Sermon given November 22, 2025 Shabbat shalom, everybody. Once upon a time a daughter complained to her mother that life wasn’t fair. “I feel like I can’t control anything”, she said. Her mother, a chef, didn’t say anything. Instead, she took her out to the kitchen. She took three identical pots, filled them each with the same amount of water, and brought the water to a boil over the fire. Into the first pot, her mother dropped a raw potato. Into the second pot, her mother delicately placed a raw egg. And into the final pot, she slipped a steel chopping knife. A few minutes later, her mother carefully took the pots off of the fire. She put the egg and the potato on a plate and handed it all to her daughter. She took out the knife and lay it on the table. Then she asked, “Daughter, what do you see?” “I see a potato, an egg, and a knife” the daughter replied. “Look closer” her mother said, “and touch the potato.” The daughter did and she noticed that even though the potato had started out hard, in the boiling water it had become soft and mushy. She then touched the egg and noticed that though it had once been fragile, in the boiling water it had become hard and strong. “You see?” said the mother. “The same boiling water affected the potato and the egg in different ways. Life is like the boiling water: It is what we are given. We can’t control where we are born or what we are taught as young children. But we can sometimes influence how we respond to what life gives us-- what we do with the experiences life offers. We can choose, sometimes, whether we want to grow softer, like the potato, or harder, like the egg. “I understand, mother”, said the daughter. “But what about the knife? It is just as hard, and just as sharp, right now, as before it went into the boiling water. It didn’t change, like the potato or egg. ” “Ah”, said the mother. “But the boiling water DID change the knife. The knife is now kasher.” Now. On a basic level, for the purposes of this drash, Torah is like the boiling water in the story. Torah is given to us, as Jews. Torah also impacts ours lives in many ways: it is our sometimes confusing, sometimes frustrating guide; it is our font of spiritual nourishment; and it is an ongoing, mysterious, powerful source for inspiration and change and wrestling. And, just like the boiling water, which causes the potato to soften, the egg to harden, and the knife to become mysteriously kosher again, the Torah can influence different people, different situations, and different moments differently. Two Jews can interpret the same Jewish lessons or Torah stories in very different ways, ending up on different sides of the political or halachic spectrum. And yet-- even with all of our differences-- the boiling water that is Torah remains the same for all of us. The question is: To what extent, and in what fashion, do we let the sacred words of Torah mold us, shape us, influence us, and guide us in the world? How do we know when we are supposed to stand our ground, to dig in our heels, to strengthen ourselves like that egg in the boiling water, to stick to our guns, to hold the line? How do we know when we are supposed to soak in the Torah and let it soften us and make us malleable and vulnerable, like the potato, make us more open? How do we know when we’re supposed to sit with the Torah and let it transform us together into something arguably even more wonderful than we were before, like the coffee, let it help us grow? And how do we know when we are supposed to be transformed on a spiritual level, not on a physical level, like the knife: to surrender to the power of faith, and the knowledge that while we may not understand everything about the Torah, following its lessons makes us holy, makes us kasher, like that knife, and that this holiness is, in and of itself, worth it? These are questions at the core of our theology, as a people who value both our sacred and ancient traditions and wanting to exist honestly in the modern world. These questions provide the basis for why we have such a variety of belief and practice within any Jewish community, to say nothing of our various denominational differences. And they are also questions that pulse throughout the stories in our Torah. The story in today’s Torah portion about Isaac and Rebekah’s sons is no exception. Jacob and Esau, as far as siblings go, are famous. Or perhaps more accurately, they are infamous. Theirs is a story of brotherly conflict: Like almost all of our biblical family stories, it’s a masterclass in how not to communicate and how not to build healthy relationships. It’s also a fantastic example, over time, of watching how one family evolves in their relationship to the world around them, and begins to take ownership over the choices they are making. Now, whenever I read this story, I also always end up thinking something like “Wait a minute. Didn’t God set this all up? Didn’t God predetermine the entire mess before the boys were even born? Did they actually have any hope at all of NOT turning out this way?” Because, to quote, in Genesis 25, verse 23, after Rebekah has reached out to God because she is suffering through a difficult pregnancy, God says: שְׁנֵ֤י () [גוֹיִם֙] בְּבִטְנֵ֔ךְ “Two nations are in your womb, and two kingdoms will separate from you, and one kingdom will become mightier than the other, and the elder will serve the younger.” See? There! Like I was saying! God knew, right? It was all foretold, it was all fate. Jacob had to plot for the birthright. There was clearly no other option. Jacob had to let life harden him. ……or did he? In the subsequent verses, we read about the boys’ birth, about their complexions, about their talents-- and then, we read that the parents do not love them equally. Isaac loves Esau (though our commentator Sforno reassures us he also loved Jacob, just that our text omits this). Rebekah, on the other hand, clearly favors Jacob (our commentator Chizkuni tells us that Jacob took care of Rebekah’s animals, and it is the way of women to love those who take care of domesticated animals). Ok. Good to know. It’s clear that affections weren’t shared equally among the brothers. Favoring and favoritism were happening. Now, how much of this favoring was preordained because of what God said while Rebekah was pregnant, and how much was the choice of the parents? We don’t know, we really don’t. One could make the argument that Rebekah was strategically favoring Jacob because she believed that he would be the more important son later on in life. Or that she was, piously, trying to bring God’s words into fruition. Or, perhaps, she honestly didn’t think about God’s prediction much, ‘cause she had her hands full with two twin babies, and she just genuinely had a special connection with Jacob, and Isaac, a special connection with Esau. We don’t know. All we know is what is reported to us: that they clearly and openly favored one child over the other, and developed imbalanced relationships that were clearly seen by the children themselves. But the important thing to note is that these somewhat twisted relationships, and their nuances, were not actually in the prediction foretold by God. All God said was that there would be a difference in power between the two children struggling in Rebekah’s womb. Later in our parashah, we see the fateful interaction between Esau and Jacob, where Jacob withholds food from his hungry brother until his brother swears away his birthright. Which begs the questions-- Why in the world would Esau take such an oath-- his birthright!