These days, many of us are doing nothing – not to rest, but because we are trying to survive a pandemic. Many of you have told me how hard it is to do nothing right now: the feelings of pain, loneliness, boredom, frustration and helplessness. Your anger and grief about all you can’t do – attend birthdays or funerals, hug your families and friends; your deep desire to be, to do something. Alongside these feelings of loss, we experience another loss: When we aren’t doing anything, we sometimes come to believe we have lost our value, perhaps even our connection with that thing that is greater than us, which some of us call “God.”
Read MoreWith k’doshim t’hiu -- the words that start our parasha – God reminds us: You used to find me in the Temple. We mourn its devastating loss to this day. Yet, we also celebrate the ways we’ve found to stay in touch: prayer, and good deeds. And now we grieve the tragic, though temporary, loss of in-person gatherings. Still, in the midst of our grief, we take some comfort in the ways we have been able for now, to make phones and computers into sacred gathering places.
Read MoreAaron’s response shows, even though Jewish tradition is full of words, there are times, like the times we are in now, when no words are adequate, when silence is exactly the right response. Loving silence doesn’t try to give reasons, or fix, or do -- it just is there, with you.
Read MoreHow are we to treat people with little power, people far away from their own families and communities? This is the Torah’s response (Exodus 22:2):
You shall not wrong the ger, nor shall you oppress him; for you were gerim in the land of Egypt.
The Torah repeats this 36 times: lo tonu — “Do not oppress the stranger.” Remember you are a nation of immigrants, recall your answers who fled ancient Egypt, Czarist Russia, Nazi Germany. Don’t build walls that cut you off from those memories. Rather, let these memories expand your hearts across the borders that threaten to cut you off from your past. Let’s welcome those now seeking asylum from violence and uncertainty, who yearn to link their future to ours.
Read MorePlease enjoy this recording of the first night Passover seder I led for Hebrew SeniorLife’s Orchard Cove community.
Read MoreWhile we as a people have had years to understand our experience of slavery, and can retell its story in a way that helps us find new meaning in it, the challenge we are all experiencing now is new: we don’t know how we will tell its story, or what meaning we will find in it months or even years from now. As we live through this particular chapter, many of us are feeling a kind of discomfort -- deeper than our inability to hug our children, or see our friends, or order the food we want. This discomfort has a name: grief.
Read MoreThe Torah tells us what defined the mishkan, our first spiritual home, was not how strong it was, how long it lasted but the effect building it had on us. God tells our ancestors, if they create a sacred space, shechanti betocham (25:8) – “I will dwell amongst you.” Our sages point out, betocham literally means I will dwell “in them.” God is not in what we build, but within the hearts and souls of its builders.
Read MoreThe Purim story is fundamentally an us-versus-them story. And even though it was written some 1500 years ago, it speaks across the centuries to the culture wars and political struggles of our day: The failure of our leaders to reach across the aisle to address the climate crisis, the widening wealth gap, or global health threats like the new Coronavirus. To compromise on their personal agendas, or set aside their egos, in order to focus on the well-being of humanity and our planet.
Read More“You shall not wrong the ger, nor shall you oppress him; for you were gerim in the land of Egypt.” Remember you are a nation of immigrants, recall your ancestors who fled ancient Egypt, Czarist Russia, Nazi Germany. Don’t build walls that cut you off from those memories. Rather, let these memories expand your hearts across the borders that threaten to cut you off from your past.
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