soul, lovingly beconing us to be our best selves, using our traditions and our mitzvot as a vehicle to survive in the world.

And Jewish peoplehood gives us a lesson too.

Look at our history, look at the history of the Jewish people. Time and again, we have been a people who were seemingly scattered, weak, and without a homeland, yet we have defied all expectations. We are a miracle in time: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Romans –  not one of those remain, their cultural influence makes up bits and pieces of the Western culture, but they are not here.

We, on the other hand, can say – hineini, in Hebrew, here I am. Or Ich bin doh, in Yiddish – here I am. Or that phrase in any of the several other Jewish languages in the world, like ladino, judeo-arabic, judeo-Malayalam….

We, my friends, we are the ultimate Superman, a people that has survived against all odds, creating a powerful spiritual and intellectual tradition that has shaped our presence in the world through Torah, mitzvot and community.

This strength did not come from our public persona, did not come from our Clark Kent, but from our hidden resilience, our Superman, our emunah our faith, about which I will be speaking about tomorrow – I know, shameless plug – and from our unwavering commitment to our identity and the right of being us. The right and the beauty of being different.

Ours is a strength that is so profound, it often takes an outside observer to see it. It is the kind of strength that shows up in moments of great crisis, but it has been building inside us all along, being nurtured by our commitment to our values, ideals and texts.

Let us learn from Superman’s duality. Our Jewish identity is not something to be forgotten or compartmentalized. It is our greatest strength, our moral compass, and our source of resilience. We can be Clark Kent, fully present in the world, and we can be Superman, powered by the strength of our Neshamot, our souls.

The challenge, and the opportunity, is to let our Superman self—the one who draws from thousands of years of tradition, from the Torah, from our sacred texts, and from our collective soul—guide our actions as Clark Kent. As a reminder, you all received a seal of Superman – remember who you are.

So here is to a year in which we all have the strength to live as both Clark and Superman, finding the right moment to reveal our true selves for the good of our people and all of humanity. May we finding the strength to do so, and the courage to learn so as to be a meaningful part of our people. Le Shanah Tovah tikatevu. May we all be inscribed in the book of a life well lived.

This week’s reading is the longest in Torah – it is the combination of Matot and Masei. The two readings together, which happens almost every year, have 253 verses and it is the longest reading of the Torah. The longest portion is Naso, with 176 verses, followed by Pinchas, with 168 verses. But Matot and Masei, which are very frequently combined, have together 253 verses.

The portion of Matot begins with Moshe explaining the laws of vows and oaths, including how they can be annulled. It then details the Israelites’ war against Midian, outlining the laws regarding the spoils of war. Finally, it addresses the request of Reuben and Gad to settle outside of the Promised Land, a request that Moses initially rejects but ultimately grants under specific conditions.

The portion of Masei summarizes the Israelites’ journey through the wilderness, delineates the borders of the Promised Land, and outlines the laws regarding cities of refuge and inheritance for women. It also details the Israelites’ 42 stations in the wilderness, from Egypt to the plains of Moab.

Love and Limits: Photo by Lera Ginzburg on Unsplash

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In the middle of Matot, there is a troubling command: God tells Moshe: “Avenge the Jewish people against the Midianites – and after that you will be gathered to your people.”

What the Midianites did to the Jewish people in the desert is described in the previous portions, at the end of parashat Balak and the beginning of parashat Pinchas. It was a sexual trap to get the Israelites to worship a deity called Ba’al Pe’or. A plague followed, as a punishment to the people. This plague was the greatest death in the 40 years in the desert, surpassing even the Golden Calf. This plague had 24,000 people dead, and is only stopped by the equally troubling actions of Pinchas.

The idea that our ethics and morals extend to our sexual behavior is present in the Ten Commandments, for instance, with “do not commit adultery” and on Yom Kippur afternoon reading. Kedushah, holiness, is defined by elevating the physical, and guarding it with limitations: the idea being that God created a physical world and us, physical beings, elevate that to the realm of a day-to-day spirituality.