-- so lightly? Alternately, if he was truly on death’s door, and food was being withheld, would an oath extracted under such duress even count? Besides, hadn’t Rebekah and Isaac taught their sons ANYTHING about their responsibilities to each other and to the family? It sure doesn’t seem like it. This was every son for himself-- and this drama was in no way contained within God’s prediction for the brothers. The specifics were all on them. We can only imagine what deeply ingrained wounds and bitterness must have already festered between the siblings-- for a long time-- in order for Jacob to torment his brother with a bowl of lentils. But the story isn’t over. Because, when Jacob has completed his subterfuge and received the blessing meant for his brother, their father Isaac continues to make inexplicably damaging choices. For some reason, Isaac couldn’t find it in him to give Esau a wholehearted and positive blessing, albeit a different one than he had originally intended. Isaac could not find it within himself to give a blessing of love, of hope, of reconciliation. As a final layer of pain, Isaac and Rebekah then make the choice to send Jacob away in fear, instead of working to heal the wrong that had been done within their family. Why did they choose to encourage distance instead of communication? Why couldn’t they own the poisonous atmosphere they themselves had contributed to, and try to fix it? Why did they take a painful promise and make it so much worse than it had to be? Again and again, in this week’s parashah, we see our ancestors making imperfect human decisions that don’t foster unity, that don’t strengthen the family, and that don’t promote communication and peace. They chose to be hardened by life, instead of being transformed by it and made holier by it. They chose to be the egg, not the potato- and certainly not the knife. The tantalizing flipside, though, is this: What would it have looked like if Isaac and Rebekah had chosen to approach God’s prediction about their twins differently? What would have happened if they had chosen to interpret and react to God’s prediction from a different angle, from an angle of connection, and softening, and vulnerability, instead of with favoritism and hardened hearts? What if they had risen to meet the challenge of God’s painful prediction as a team instead of pitting each other against one another? We can’t know for sure. And yet, I can’t believe that we were created to sit back and simply take what life gives us, to not try to better ourselves, to not try to work for the ideals that our Torah so values. Jacob and Esau didn’t choose to be born as twins into a family that had received that challenging prophecy. They didn’t choose to have parents who developed biased relationships with them, rife with favoritism, and who didn’t ingrain in them the values and practices that might have led to a different outcome. That prophecy, and that family, is one they were born into. That prophecy, and that family, to return to our story from the beginning of this drash, was their boiling water. And just like the potato, and the egg, and the coffee grounds, that boiling water shaped them. It made Jacob willing to lie and cheat; it made Esau unwilling to properly value his birthright; it embittered their parents and lessened the possibility of balanced connections to their children. It pitted brother against brother, even while it fulfilled God’s promise of the younger ruling over the elder. And our story could end there-- with Jacob and Esau hardening like eggs-- except that thankfully, there is more to the tale. Because, while we didn’t read about it in this week’s Torah portion, the fact is that later in life, the brothers did indeed choose to take matters into their own hands and hearts, and to ultimately have a different relationship with the story they were born into. Years later, far removed from their childhood squabbles, Jacob and Esau meet, again, on a road. And this time, instead of hardening like eggs, they choose to soften, like a potato. The brothers are scared. This is a more vulnerable path. But they persevere. And Jacob sends gifts of apology. And Esau and Jacob embrace. וַׄיִּׄשָּׁׄקֵ֑ׄהׄוּׄ וַיִּבְכּֽוּ׃ Our text tells us. They kiss each other, and they weep together. And in that moment, the story changes. In that moment, they are no longer hardened, but softened; no longer fighting, but loving. In that moment, their relationship transcends the very real wounds they carry, and provides a tiny bit of tikkun, of healing, into this world. That moment was kasher. They were still the same men, still born from that same messy situation, still caught in that boiling water, but something invisible, something deeper, happened. And here’s the kicker: That forgiveness wasn’t in God’s prophecy at the beginning of our story today. God predicted that they would fight, that they would argue, that the younger would rule the older one: but Their forgiveness wasn’t commanded to them, or handed to them. Their forgiveness was a choice, and a choice they both made, despite the challenges they faced. They chose, in that moment, to tap into something bigger than themselves: to tap into the holy undercurrent of peace, the potential for harmony, that surrounds us, and that is there, I would argue, in every word of our sacred Torah. The current of potential for change is always there, even in our most difficult moments-- but it is up to us to open ourselves to it. And like the knife in the boiling water, when we open ourselves up to being vulnerable and healing together, though we may not change externally, we become holy. We grow internally. But we are also Jews, which means we are also given Torah. Sometimes, the lessons from the Torah will strengthen our resolve and make us hard, like a boiled egg; and sometimes, they will make us feel soft and vulnerable, like a boiled potato. But sometimes, if we let it, Torah can transform us in ways we couldn’t have imagined, like Esau and Jacob at the end of their story. Just as they ultimately made their lives kasher by letting themselves be transformed, we, too, can make our lives kasher, like the boiled knife. The question is not what challenges are placed before us-- the question is, what do we let them do to us? Are we the egg? Are we the potato? Or are we the knife? Shabbat shalom.

