Recent Sermons

Hi everyone:

Just a quick post to share some recent Sermons from the KJ website.

January 16th: “In cases of hardship, they allowed one to comfort the mourner on Shabbat”

February 27th "The Yachad Revolution"

March 19th "What if Goliath Won?"

April 9th   "When Fossils Come to Life"

The Job of a Rabbi

(appeared in CJN, March 11, 2016)

What do you do at your new job?

I have been asked this multiple times since moving to New York. The curiosity is quite understandable; what Rabbis do is always a bit mysterious. So much so, that a favorite rabbinic joke is the story of the student who is thinking of becoming a rabbi and asks to meet the Rabbi to ask a few questions. When the meeting starts, the young man turns to the rabbi and asks: “Rabbi, I know you give a sermon for 15 minutes every Shabbat morning. But what do you do the rest of the week?”. The rabbi immediately retorted: “young man, with questions like that, you don’t want to be a Rabbi; you want to be a synagogue president!”. What fills a Rabbi’s schedule is a grab bag of responsibilities far from the public eye.

Joking aside, there is one question I’ve started to think about again since I’ve started my new job: what is a Rabbi’s mission? One answer, attributed to Abraham Joshua Heschel, is that a Rabbi is supposed to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." (It was disappointing to learn that the quote is actually from the film “Inherit the Wind”.) Whatever the source of the quote, there is great wisdom to it, and it describes the mission of a Rabbi perfectly. A colleague once pointed out a similar pattern in prophetic literature. Before any catastrophe, the prophets would rebuke, warning the people to change their ways. But afterwards, when the people were exiled and hurt, the prophets would offer comfort and hope. The prophet’s job was to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, and this is the mission of the Rabbi as well.

But this mission is paradoxical: how can prophets and rabbis do two opposite things at the same time? One way to decipher this paradox is to recognize that parents are also called on to do two opposite things at the same time. In research on parenting styles, John Martin and Eleanor Maccoby noted that there are two elements to parenting styles: how demanding the parent is, and how responsive the parent is. Permissive parents are responsive but not demanding, authoritarian parents are demanding but not responsive. But the ideal parent is authoritative, both responsive and demanding, someone who knows how to comfort an afflicted child, while at the same able to afflict the comfortable child and lead them to excellence. The job of a parent and a prophet are pretty much the same: they lead their charges to excellence through a combination of demandingness, compassion and inspiration.  

But we live in a day and age where the thought of demanding anything is foreign. It is difficult to speak about standards, as most people prefer to indulge and be indulged. The question for the modern rabbi is this: can you afflict the comfortable?

Even 2,000 years ago the Rabbis of the Talmud noted that “no one can rebuke, and no one can accept rebuke”, and since then afflicting the comfortable has gotten far less popular.  William James in 1902 noted that “We have now whole congregations whose preachers, far from magnifying our consciousness of sin, seem devoted rather to making little of it.”  Whatever the merits of what James calls the religion of the “healthy-minded”, it is clear that an undemanding Judaism ceases to inspire, and at times ceases to be authentic. As Rabbi Joseph b. Soloveitchik points out,  "Kedusha (sanctity) is not a paradise but a paradox". Without the demands and challenges of kedusha, Judaism dissolves into a meaningless mush of nostalgia, a cultural artifact ready to be forgotten in the attic.

So we must move beyond comfort in our search for the spiritual. But as I run out of space, I must leave you with a simple question: how do we do this in the 21st century?

Shira's Torah

(This originally appeared in the Canadian Jewish News, February 15, 2016. The article is based on my remarks at the Torah dedication.)

The Zohar remarks that even a Sefer Torah can be subject to luck; some are destined to be used prominently, and others are fated to gather dust and be ignored. If that is so, I know of one of the luckiest Torah scrolls in the world, which despite the fact that it sits humbly in a bomb shelter in Jerusalem, is arguably the most important Sefer Torah in the world today.