We create holy days, like Shabbat, by refraining from certain actions, and not working. We create holy relationships, with our parents and partners, by honoring them – and some of that honor is expressed by not doing certain actions, like deception, cheating, cursing. Maimonides will add to the concept of holiness also the idea that we elevate food: both the laws regarding what animals we eat or not, and the death we cause to animals by making sure that they are killed in the quickest way – both of those ideas he inserts in the part of “laws of holiness” in Maimonides’ code. How we refrain our impulses regarding food is holiness too. To be a holy people, we elevate the mundane,and sexual behavior is part of that. Judaism is about finding ways of elevating our daily life towards holiness – we are called a holy people. The Midianites, the story in the Torah tells us, entrapped the Jews precisely through making them believe that there are no limits for sexual behavior.

The text continues, however, by telling Moshe that as soon as this war is done, he, Moshe, will die. The people of Israel at this point are poised to go into the promised land, and we know that all the leadership of the desert would not get into the land. Moshe is the last of the three siblings: Miriam and Aharon have died. And the text has said that as soon as this battle is waged, he will die. A normal person will understandably balk at such a command, and try to postpone it. But Moshe is giving us a lesson in leadership – he immediately gets the people ready for this war. He knows that he has to give up on his life so that the people can move forward in their story.

Great leaders are those who put the needs of those whom they lead before their own needs. Moshe is not just giving up leadership, and letting Joshua take over, but he is also giving his very existence so the people can go into the land. It is rare, nowadays, to find that type of leader, the leader that will put the collective well being above his or he personal desires, his or her personal interests, his or her political interests.

I have told this story a couple of times, so let me tell it to you too. As a freshly minted rabbi, I went to what can be describe as a job fair for rabbis. Conservative synagogues looking for new rabbis and fresh off the school rabbis meet, have interviews and from there, if the interviews are good, the rabbi goes to visit communities and see if they would be a good fit. I interviewed with several of communities, and got to visit four of them, one on each following weekend.

There was a community looking for an assistant rabbi. The pay was excellent, they had a nice house for the assistant rabbi, and the community seemed nice. So I was not the only new rabbi trying for that assistant position, and visiting it. And suddenly, before any of us received a yes or no, the congregation closed that position without giving an explanation. The explanation came on the papers next day: the senior rabbi had stolen 100,000 dollars from the congregation for his own personal use. And what was the use? To bring his mistress over from another state! I’ll let that sink in for a moent. The rabbi, of course, lost his license to be a rabbi, went to jail for a few years and then became an used car salesman. I do not have to tell you how traumatic that experience was for the community itself, how they had to pick up the pieces afterward, how long and difficult the healing process was.

Whenever leaders put their own personal interests above the needs of the community, in our people, tragedy ensues. This Shabbat we begin what is called the nine days, which is the period between Rosh Chodesh Av and Tishah beAv, the nineth day of the month of Av, when we remember the destruction of the Temple. That destruction happened for many reasons, say the rabbis. One of them is the infighting between the leaders – every single group during the second temple period had a position that can be described as “my way or the highway”. Every individual that was significant, even if they were not a leader, had their own desires front and center, not caring about the needs of the nation, the people, or even Jerusalem. Not caring about limits. This is called ‘sinat hinam’, translated as ‘senseless hatred’, the most famous of those stories is Kamtsa and Bar Kamtsa.

Senseless hatred is an odd concept, if you think about it. When you listen to people who hate, they all think that they are being very sensible. They all have logical reasons to hate and to put their own actions forward with complete disregard for the other, with complete disregard for the consequences to their families, communities and people. They all have logical reasons to want to have no barriers towards their objectives. It is my way or the highway. So I don’t think that senseless hatred is a good translation of ‘sinat hinam’. A better translation is ‘hatred freely given, without regard for consequences’.