Sermon given October 25, 2025 Shabbat shalom, everybody. This is the week we learn about Noach, the week we learn about the flood. This is the week where we read about a world completely out of control. וַתִּשָּׁחֵ֥ת הָאָ֖רֶץ לִפְנֵ֣י הָֽאֱלֹהִ֑ים וַתִּמָּלֵ֥א הָאָ֖רֶץ חָמָֽס: The world had become corrupted before God, and filled with Chamas, with violence and lawlessness. This week, we read about God becoming so angry with our ancestors that the only acceptable answer seemed to be to annihilate our species. קֵ֤ץ כָּל־בָּשָׂר֙, God tells Noach. It’s time to put an end to all flesh. This is also the week where we read about the floating oasis that was Noah’s ark: a very large and very special boat, with specific compartments and a waterproof insulation and skylight in the ceiling. This special boat was created to hold Noah, his sons and their families, and two of every species of creepy-crawly-fluffy-scaly-flying-burrowing creature inhabiting this planet. And on this week of all weeks, on this animal-filled week of Scripture, on this week where I am just now returning from four days in the forests in the northwestern portion of this incredible state, I want nothing less than to give a sermon about all of the amazing specimens of the animal kingdom that I saw. I want to stand here before you and expound about the first time this week that I saw a wild turkey, then a second wild turkey, then a flock of them, and then how I got kinda bored of wild turkeys. I’d like to speak rabbinically about the beauty of the birds of prey I saw swooping over the landscape, bringers of death and of wonder, and about the tenacious and tiny mice and voles I saw, and about the endlessly bounding and grass-chewing grey-brown deer with, apparently, absolutely no fear of humans. And more than ANYthing, I want to spend this sermon describing in the strongest spiritual terms possible the moment I came around a corner on a small gravel road and came face-to-face with a bull moose, with a full rack of antlers, standing in the middle of the road and staring at me. For the record, I can only imagine how HE felt, when this odd shiny blue creature in the shape of a Hyundai hybrid sedan appeared out of nowhere. I want to tell you all about the incredible awe I felt, and how it was a holy and terrifying moment of beauty, and how that moment transformed the rest of my trip into a meditation of sorts, a meditation on the nature and spirituality of fear and awe. I spent a lot of this week thinking about awe, and what we mean when we say we feel awe, especially in relation to God. Often, what we mean when we say “awe” in reference to God has to do with the most impressive and moving things in this world, the things that make us say “wow”: things like double rainbows and childbirth and true love and meteor showers. But the word “awe” also has another aspect, a part we often forget is included in our tradition: awe can also mean healthy, humble FEAR. Awe can be a reminder that at the end of the day, we are not in charge. When talking about God using the Hebrew word for awe, we say that God is “El Nora”. But when we use this phrase, both in our Amidah and at the end of the High Holidays as the metaphorical gates swing shut, if we just mean that God is AWEsome, we are omitting an entire layer of the word’s message. Because calling God El Nora means that God is both truly Awesome and truly AWEful. And alone in the woods several miles from the nearest paved road or, as far as I knew, another human, coming face-to-face with that moose was one of the closest memories I’ve ever had to understanding true Awe. I will always be grateful to God– and grateful to that moose, who must have been just as surprised as I was– for that moment. Now. That’s the sermon I wanted to give you, a sermon about the miracle of God’s creation and our place as humans in it among all of the other creatures, a sermon about awe and wonder and humility. But the fact of the matter is that there are many, many possible takeaways from this week and from the Scripture we just read. And while I just so happened to have a powerful personal experience in nature a few days ago, that experience did not stop the rest of the stories and machinations and conflicts of the world from continuing to unfold, and it did not stop us rabbis from feeling immense pressure to respond. I came back from the forest and returned to my emails, to my facebook feed, to the various rabbinic listservs I am a part of. And I learned, when I began catching up on all of the messages from the past few days, that many of my rabbinic colleagues have spent this week caught up in a discussion and debate very, very different from what had been going through my own head and heart. And so that, my friends, is what the rest of this sermon is about today. Some of you may or may not have heard that a week ago, my colleague Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove at Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City made a notable choice. During an election season, he gave a sermon in which he called out a democratic New York mayoral candidate by name and said that that candidate, quote, “poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community”. Rabbi Cosgrove proceeded also stated that he believes voting for the republican candidate, instead of the other Democratic candidate, would be tantamount to supporting the candidate he was urging his congregants to oppose. This sermon, given to a large congregation by a prominent rabbi, has set off a bit of a firestorm online. There is now a letter going around signed by over 1,000 rabbis calling on Jews and non-Jews alike to reject candidates who promote antiZionist rhetoric and calling out the same candidate by name. Though the letter does not go as far as Rabbi Cosgrove did in suggesting for whom congregants should vote, it was inspired by, and quotes, the sermon. Now. Both on my Conservative rabbinic groups and my cross-denominational groups, opinions on Rabbi Cosgrove’s sermon and on the letter it inspired run deep. Some, including several of my own teachers and mentors, are proudly standing behind their signatures on the letter and their support of Rabbi Cosgrove making recommendations openly about whom his congregants should vote for. They are proud of their signatures, ostensibly, because they believe that this particular politician does, indeed, pose a real threat to the many Jews who live in New York and beyond, and because they feel that the level of antisemitic and antiZionist discourse has reached dangerous levels in this country. In terms of this week’s Torah portion, it appears that these rabbis are concerned that the arc of history is once again bending not towards justice, as we would hope, but rather towards Chamas, towards violence and lawlessness, and they feel a responsibility to speak up and change the tide. They see this election as a bellwether of sorts, an embodiment of deeply concerning trends on the rise, At the same time, other colleagues, including several more of my teachers and mentors, are adamant that a rabbi should never openly endorse candidates or attempt to influence their congregants’ voting decisions, and are horrified by Rabbi Cosgrove’s sermon and the letter based off of it. In terms of this week’s Torah portion, this second group of rabbis see this particular candidate not as a symbol of violence and lawlessness, but rather as an imperfect, flawed politician who is running in a fraught municipal election. They agree that violence and lawlessness are a problem, but do not feel that the appropriate way to address them is by signing on to this letter or attempting to influence congregants’ votes from the pulpit. Another colleague, who did sign the letter but requested anonymity for the purpose of this sermon, described signing it as akin to breaking a Shabbat rule in order to honor pikuach nefesh, the Jewish value of saving a life over observing all other mitzvot. That is to say, they wish they did not feel a need to sign this letter, and it is in a way breaking a personal rule for them to do so, but they still felt that it was necessary to add their signature because it was so important to do so. Still other rabbis have offered strong support of this particular candidate, and find him in no way dangerous. Writing