This Sefer Torah was donated in response to a terrible tragedy. Shira Banki, a 16 year old student, was murdered this past summer while marching in the Jerusalem pride parade. Her assailant was a Charedi Jew who despised gay rights. Sadly, judging from “pashkevil” notices posted after her murder, a significant number of people in the murderer’s community supported this horrible crime.

At the same time this murder disturbed many other Orthodox Jews, who were disgusted that the Torah was used as a justification for bloodshed. In particular, this horrible crime had a profound impact on Dr. Mark Wainberg, a leading AIDS researcher who is also an observant Jew. For him, this was a clash of the two worlds he lives in; he is a past President of an Orthodox synagogue, and at the same time works side by side with the LGBT community in the battle against AIDS. Mark decided to do something dramatic in response to this awful murder: he pledged to donate a Sefer Torah in Shira Banki’s memory. Shira had been murdered in the name of Halacha, and the murderer said the Torah was on his side. In response, this Sefer Torah declares loudly that the Torah stands on the side of Shira, on the side of the dignity, decency and the Jewish people.

After months of preparation, the day arrived. Shira’s family asked that Torah be given to a disadvantaged community. After some investigation, an Ethiopian synagogue housed in a bomb shelter on the periphery of Jerusalem was chosen to receive the Torah. A few dozen members of the synagogue, some of Shira’s family and friends, and members of the Israeli AIDS research community gathered for the dedication. And here something remarkable occurred. Jews of every background: Charedi, secular, Ethiopian, Ashkenazic, American and Israeli pulled together in dedicating this Torah. Shira’s mother Mika remarked in her speech that “Just like Jews have suffered together for generations, so it is fitting that when we are finally in our own country that we be together, for good and for bad, without checking each other’s Tzitzit”. And for a moment in this ramshackle synagogue, that hope came true.

That is why Shira’s Torah is exceptional. There are those who carry the Torah in the name animosity and division. But this Torah is different; it’s a Torah of unity and humanity. The Talmud compares the Torah to a song (“Shira” is the Hebrew word for song). The point of this metaphor is that like any song, the words are incomprehensible without fully understanding the melody. You need to follow the tune in order to know the purpose and emotion behind those words. The Torah cannot be understood without hearing its’ inner melody, without hearing the song of the Jewish people.

For a contemporary Orthodox Jew, there are struggles that arise when reading some sections of the Torah, including the prohibition against homosexuality. I cannot diminish the authority of what is black letter law; but at the same time, I cannot forget the incredible humanism implicit in seeing in every human being a reflection of the divine. As I struggle with these questions, I recognize that I may not merit to find a reconciling verse. But nevertheless, I can still find guidance in the melody of the Torah, whose tune is one of kindness, charity, blessing and life. And Shira’s Torah sings this melody, a melody that the Jewish world so sorely needs.

A Tale of Two Menorah Lightings

This appeared in the CJN, January 13th, 2016

It turned out to be a farce. Our community Menorah was vandalized on the first night of Chanukah, hours after the annual Menorah lighting. In the course of an afternoon, a special Menorah lighting for the second night was organized. Hundreds arrived in solidarity, and Mayor DeBlasio and political leaders attended. The message on the second night was clear: New York City will not tolerate intolerance.  This evening of solidarity was wonderful, except for one problem: the vandalism had nothing to do with anti-Semitism. A few days later, a 14 year old was arrested; he said he had vandalized the Menorah because he was “bored”. In retrospect, it was much ado about nothing, a rally against an anti-Semitic act that never was.

This phantom hate crime brings up a complicated subject: anti-Semitism. It’s hard for many to recognize that anti-Semitism is no longer an existential threat for North American Jews. (The situation is very different for European Jews). To be clear, anti-Semitism is a serious issue for all Canadians and Americans, just like any act of racism; democracies must react forcefully, to prevent prejudice from spreading. But anti-Semitism is no longer the primary challenge facing North American Jews. George Washington hoped that “the children of the Stock of Abraham” would “merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants”; that is certainly the case in 2015. Jews in North America are established, admired and affluent; yet despite all the good news, our community is shrinking rapidly.