Whenever we give in to hate, there are consequences. When we decide that we have a pass on hateful actions because the ends justify the means, that is sinat hinam. When we somehow rationalize our hate driven actions, after all we are only looking for our own interests, that is sinat hinam, hate given freely without thinking of the consequences. The names in the story, Kamtsa and Bar Kamtsa, can be translated as Locust and Locust Junior.  Now think about the destruction locusts bring – and yet each locust is doing precisely only their own interest: to eat as much as possible in the shortest amount of time, they only focus on their selves. They destroy everything, there’s nothing left for the next generation. The hatred between Locust and Locust Jr destroyed the temple, say the rabbis – because it was just each looking for his own interests, and disregarding the collective.

Holiness, our portion reminds us, is to be searched throughout our lives, in every moment, in every action. This means regarding the other, listening to them, accepting limits, understanding and taking in consideration the needs of those we share our lives with, the needs of our friends and families, the needs of our communities, cities, people and nation. The needs of the collective, as Moshe exemplifies to us. Sinat hinam, consequence-free hatred, is the complete opposite of that.

So may we take to heart these lessons, may we see the needs of others and take them in consideration, and may we, after the Nineth of av, find the true consolation of Ahavah hinam, Love that is given freely. Shabbat shalom.

Summary: “Naso,” means “Count” // it is the longest portion in verses // Completing the headcount in the desert. We read the laws of sotah, who is the woman suspected of adultery by her husband; the laws of Nazir, the person who decides to abstain of grape products, cutting hair and attending to dead bodies; the blessing of the kohanim: yevarechecha hashem. The 12 tribe leaders, princes, called nesi’im in our portion, bring gifts to the Tabernacle. All gifts are the same but they are repeatedly described by the text.

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There was once a Hasidic disciple of the Toldot Aharon (Aharon the rebbe of the Karlin dynasty) who decide he need to elevate his soul even more. He was a young man deeply devoted to his spiritual growth but felt that it was not enough just to be a devoted hasid. He took a Nazirite vow. He stopped cutting his hair, stopped touching or consuming any grape products, and distanced himself from any source of spiritual impurity.  You might think this is easy, but have you noticed how much grape products we consume, at every holiday and every Shabbat? Even challahs can have raisins. So he refrained from staying for kiddush, did havdalah by himself, and was never there if the lechayims included wine, which was common at the Karlin court. He also stopped going to cemeteries and visiting shiva houses.

His life became one of solitary holiness, with prayer, Torah study, and deep introspection being the core of his routine. After some time, he began to feel disconnected from the world around him. One day, he asked to see the Rebbe and explained his situation, feeling that his path was at a crossroads: Must his spiritual connection with God be at odds with people? The Rebbe of Karlin listened patiently and said:

“You have made yourself pure, but in doing so, you have distanced yourself from the community. Holiness is not only a solitary endeavor. That is easy. The real challenge is to use holiness to transform both yourself and the world around you. True holiness shines through when you bring light to others.”

The young man was puzzled. He asked, “But Rebbe, how can I bring light to others when I am separated from the world?”

The Rebbe responded: “This is the teaching of the Nazir. While the Nazir refrains from certain pleasures, she or he is still part of a greater community. The sanctity of the nazir is not for the individual alone — it is to serve as a model for others, a conduit of blessing. If you truly wish to elevate yourself, you must learn to blend your inner purity with the needs of the community.”

A short while later, the Hasid found himself in a position where he was called upon to serve as a part of the kohanim, giving the blessing during Rosh Hashanah.

That year, the hasidim told the rebbe: what an amazing moment! Each and every one of those present, men and women, felt an overwhelming sense of peace, and some even reported feeling a tangible presence of divine energy in the air. The moment of Birkat Kohanim was unlike any they had experienced before! The very heaven seemed to have opened in the shul. Many felt impelled to review their deeds and be kinder to those around them.

The rebbe then called the young nazir, and told him: now it is time for you to see that you can actually raise holiness among people. Look what happened: when you raised your hands they became channels for a deep spiritual power – because you were able to help others with the energy of devotion, restraint and self-discipline.

The young man then embraced the end of his Nazir vow, as he understood that holiness is not about retreating from the world, but about bringing God’s presence into the world, sharing blessings with others.

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What seems to be the pinaccle of these gifts?

Why is the last verse in our reading important, and what do you think it teaches us?