for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency a few days after the letter quoting Rabbi Cosgrove began to make its rounds, Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein reflected on the immense impact of the sermon and the letter and the incredible pressure such moments put on rabbis as spiritual leaders. Rabbi Epstein writes, quote, “when a letter like this appears, rabbis can face a no-win choice: risk alienating some of the people they serve, or risk being seen as abandoning our people altogether.” She is right. That is a risk that every rabbi faces. That is a risk that I face, too. I will share with you in plain and simple terms that I, personally, will not be signing the letter. However, I also want to state clearly that I respect my colleagues who did sign the letter, because they followed the still, small voice within their hearts, as our tradition calls on us to do. They saw where they believed they had to draw a line in the sand, and they did so. That takes moral courage. It also takes moral courage to not sign a letter that so many colleagues have put their names on. This is all to say that while I disagree with Rabbi Cosgrove’s choice to use his pulpit to recommend that his congregants vote a certain way, and while I promise this community that I will never endorse a candidate or suggest how you should vote, I do believe that he acted from a place of deep wrestling, devotion, and love for humanity and the Jewish people. He just showed it in a different way than I choose to. Because in the end, even if we show our devotion in different ways, the path that allows Judaism to survive– and thrive– is the path where we commit to supporting each other in our journeys and in our myriad ways of communicating and taking stands, even when, and especially when, those ways differ. This is how strong community forms, and how strong community stays connected. Rabbi Epstein, later in her article, alludes to the power of uniting relationally through diverse opinions, stating that “The letter that so many rabbis signed is, at heart, a call to defend the Jewish future. But the Jewish future will not be defended by uniformity. It will be defended by the strength of our relationships.” And in this, I think she hits the nail on the head. Because relationships are what this is all about, at the end of the day; Relationships with each other, with congregants, with interfaith partners, with family and friends; relationships with political foes and allies alike; relationships with our ancestors and descendants, with God, with Israel, and with our own self-conscience. The relationships my colleagues are nurturing in our heart-to-hearts this week matter. The relationships the TBE Board nurtures when it agrees and when it disagrees within itself matter. The relationships each member of TBE nurtures when you reach out to share your opinions, to ask questions, to offer help, to sympathize, to share a concern– these matter. Relationships, by nature dynamic and evolving things, are at the heart of all we do as people and as Jews, and moments like this, and the choices we all make, impact our relationships, for better, for worse, and often, for both. And in today’s Torah portion, relationships are what fall apart. All humans have turned into such bastions of lawlessness and violence that it sounds as if trust and empathy and love are no longer left on the Earth. There could no longer be healthy interpersonal relationships of any kind. And most painfully, it is GOD who decides that all Divine-human relationships will be nullified, and wiped out, via the flood. It is GOD who says, no, we have reached a point of no return, I cannot do this anymore, I will not do this anymore, there is no way back from this precipice. Ouch. But then: it is ALSO God who realizes, after the flood, that giving up on those relationships was something that must never happen, ever, ever again. It is God who promises, to never, ever again approach conflict, and anger, in this destructive way. It is God who, in this Torah portion, says HINENI, here I am, making a brit, a covenant with all humans and animals on this Earth, that I will not give up on you, and that I hope you will not give up on me, or on each other, again. As we move forward together, I am prepared to judge you erring on the side of love. And committing to judge one another erring on the side of love is exactly what all of us have to do, again, and again, and again. There is a principle in Pirkei Avot that is similar to the conclusion that God comes to in this week’s parasha. Pirkei Avot teaches that when you judge a person, you should do so l’kaf zchut, according to their merit. That is to say that if, say, there was a set of scales of our good and bad deeds, and they were equal, we should err on the side of the good deeds. Or if a person has ulterior and healthy motives for doing something, we should focus on the good motives. Essentially, the principle of judging l’kaf zchut acknowledges the imperfection inherent within each of us, and requires us to give each other the benefit of the doubt. As the rabbinic controversy has unfolded this week after Rabbi Cosgrove’s sermon and the letter’s circulation, I have been reminded that among rabbis, like among all other people, our choices about where and when to draw a line in the sand, where and when to take a stand, will differ. I have also been reminded that in those moments when our stands differ, it is our sacred duty to judge each other l’kaf z’chut, to remember that we became rabbis because we love Judaism and our sacred tradition, not because we wanted to agree on everything. This sacred duty to judge l’kaf z’chut in times of disagreement also applies to us here at TBE as we navigate our personal, religious, and–yes– even political differences. In principle, it would be lovely to never have politics touch our relationships here at TBE– but the reality is that the values that guide our souls and the values that guide our votes do indeed overlap. Even making the choice not to ever talk politics is a political choice, and when the content of our sacred texts mirrors the content of the ballot, we religiously observant folks have a difficult line to walk, and it is a lime we walk in diverse ways. However, just like the word “Awe”, the word “diverse” also has multiple meanings. On the one hand, honoring diversity means supporting the marginalized and making sure all of our community members are actively included, and finding appropriate accommodations where necessary. Yet at the same time, honoring diversity also means honoring the dignity of those who disagree with you, and defending their right to disagree with you. Honoring diversity means arguing, not with the goal of proving that you are right, and that the other person is wrong, but with the goal of understanding one another . Honoring diversity means not writing someone off because of one belief, but judging them l’kaf z’chut, trying to see the big picture, and remembering their merit, and their worth. I have been humbled, this week, to see judgement l’kaf z’chut being modeled among many of my colleagues. I have similarly been humbled again and again by members of this community, who have gone the extra mile and had difficult and heartfelt conversations, not because it was easy or clear-cut, but because it was holy, and because it was how to ensure that our community stays strong. Perhaps, if our ancestors had been able to do this, things would never have gotten so bad. Perhaps, if our ancestors had learned to judge one another l’kaf z’chut, the world would not have devolved into utter lawlessness and violence. Perhaps the ark would never have had to be built. Perhaps, God wouldn’t have given up on us. Perhaps, WE wouldn’t have given up on us. I’m not sure. But what I am sure of is that none of us here today, or watching online, or reading these words, have given up. We are making the choice to actively be in community together, hearing one another, being vulnerable with one another, and trying again and again to judge each other l’kaf z’chut, according to our merit. I don’t know what the next flood will be. But I am heartened to know that we will be facing it together as a community, strengthened not only in spite of our diverse opinions, but because of them. Shabbat shalom.

