This week, Torah reminds us good years are followed by lean years, adversity by success, night by day. The Sefat Emet adds, in seasons of joy in our lives, we must savor what’s good, store it deep in the storehouses, of our bodies, hearts, and minds — so when we inevitably, confront loss or despair, we are able to reach in and pull out memories of joyful times, or lean on the relationships we’ve nurtured with friends and family for support.
Read MoreWhen confronted with life’s intrinsic uncertainties Jacob is not so generous. We all recognize ourselves in Jacob. Over the past almost 9 months, of pandemic and political turmoil, we’ve been starkly aware of all that is out of our control. We’ve had good reason to want to close down, every excuse not to be our best selves.
Read MoreBecause Jacob has spent his whole life searching for more, focused on his failures and losses, on what he does not have, imagining his tzuris will go away if only he had something else, he overlooks all he has achieved in this life, and the blessings right before him. In some way, we are all Jacob: We’ve all been touched by loss during this pandemic. This is an irrefutable fact. It might be the most important story we need to tell about our lives right now, the most fundamental fact.
Read MoreThese days we are facing, with increasing alarm, the consequences of our own self-centeredness. Our plunder of the earth’s resources has led to climate change – record-breaking temperatures; floods, wildfires, and hurricanes. It is as if the world is warning us to change our ways before it is too late. Torah tells us, when the world first came into being, God told humanity it could master the natural world, use it for its survival, as long as it remembered the air, food, and water all came from God. But humanity eventually forgot, and became greedy and irresponsible. God sent a flood to wipe away creation, and start over again.
Read MoreThis Shabbat leads us into the final leg of our journey, the holiday of Sukkot, during which we are commanded to dwell in booths that serve as our temporary homes for 8 days. Without this holiday, we would quickly return to our ordinary lives, and risk losing everything we discovered on our journey from Tisha B’av to Yom Kippur. So, instead, we build a Sukkah, an in-between-space in which we can integrate what we learned.
Read MoreOver the last few months, like Jonah, we have each descended into the murky depths. And as we peered out at our world — through computers and TV screens — we, like Jonah, were dumbstruck as we witnessed the histories upon which our nation was built: the ongoing racial violence carried out by our institutions, a living legacy of slavery and dehumanization; the disparities in health care that have resulted in disproportionate losses to COVID amongst communities of color; environmental degradation wrought by corporations built on greed and plunder.
Read MoreAs Jews, on Yom Kippur, some of us dress in white, or fast and abstain from water, to intentionally wake ourselves up to life’s fleeting nature. As we observe Yom Kippur this year, we can’t help but think about how many people do not intentionally choose to be reminded of this, but instead have it forced on them by unjust policies and hateful acts.
Read MoreYesterday I spoke about Rosh Hashanah’s invitation to us, b’charta b’chayyim – to renew our commitment to life, even in the face of the world’s brokenness and our own limitations. But how can ordinary people like you and me make a life-giving choice — when it means doing something out of character for us, something we might never have done or imagined doing before?
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