Today, the greatest threat to Jewish life is assimilation. The people who show the least enthusiasm for Judaism are the ones who matter most: young Jews. The Pew report of 2013 reports that 32% of Jews 35 and younger identify themselves as Jews “with no religion”. Exactly at the moment when we’ve overcome historic struggles with discrimination and hatred, we find ourselves facing an even greater test: acceptance.  

Acceptance is the achilles heel of the Jewish community. In medieval Europe, Jews in Northern European countries experienced greater persecution than their peers in Spain, yet the Spanish Jews were more likely to convert out of Judaism. Paradoxically, Jews have found it easier to keep their Jewish identity when when it was difficult to be a Jew.To paraphrase Rabbi Ovadiah Seforno, success is a test as well. And for American Jews, success is turning out to be a greater challenge to Jewish identity than persecution.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks jokes that the one way to fill up synagogues would be by putting up large signs outside declaring “no Jews allowed,” because contemporary Jews would be certain to join any institution that would refuse them membership. He’s absolutely correct. We have made our way into restricted country clubs, and now thrive in once-restricted neighbourhoods. But what are we going to do about assimilation?

While there are no quick fixes for assimilation, the annual Menorah lighting is part of the solution. This program, sponsored by Chabad and the KJ Beginner’s program, has one simple assumption: that even one Chanukah candle can open the door to a meaningful Jewish identity. And engagement initiatives like this have had a wide-ranging effect on American Jews.

American Jewish history is the tale of these two menorah lightings. One story is the 350 year battle against anti-Semitic prejudices, a heartwarming story of refugees from other countries finding full acceptance in the United States and Canada; that was on full display when the Mayor attended the second Menorah lighting. But the story of the 21st century Jewish community, one that remains to be written, is whether Judaism can continue to compete for the hearts and minds of young Jews. While it’s wonderful that the Mayor lit the Menorah on the second night of Chanukah, our future depends on whether we will be able to inspire the next generation of Jews to light the Menorah all eight nights of Chanukah.

A Small Time Boy Comes to the Big City

(originally appeared in CJN)

I just moved to New York City from Cote Saint Luc, a suburban village that is the closest thing to a shtetl anywhere in Canada. So everyone’s been asking me the same question: what's life like in the big city?

It’s a good question. When I grew up in Monsey, New York, it was a small town, a place where everyone looked out for each other. And like any small town boy, I still crave that unique sense of camaraderie. Rod Dreher features this small town spirit in his memoir “The Little Way of Ruthie Leming”. Dreher left his small town in Louisiana as a teenager. After years of city life, he returns when his younger sister is diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Dreher was so impressed by communal support given his sister that he decided to move back to Louisiana. There’s simply no community like small town community.

Big cities are very different. Ferdinand Tonnies, in his classic work “Community and Society”, describes the city as dramatically different than small towns: it is built around advancing individual ambition rather than building communal cohesiveness, and as a consequence, is rather cold and impersonal. And to the minds of many, big cities should be avoided. Thomas Jefferson once remarked that “I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man.”

So what happens when a small town boy like me moves to the big city?

Actually, this question is relevant to every Jew, wherever we live, because Jews are fundamentally small town folk. The Book of Genesis offers an extended critique of big cities; the plans of the first city builders are frustrated by God, and there is marked contrast between the hospitable small town ways of Abraham and the big town coldness of Sodom and Egypt.

Yet despite the failures of cities and empires, the Torah does not demand that the Jews remain tent dwelling nomads; in fact, it encourages us to build a cosmopolitan state with well developed institutions.