Sermon given September 13, 2025 If you’ve ever been in my office and taken a gander at my bookshelf, you may have noticed one of my most beloved possessions: The extremely old tractates of Talmud which occupy their own section of a bookcase. This set of Talmud is truly dear to me. It is over a hundred years old and resided in Poland in the early 20th century before being brought out to the States before the Holocaust. The ink was printed on the paper in the old-fashioned way, so if you gently touch the pages, you can literally feel the 3D nature of the letters. The smell that rises from the binding is old and dusty and welcoming. It’s amazing for me to think of who else might have learned from these pages before me, and what these precious books must have gone through to make it out of Poland before the Shoah, to the United States, and eventually, into my hands. These books are history. But sadly, they are beginning to fall apart. The covers and spines are peeling and cracking, the pages are starting to come out, and I am reminded every time I open one of the fleeting nature of ink on paper, and how even a book like this amazing set of Talmud, that has already lived longer than a human being lives, will still one day go to the genizah, to a special grave for sacred texts, and there, it will also return to the Earth. Beyond their impressive physical state, and beyond the sensory and historical facts ascribed to the specific masechtot of Talmud I am lucky to call my own, there is also something deeply soothing to me about opening these books. They remind me that no matter what is going on in my life, or in the world around us; no matter what the Jewish family is facing, to say nothing of the entire human family; no matter when paper crumbles, or ink fades, our stories, and our lessons, and our arguments, will live on, as long as we are committed to them. And physical books are just one of the tools at our disposal in ensuring that this chain is never broken. In Ki Tavo, which we read from this week, we get to witness how B’nai Yisrael, three thousand years ago, wrestled with the same question-- how do we preserve our lessons and stories as we evolve? In a world where permanence is relative, how do we ensure to the best of our ability that where we came from and who we are is not forgotten? In Deuteronomy Chapter 27, Moses gives very clear instructions to B’nai Yisrael about the very first things they should do after crossing the Jordan and entering into the Promised Land. First, Moses describes: וְהָיָ֗ה בַּיּוֹם֮ אֲשֶׁ֣ר תַּעַבְר֣וּ אֶת־הַיַּרְדֵּן֒ אֶל־הָאָ֕רֶץ אֲשֶׁר־יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶ֖יךָ נֹתֵ֣ן לָ֑ךְ וַהֲקֵמֹתָ֤ לְךָ֙ אֲבָנִ֣ים גְּדֹל֔וֹת And on the day that you cross the Jordan to the Land Adonai your God has given you, you shall make an altar out of great stones. And then: וְכָתַבְתָּ֣ עֲלֵיהֶ֗ן אֶֽת־כׇּל־דִּבְרֵ֛י הַתּוֹרָ֥ה הַזֹּ֖את בַּאֵ֥ר הֵיטֵֽב You shall write upon those stones all of words of this Torah, this teaching I your leader have been giving you, clearly and distinctly. On stone! (As a side note here, there is great disagreement among our sages about what was meant by “this whole torah”. There are claims of everything from including only overarching commandments to including minutiae. Rashi takes it even a step further, saying that “B’er heytev” doesn’t just mean that the words should be clear and legible, but rather that the Torah should all be written out in 70 different languages. Imagine how many stones and how many artisans we would need for that! But, I digress.) Back to Moses. Now remember, Moses himself was intimately familiar with writing on stones. He was, after all, the one who brought down the Tablets from Har Sinai, from Mount Sinai, inscribed with the Ten Commandments. And ever since that day at Har Sinai-- especially ever since B’nei Yisrael reached the borders of the Promised Land and Moses began to share his final wisdom in the book of Deuteronomy-- Moses has been teaching orally, speaking God’s words to the people, trying to prepare them for the life ahead of them. And now, suddenly, he is telling B’nai Yisrael that as they begin their next chapter, on the other side of the Jordan, they must begin to write everything down. Specifically, to inscribe the Torah onto stone. Why would Moses want the Israelites to do this? Perhaps it was because he was nearing death-- perhaps it was because leadership was changing-- perhaps it was because Moses knew that once the Israelites were in the Promised Land, they would spread out and have less contact with each other, which might threaten the future of the stories and history they had made together. Regardless of the specific reason, the act of choosing to inscribe the Torah onto rock-- literally making it “set in stone” instead of purely an oral tradition-- ensured a certain sense of permanence, a certain reassurance, perhaps, for Moses, that the people he had led with so much love and devotion would not forget the sacred learning he had dedicated his life to transmitting. There is great wisdom in this step. And yet. Have you ever visited a really, really old graveyard? One of the ones where time has worn the head markers smooth, where sometimes, even, the Earth itself is starting to reclaim the graves, where you can no longer say for sure who was there, when they were there, what they said? There is a haunting beauty in watching the biblical directive that we shall go from ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, in action. Because even stones, it seems, have their limits. Stones, like the paper pages of my century-plus year old Talmud, reach a point where they can no longer be relied upon as the main source of transmission: of information, of law, of names, of tradition. It seems that Moses wanted the Torah to be permanent, so he wanted to make it physical. But if everything physical ultimately falls apart, what can we do to ensure that our tradition not only survives, but thrives? Some of you had the pleasure of being in this room last Sunday morning. It was the kick-off of our new KBE Hebrew School year and it was AMAzing. We began with a guitar-led, energetic morning minyan with all 70 students, parents, and a cadre of wonderful teachers; we did a school-wide family tree activity with our director, Shane, exploring this year’s theme of L’dor Va’dor; and as the students went to class, the hallls were packed with happy chatter and laughter. It was heartwarming and exhilarating to see so many kiddos and parents making the choice, of all of the things they could have been doing on a Sunday morning, to get up, to drive to the synagogue, and to kick off to another year of Jewish learning. And I bring up KBE in our discussion of stones because if the question is, what is stronger than stone, where better to see the answer in real life than in the bright eyes of our children, and the love of our teachers, and the power of tradition as it is passed from generation to generation. This is the key: When we, as Jewish adults, surround our kids with a life that pulses joyfully with Judaism, that connects them to their ancient roots, that teaches them to interact with their daily world in a sacred way, we are inscribing Torah not on pages, and not on stones, but on their hearts. When we model welcoming Judaism in on a personal level, and engaging with and encouraging tough questions, we reinforce the rich invisible thread that binds us together l’dor va’dor, from generation to generation. When we invest in our own education and in the education of the next generation of Jews, we have ensured Jewish continuity more than any book or any stone ever could. Stone is stronger than paper, yes. But a Jew who loves being Jewish and shares that love with others is the strongest of them all. Whether we are involved in the Religious School or Adult Ed classes, whether we are engaged in interfaith discussions or just showing up to services regularly and chatting with fellow community members about the sermon of the day, we are doing our part to strengthen an ancient chain, begun millennia ago in a desert in the Middle East and surviving, God willing, for as long as possible. L’dor Va’dor nagid godlekha-- from generation to generation we will praise Your greatness. Shabbat shalom.

Sermon given September 6, 2025 Once upon a time, there was a young child named Rachel. Now, Rachel was very tall for their age and very loud for their age and had a tendency to ask a lot of questions, especially to try and get out of going to sleep at night. Their parents realized that this was not a child who could be calmed and quieted by “classic” bedtime rituals. And so, these parents-- who, of course, were my parents-- began inventing new bedtime rituals. They invented “The antonym game” and “the synonym game” and the “oops, I’m going to pretend to forget lyrics so Rachel memorizes them” game. And I loved these games, I really did. But more than the games, I loved it when my father gave up on trying to read me the kids books we were so frequently gifted-- Berenstein Bears, Thomas the Train Engine-- and began reading to me from books he liked. You know, normal books that five-year-olds like to read. Books like “Welcome to the Monkey House” by Kurt Vonnegut. I vaguely remember sitting at circle time in Kindergarten and the silence that fell when the teacher asked me what my favorite book was, and I said “Isaac Asimov’s Robot Stories”. It was, to be fair, a similar silence to when she asked me what my favorite card game was, and I said, “Euchre”. … in retrospect, I don’t think I ever had any chance of being normal. But I digress! I learned to LOVE those stories my father would share with me. He had one story in particular, Robot AL-76 Goes Astray, which he read to me over and over. It became, in many ways, “our story”. To this day, in fact, it comes up in conversation, and has become part of the lore of who I am, and of who we are as a family. I’d be willing to bet that some of you here today, or watching online, also have a favorite story that you were told as a kid, a story that you asked for over and over. These stories become a part of us. They become a framework for how we view the world and filter information, about how we organize new events, and how we tell right from wrong-- or learn to navigate the inevitable gray space in between. Of course, though, it really matters what lessons we internalize from each story. It matters who tells the story, and it matters how they tell the story. For example, my beloved robot story could be either a curious, fantastical sci-fi romp-- an encouragement of imagination-- or it could be taught as a warning about AI gone wrong, as a story of fear of change. How I internalized it had a lot to do with how my Dad told it, in a way full of love and excitement and safety-- and that’s true with any story. The focus, and the spin, matters. Similarly, our Torah has an abundance of stories that we hear over and over and over again each year. The book of Genesis in particular is chock-full of memorable tales and names, ones that we teach to our children and hear at the holidays. But as generations have passed and Judaism has evolved, these stories have revealed multiple possible interpretations and takeaways. Stories like the binding of Isaac, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and even Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden can mean very, very different things depending on how we tell them. As caring Jews, then, it behooves us to be intentional about which possible takeaways we focus on. And in this week’s Torah portion, particularly in the part that we read here today, we are urged to remember two specific, defining stories for us as a people. First, in Chapter 24, verse 22, our text says: וְזָ֣כַרְתָּ֔ כִּי־עֶ֥בֶד הָיִ֖יתָ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם Remember that you were a slave in Egypt! And then, a chapter later, the text says: זזָכ֕וֹר אֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂ֥ה לְךָ֖ עֲמָלֵ֑ק בַּדֶּ֖רֶךְ בְּצֵֽאתְכֶ֥ם מִמִּצְרָֽיִם Remember what Amalek did to you as you escaped from Egypt! These two commandments urge us into the creation and nurturing of collective, cultural memory around two traumatic events-- the kind of memory that imbues our liturgy, our values, our fears, and our goals as a people. And those memories are transmitted through storytelling-- both in formal settings like Torah readings and the annual Seders, but also in how we apply our takeaways from these core stories to our own lives and the reality of being Jewish today. The question for each generation of Jews, then, is how should we tell these stories, and what is the takeaway we want our communities, and our children, to learn from the way we talk about them? Both the story of our slavery in Egypt and the horrific attack by Amalek on our most vulnerable community members are stories of pain-- stories of injustice that was wrought against our ancestors through no fault of their own. Pharoah and Amalek have become code words for evil actors throughout history. In the Purim story, which would have taken place centuries after the Exodus from Egypt, our tradition teaches that Haman was a descendant of Amalek. In modern times, the rabbinic organization T’ruah uses a particularly catchy phrase on their posters which also invokes this imagery, saying “Resisting Tyrants since Pharoah.” Following October 7th, many Jews drew clear parallels between the evil perpetrated by Hamas and the evil perpetrated by Amalek, as both attacked children and the elderly. This is all to say that one of the clear takeaways from both stories is that human beings not only have the capacity to harm each other, and to make sweeping, destructive, and evil statements and take sweeping, destructive evil actions against other groups, but also that we, as Israelites and as Jews, have again and again been targeted by this kind of evil, over millennia. But again, our question today is-- what is the takeaway we, today, want our communities, and our children, to learn from the way we talk about these stories? One option is to tell these stories as a way of identifying evil, of identifying that which is wrong in the world-- wrong action, wrong speech--and remembering that we have been attacked by evil many times. We can tell these stories to honor the memories of lives lost, and to affirm that we condemn the actions of those who perpetrated these evils. We can tell these stories in the hopes of gaining sympathy and empathy from allies, and use these stories as a rallying cry as we resist antisemitism and Jew hatred, and fight against those who perpetrate it. And this is a good and solid option. It is an honest option. It is a human option. It is an option we can and should do, and will continue to do as a synagogue and wider Jewish community. But if this option is the only takeaway we have from these stories, it also doesn’t go far enough. I say this because our very Torah portion-- the same one that, today, reminds us clearly that we must remember the stories of how we have been mistreated-- that same Torah portion embeds these stories into a list of guidelines for how we are, in turn, supposed to treat others. In the Talmud, Rabbi Yohanan teaches us in Masekhet Berakhot that when multiple commandments are smuchin-- that is, next to each other in the Torah-- it is not an accident. We can draw inferences and implications, he ruled, from such juxtapositions. So, that is exactly what we are doing here today. Consider what our Torah portion just said: “You must not withhold wages from the destitute. You must not pervert the judgement or choices of the stranger. You must not take a cloak from a widow. You must remember that you were a slave in Egypt.” And then: “When you harvest your field, you must leave part for the hungry. When you pick your olives, you must leave some for the hungry. When you pick your grapes, you must leave some for the hungry. You must remember that