So what happens when small town Jews build a big city? We bring the small town with us. Maimonides teaches that despite the Biblical obligation to love one’s neighbor, the Rabbis added additional obligations to visit the sick, bury the dead, comfort the bereaved, and marry off brides. The point of these additional obligations is that we must do more than love our neighbor; we are obliged to extend beyond our immediate social circle and build community. It is not enough to treat those we know with kindness; we must create an embracing community that cares for all of the sick, each mourner and every bride. And the magic of the Jewish tradition is that even when we build large cosmopolitan societies, we insure that within them beats the heart of a small town community.

Israel is an excellent example of this unique small town ethos. In 2014, Sean Carmeli, a lone soldier from Texas, fell in battle. There was virtually no one to attend the funeral. But after a worried friend posted a Facebook message about his funeral, news spread like wildfire, and in the end 20,000+ people attended Sean’s funeral. This outpouring of kindness could only happen in Israel, where a large country still carries the warmth of a small town.

Now that I’ve arrived in New York City, I’m learning that in this bustling metropolis there’s a small town hiding underneath. In my first Shabbat at my new synagogue, we honored the outgoing chair of the synagogue’s Bikur Cholim; this dedicated group visits patients at Sloan Kettering every Shabbat. Here in middle of Manhattan is a team of volunteers visiting the sick, making this community, like every Jewish community, one big small town.

So what’s it like living in the big city? To tell you truth, as a small town boy, I feel right at home.

Packing Up

(originally appeared in CJN)

Packing up a home when you're downsizing is an unnatural task; humans instinctively accumulate possessions and resist eliminating them. Despite consulting the bestselling advice of Marie Kondo, we find it a tough task to discard items that are theoretically essential but practically forgotten.

Yet decisions must be made, and possessions must be relinquished. And as I stand surrounded by boxes and packing tape, it's hard not to wax philosophical and wonder: what do we really need to pack?

This question is one Jews have asked themselves multiple times while wandering in exile: what can you pack at a moment's notice? The answer was simple: pack hearts and minds. Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer said the "guiding sentence" of the Jewish mission is: "omnia mea mecum porto" "All my things I carry with me", i.e., that character and wisdom are the only assets of enduring value, and all you ever need.  After packing up too many times to count, Jews have learned that it's not what's in your suitcases that really count; it's what you pack in your heart.

And what we pack (and unpack) in our hearts defines our lives. Zak Ebrahim, the son of El Sayid Nosair (the man who assassinated Meir Kahane), tells of his mother's reaction when he confided that he no longer accepted his family's radical views: "She looked at me with the weary eyes of someone who had experienced enough dogmatism to last a lifetime, and said, "I'm tired of hating people." In that instant, I realized how much negative energy it takes to hold hatred inside of you." After a lifetime of packing their hearts with hate, Zak and his mother realized that it had weighed them down.

Zak is not unique; it's quite common for people to cling to beloved hatreds. Nelson Mandela, who was a genius at unpacking hatred, said that “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” We treat old hatreds as precious possessions and let them ruin our own lives instead.

Instead of hatred, others choose to pack their heart with love. Seth Mandell runs camps for children who've lost a family member to terror (his own son Koby was murdered in a terror attack in 2001). Seth told me a story about a girl in his camp who was so grief-stricken that she had begun to cut herself on the wrist. The first day of camp, the girl’s counselor saw the girl's cut and remarked that “time heals all wounds”. The girl angrily reacted and said “it does not”, a reaction that was a reference to all wounds, both psychic and physical. But the counselor persevered in befriending the girl, and the girl had a wonderful time at camp. By the end of the camp, the girl had stopped cutting herself and the wound healed. Noticing this, the counselor lightheartedly remarked “I guess time does heal all wounds.” The girl responded: “no, it does not…. But love heals all wounds”. Love is magical, and packing even more love into your heart is always a good idea.