you were a slave in Egypt.” And then: “Do not have two weights in your pocket of different measures, one for buying and one for selling. Be honest in your dealings with others, because not to do so is an abomination. Remember what Amalek did to you as you escaped Egypt.” As we can see, a pattern begins to emerge. The Torah seems to be suggesting that part of remembering a story must be applying the negative life lessons learned from that story to our own positive actions towards others. Rashi takes it even a step further, saying that the admonitions to remember in this context show that God redeemed us from Egypt, and saved us from slavery, so thatthat we would learn from it to do the right thing, even if it’s difficult. עַל מְנָת כֵּן פְּדִיתִיךָ, Rashi imagines God saying. This is precisely why I saved you. Through this lens, when we take the command to remember the stories of being slaves in Egypt and being attacked by Amalek in the context of their surrounding scripture, a broader and deeper and more personal takeaway begins to emerge. This takeaway tells us: Yes, we have been treated badly. Yes, antisemitism is an ancient and awful thing, and a thing we also struggle with. Yes, we must fight that antisemitism, and we must talk to our children about it. And. At the same time, memory must become action. We must teach our children never to mistreat or condemn or attack an entire group, “othering” them in a way that dehumanizes them and takes away their worth and dignity, because this is what Pharoah and Amalek did to us, and it was wrong. We must also teach our children not to hold their own worth as being greater than that of any other on this Earth, and to defend those whose worth is not being respected. We must teach them to identify when others are being mistreated, and then do something about it, because we were slaves in Egypt, and we were victims of Amalek, and nobody stood up for us. We must teach this, and we must model it, not as a one-off, but as a way of life. And for us today, this can feel like a big ask. Because right now, on the one hand, the Jewish community is actively under attack. We need support from others and we are not getting enough of it. However. Our current pain does not take away from us the urgent need to put our memory into action and help others. In a lot of places in this world and in our own country, other people are also living surrounded by violence, living without access to sufficient nutrients or education, living without dignity, and also being targeted because of their nationality or religion. And although we are hurting, we must help. Because we know what it means to be victims, we must help. It’s ok if this feels overwhelming, but as our tradition teaches, our job is not to finish the work, but also not to turn from it. The first step is realizing the incredible brokenness in this world. Then, we must recognize our place within this brokenness-- both as victims and as potential actors, either in making the situation worse or in helping to heal it. And then, the next step is choosing a way to act on this brokenness, to act by speaking out, donating, campaigning, organizing, learning, reading, praying-- by doing any and all of the things we want others to do when we, as Jews, are attacked. That is truly remembering. That is how we can show that we truly remember what it is like to be slaves in Egypt, and to be attacked by Amalek. That is us saying: we remember, and so we are resolved to never, ever, EVER let this happen to anyone else, ever again. This is OUR story. Let’s own it, and hold it, and feel it… and then, let’s learn from it and act on it. Shabbat shalom. 

Sermon given August 2, 2025  ONE. God is all powerful. TWO. God is all knowing. THREE. God is all good, and FOUR. Unjustified suffering exists in the world. You may choose three. This is how Rabbi Elliott Dorff, the rector of my rabbinical school, opened his senior seminar. On the first day of class, Rabbi Dorff wrote those four points on the board and asked us which one we were willing to sacrifice in order to have a sustainable personal theology. Again, the problem is this: there are four statements, but only any three of them can actually theologically co-exist in harmony. I’ll say them again: 1. God is all powerful 2. God is all knowing 3. God is all good 4. There is unjustified suffering in the world. Think about it. If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, how do we explain the existence of unjustified suffering? It’s a classic question. Wouldn’t an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God be able to swoop in and save people who are experiencing unjustified suffering? Alternatively, if we were to say that unjustified suffering didn’t exist, that is to say, if we claim that all suffering IS justified, then yes, we could reconcile the other three statements. Whether we were talking about a skinned knee or a murder spree or a rare disease or a war or a massacre, we could just say: this is part of God’s plan and therefore it is justified. But you may be able to tell by my tone of voice that that argument does not cut it for me. At all. A god who in any way uses, say, the mass murder as a “justified” punishment is not a God I would be comfortable praising. And that’s exactly why lots of Jews stopped believing in God, in the wake of the Holocaust. Many Jews stopped believing, stopped practicing, stopped identifying as Jewish, or simply seethed in anger at God for what had happened. Because there was no escaping the fact that unjustified suffering had occurred, to us and to our children, and that God had not prevented it from happening. Our traditional theology needed an update. Tonight we will double down on the theme of suffering as we enter into the unique spiritual space of Tisha B’Av. We will sit on the floor in the small chapel, light candles, and grapple with the traumas our people have faced over the millennia: the destruction of two Temples, countless pogroms and expulsions and massacres, and in modern times, the Holocaust and October 7th and more. And contained within any discussion of suffering has to be the question– where is God’s responsibility in this, and where is ours? Because violent antisemitism is the definition of unjustified suffering. To be hated just for who we are. And it is not only historical. It is part of the world you and I live in as Jews, part of the world we are raising the next generation of Jews within, and that makes our observance of Tisha B’av this year not only a theoretical spiritual journey, or an obligatory one, but a real and personal one. How do WE, personally, reconcile our own generation’s immense suffering, in addition to the Jews throughout history, with our belief in God? Tonight we will also read the book of Eicha, of Lamentations, which describes the destruction of the Temple and the sacking of Jerusalem thousands of years ago. The name Eicha literally means “ how ?”, as in, how could God have let so many awful things happen to us? How could a God who is all-good allow for such hateful actions in the first place, including the slaughter of children? How could a God who is all-powerful not step in and fix the situation so that massacres didn’t occur? How could a God who is all-knowing not see the harm that would come long-term by allowing such vitriol to fester in the hearts of us humans? How - Eicha? Well, God as portrayed in the book of Lamentations certainly has a plan, and certainly is in control. But I don’t know if I would call this God all-good, or all-kind. In Lamentations, the suffering of the Jewish people is clearly portrayed as a very painful but also Divinely-sanctioned punishment for our own misdeeds. We will read tonight: הָי֨וּ צָרֶ֤יהָ לְרֹאשׁ֙ אֹיְבֶ֣יהָ שָׁל֔וּ כִּֽי־יְהֹוָ֥ה הוֹגָ֖הּ עַ֣ל רֹב־פְּשָׁעֶ֑יהָ עוֹלָלֶ֛יהָ הָלְכ֥וּ שְׁבִ֖י לִפְנֵי־צָֽר׃ {ס} [Zion’s] enemies are now her masters, Her foes are at ease, Because the LORD has afflicted her For her many transgressions; Her infants have gone into captivity Before the enemy. This concept of a punitive yet righteous God is reinforced by countless examples from Scripture. We know these stories. In the Torah, God is sometimes wrathful, God wipes out civilizations, God turns people into pillars of salt, God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and tells B’nai Yisrael to slaughter other cultures. God as portrayed in the Torah is not always patient, not always kind, not always forgiving. Now, on the one hand, this view can be accessible and even reassuring for people, because A) it lines up with a simple reading of the Bible and B) it means that God has a plan. God’s in charge! On the other hand, the problem with seeing God like this is that it’s really hard, in times of pain, to turn for comfort to a God who is not all-good or all-merciful or all-loving. This is why, throughout history, many famous Jewish thinkers have wrestled with how God is portrayed in the Torah. Some sages have preferred instead to preserve God’s goodness and mercy, at the expense of God’s omnipotence. Rabbi Akiva was one such proponent of emphasizing God’s mercy above all. He famously stated that the most important imperative in the Torah is to love. In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Akiva is quoted as saying: הַכֹּל צָפוּי, וְהָרְשׁוּת נְתוּנָה, וּבְטוֹב הָעוֹלָם נִדּוֹן. Everything is foreseen, and freewill is given; and the world is judged in Goodness. Modern thinkers like philosopher Eugene Borowitz and Rabbis Harold Shulweis and Kushner agreed. In his well-known book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Rabbi Kushner says “”The God I believe in does not send us the problem; He gives us the strength to cope with the problem.” Does that match Scripture? Not exactly. But, by allowing limits to God’s power, these rabbis allow suffering to be seen not as punishment, but rather as a side effect of nature and of humans having free will and the ability to do evil– whereas God becomes the ultimate source, instead, of relief and comfort. Of course, there’s a downside to this view too. The problem with this view of God is that it takes away the ability to say “everything is part of God’s plan.” See? It’s quite a dilemma. What are we supposed to believe? Again, as Jews we usually steer around this discussion and focus on other parts of our tradition. But do we really have to choose one or the other? Do we have to choose either a God who has a plan and is in charge and is therefore the source of suffering, or a God who is the ultimate source of goodness and love, but who doesn’t have the power to stop our suffering? As we prepare for Tisha B’av today, and as we continue to sit with the ongoing pain and anguish over what is happening in the Middle East, over the deep tears in the social fabric of the United States, I’d like to offer a third option. It’s very similar to the view held by Rabbis Akiva, Shulweis, and Kushner. This solution supports the idea of God being all-good. For the purpose of my theology, though, God doesn’t have a plan– God has a hope . And instead, it’s up to us, as the humans, to take action. In this theology, God has a deep-seated, pervasive hope, an ache, a longing, a desire for peace in the universe, peace in the world, and peace throughout our lives. That hope, in this theology, is one of God’s key attributes, and it pulses through everything in the universe. It pulses through commands in the Torah and pulses through the rituals and services we have developed over millennia. But the kicker of this theology is that God both deeply hopes for peace, AND wants to have partners in creating that peace, and partners in bringing healing to a hurting world– which is where we humans and our pesky free will come into the equation. It’s up to us to act, not to God. This means that when we humans choose to pursue peace, and love, and justice, we are choosing to tap into the holiest portions of ourselves, the part that is closest to God’s deepest hope, that part that is most b’tzelehm elohim. The flipside, of course, is that unfortunately, when we humans choose to pursue violence and possessiveness and death, we drag the world further away from what God is hoping for. We can plan for the good of one another, or we can plan for destruction. We can plan for nuance and compassion and sacrifice, or we can plan for selfishness and exclusion. Either way, in this third theology, it is humans, and not God, who will determine the outcome of our interactions. And in honor of Tisha B’av, I’d like to name that there is an additional grief that we are carrying today, and that this third theology can help us address. Because in 2025, Tisha B’av is different than it was hundreds of years ago. We are in an overly-connected, social media-driven world, full of sound bites and tik toks and AI deepfakes. This year, for Tisha B’av, in addition to our grief over the loss of the Temple, and in addition to the pogroms throughout history, and the Holocaust, and October 7th–we are also looking at a human family that has absolutely no consensus as to how to bring about a better world, and is OBSESSIVELY focused on everything that is going wrong. In fact, studies are showing growing levels of general discontent, increasing isolation from social support, and pervasive concern over what the future will bring economically, socially, politically. People are unaffiliating religiously, distancing themself from the support of their communities. Rhetoric in the public sphere has become increasingly dangerous; attacks on public figures and violent graffiti are becoming commonplace. And this is, perhaps, one of the deepest griefs that we will sit with tonight: the grief that comes from looking around us and seeing the world go in a direction we aren’t comfortable with. Seeing so many people, regular folks and powerful folks all around the world, making choices not to be partners with God in bringing about peace. As I have met with TBE congregants, several of you have reflected to me that you are scared for the future and for your children growing up, scared about what is going to happen to our country and to us as Jews. You are not alone. And this is where it can help to see God as the ultimate source of Hope, and ourselves as the source of Action. Because collectively, as a species, we have no plan, and we won’t know where to start– yet. But. We have an opportunity, beginning tonight. With Tisha B’av this evening, we kick off our lead-up to the High Holidays, embarking on a journey of meaning and meaningful pain: of repentance and forgiveness, of reckoning. And tonight, we also can start, as individuals and as a community, to ask ourselves: what is our plan? How are we going to do our part to heal this hurting world, as individuals and as a synagogue community? Are we ready to do the individual soul-searching necessary to affirm what kind of a God we believe in, and what role our roots in sacred community could play in bringing about a better tomorrow? This can be scary. These are big thoughts. But the first good news is that we are not alone. And the second piece of good news is that we certainly do not have to be all-knowing or all-good to do our part. We just have to be our imperfect human selves, committed to leaning into the holiest parts of who we are. And if we do this, if we do our part, then God willing, next Tisha B’av we might carry a tiny bit less grief in our hearts. Shabbat shalom.