As we pack up our house to leave Montreal, we are also packing with us inspirational memories.  I'll pack the memory of the cancer patient who refused to let her disease take away her optimism. I'll pack the memory of the Holocaust survivor who was our synagogue's candyman, determined to make the world sweet for the next generation. I'll pack the memory of  the man who ran to greet every new person in the synagogue and made them feel at home. And I'll pack the memory of a Holocaust survivor, who each time there was a celebration, hoisted a l'chaim with a twinkle in his eye, in a moment of personal triumph and  joy.

These uplifting memories have changed me, and I will carry them with me forever.

Goodbye Montreal. I'm packing you up with me.

My Problem with Kol Nidrei

(originally appeared in the Canadian Jewish News)

Kol Nidrei should have disappeared a long time ago. From its introduction in the 800's,  it was sharply opposed for the next 400 years by Rabbinic authorities who saw it as a meaningless gesture. In the 1100's, a debate emerged over which vows, future or past, Kol Nidrei refers to. And in the 19th century, because of anti-Semitic claims that it enabled Jews to violate oaths, many reformers (and even, for short time, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch) removed Kol Nidrei from the service. Kol Nidrei is a problematic prayer.

So why is Kol Nidrei still part of the service? Only because of the melody. There are moving tunes, both in the Ashkenazic and Sephardic tradition, for Kol Nidrei. No matter what, Kol Nidrei is here to stay because the tunes are majestic and awe-inspiring.

This was my problem with Kol Nidrei. I was trained in Lithuanian style Yeshivot to think about serious Jewish content, about Talmudic texts and theological sources;  Kol Nidrei is the opposite of that. Kol Nidrei is a ritual that hangs by less than a thread of hair, with an inferior Halachic pedigree, and is only preserved because of its tune. It bothered me that Kol Nidrei is religious fluff, all musical culture and minimal religious content. So why did it find a place of honor leading off the Yom Kippur liturgy?

Frankly, contemporary Judaism is overstocked with religious fluff.  There was an advertisement many years ago from a yeshiva in Jerusalem that had a picture of a bagel, lox, and cream cheese sandwich with the caption: "is this the culmination of 3,000 years of Jewish history?". This sadly is all too often the case, with Jewish identity reduced to the soundtrack of Fiddler on the Roof, brisket, and satin kippahs.  This superficial cultural Judaism offers no rationale for continuity, and no true link to spirituality.

Because of this,  I saw content and culture as antagonists. To me, bagels, lox, and cream cheese Judaism was the opposite of  the Judaism that nurtured me in Yeshiva. And even the melodies like Kol Nidrei were just superficial enhancements, pleasant but ultimately unimportant.

But I was wrong. Culture is important too.  Melodies, foods, even jokes have a role in preserving Judaism.

In the language of Halacha, we call these elements a minhag, or a custom. Minhag is about the little distinctive cultural touches that make observance more fascinating. Rabbi Maimon (the father of the Rambam) wrote about the importance of respecting customs like eating donuts (sfinj) on Chanukah. Indeed, it is often the customs, with their distinctive tastes, aromas, colors and melodies that inspire us, in ways we are not fully aware of.

What my overly intellectual perspective had missed is this: that the little things, the aromas, tastes, colors, and melodies, are a powerful way of conveying the content, the great ideas I so love. Culture can create an emotional connection unavailable in the world of ideas.

And this is the power of Kol Nidrei, the power of singing the same song as our grandparents, even if the words are obscure.  And even the intellectually inclined among us should never overlook it.

In 1913, a young intellectual decided to convert to Christianity. As a final farewell to Judaism, he decided to go to Yom Kippur services. But after listening to Kol Nidrei, he left a transformed man.  In the years that followed, this man, Franz Rozensweig, became a prominent Jewish philosopher, and inspired many others to make their journey back to Judaism.

Ironically, a great intellectual was drawn back to Judaism by Kol Nidrei, a prayer that is more melody than meaning. And even today, otherwise alienated Jews show up for Kol Nidrei, drawn by in by the inspiring melody.

Now, if we could only teach these alienated Jews how to love the content, to engage the ideas of Judaism as well.....