Do you remember those times in your life when you had to move? You moved from one house to another. Or from one city to another. Or you helped your parents move from the home they had lived in for 50 years as they downsized? Young couples deal with moving when they move into their first home together. College kids, and their hapless parents, deal w…

Dr. Rochelle Walensky served as the 19th Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021-23), Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School (2012-2021), and Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital (2017-2021). Dr. Walensky is an infectious disease clinician whose research career is guided by a b…

Sivan Kotler-Berkowitz (he/him) is a rising sophomore at UMass Amherst studying Special Education and Psychology. He is passionate about transgender youth advocacy, working with kids with disabilities, and making the world a better place. As an advocate, Sivan shares his story as a thriving transgender teenager to help replace misinformation about …

One of the best parts of being a rabbi is sitting down with a young couple that has just become engaged and is now beginning the exciting journey of planning their wedding day. That initial conversation always involves the sharing of the proposal story. Almost always there is an element of surprise. One partner does not know it’s coming or coming t…

June 1, 2024

We could all use a booster shot of hope. Where do we find it?Tomorrow we are going to examine two very different models for finding hope in dark circumstances: Rabbi Akiva in the Talmud, Makot 24 A and B, and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his epic Morality, published shortly before he passed away in 2020.Rabbi Akiva’s approach to hope seems to be about a…

What, if anything, lasts forever? What is impervious to the ravages of time? What can we do today that will still be talked about a hundred years from now? I have been thinking about these questions since May 13, which is the day that a great writer named Alice Munro died. Alice Munro won the Noble Prize in Literature in 2013. She was an absolute m…

Kohelet famously teaches us that there is a time for everything under the sun. Does that extend to both moderation and extremism? Is there a time for moderation? Is there a time for extremism? What do our sources have to say about how we might think about the different appeals of moderation and extremism? We will consider two sources.The first is a…

Dr. Michael Oren served in the IDF as a Lone Soldier in the paratroopers and then as an IDF Spokesman. He was Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2013, where he was instrumental in fortifying the US-Israel alliance and in obtaining U.S. defense aid, especially for the Iron Dome system. After his time in Washington, Oren served as …

Madness. We all feel the madness of our time. How can it be that at the Newton Public library, groups of Newton citizens shout at each other, locked in mutual hate? How can it be that students at Columbia have to hear encampments where they can hear from their bedrooms "We love Hamas" and "Burn Tel Aviv to the ground" night after night—and the admi…

It is 4:52 PM. Our flight took off at 4:35 PM. Eder has finished drinking his milk. He’s done reading books. He is not tired. He does not want to sit still. In seventeen minutes, he has already played with and discarded every toy in the diaper bag. Now he’s screeching. Solomon and I are passing him back and forth, trying in vain to appease him. The…

At Sisterhood's wonderful donor event this past Sunday, a woman shared with me that she had had a large extended family in Europe before the Shoah. The family members who said in the 1930s it will all blow over, don't be alarmist, all perished in the Shoah. She said her parents were paranoid. They said it won't blow over. The alarm is real. They go…

When was the last time you changed your mind on a matter of deep principle? You felt one way on an important issue, and then you flipped and came down on the other side? If that has happened to you, what inspired your change of thinking? What changed your mind? Pharaoh and his courtiers changed their minds not once but twice. For a long time, he wa…

Yizkor sermons tend to be challenging for rabbis because we give a lot of them. We say Yizkor four times a year. If you do the math year after year, that is a lot of Yizkor sermons, and what is there new to say? What is there to say that we haven’t said before? That you haven’t heard before? I wish we had that problem again this year. Unfortunately…

I want to ask you to imagine for a moment that you are one of the Israelites fleeing Egypt. And let’s be granular. I want you to imagine that you’ve been a slave for decades. That your life is dictated by the whims of a cruel pharaoh, that your days are spent lugging huge stones, that you’ve been separated from your family, kept apart so that you c…

Abe and Sarah have been happily married for more than 60 years. They share children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. One fine day, Sarah says, Abe: I’d like a banana sundae. Would you please go to JP Licks? Of course! It would be my privilege! What kind of banana sundae do you want? Abe, write it down. A banana sundae has a lot going on. Would …

This year, on the 8th day of Pesach, we will say Yizkor. In a recent clergy conversation as we were planning out this class, Michelle asked the simplest and most profound question, one I had never thought about before. Why do we not say Yizkor for fallen ideas and ideals? For broken hopes and dreams?If we did, there would be so much to say Yizkor f…

April 23, 2024

Do you remember where you were last Saturday night when we learned that Iran was firing more than 330 drones and cruise missiles into Israel? Shira and I spoke to several Israelis, and they used three words to describe last Saturday night. One word was apocalyptic. We spoke with an Israeli woman living in Boston who spoke to her Israeli sister livi…

Within the last few weeks, something has happened to give me a new lease on life. A new glide in my stride. We are all looking for hope and energy, and I got mine from an unexpected source: the release of Beyonce’s new album of country music, Cowboy Carter, in particular one incredible song, a duet with Miley Cyrus called II Most Wanted. I have lis…

What happens to love in a world of not love? Consider this past Sunday at Temple Emanuel.In the morning Shai Held was in dialogue with Marc Baker about his new book Judaism is About Love. It was a truly inspiring conversation. After their dialogue, I heard many people offer some version of the following statement which, to my mind, is the single gr…

This Shabbat, we hear reflections from two visiting members of Brothers for Life. Since October 7, Amit Gilboa has served 155 days of active duty in the IDF and is currently participating in a workshop to facilitate support groups for newly wounded soldiers. Shahaf Segal, who served in the Golani Brigade, volunteers with Brothers for Life visiting …

I must tell you that whenever I have entered this sanctuary, I am reminded of the Starship Enterprise of Star Trek….and now I have the honor of speaking from the Control Room, And I flash to Spock communicating “Beam me up Scotty”… For me, this is a metaphor of how we use the spiritual power of this Sanctuary to create a Place For Healing. A true s…

For Talmud this week a different kind of move, in two ways. First, we are actually going to study a page of Talmud, tractate Megillah 14a. Second, we are going to examine a halakhic question: why do we not say Hallel on Purim?We say Hallel on Pesach, when we were rescued from Egyptian slavery.We say Hallel on Hanukkah, when we were rescued from the…

I want to start with something lovely, a little bit of serendipity. I meet from time to time with a good friend to catch up. This friend has a tradition, after our conversations, of giving me a book to read. He is a big reader, a person of ideas. So often he gives me a new book, usually hard cover, that just came out, and that he had read right awa…

A hypothetical based on a real-world situation, not at Temple Emanuel, but at another Jewish organization:Imagine you are on the rabbinic search committee for some institution near and dear to your heart: shul, Hillel, federation. You read the resume of a candidate. Superb. Excellent education. Deep experience at Jewish summer camp. Has lived Judai…

The IDF has an intelligence unit whose name does not exactly roll off the tongue. It is called Terrain Analysis, Accurate Mapping, Visual Collection and Interpretation Agency. As Dan Senor and Saul Singer point out in their new book The Genius of Israel, which came out on November 7, 2023, the job of this intelligence unit is to analyze millions of…

No good options. All options are bad.There is a hard-to-understand Bible story, 2 Samuel 24, about what do we do when there are no good options.King David commissions a census. How many soldiers are there in Israel and in Judah? The text assumes, without stating why, that this is a grievous sin. King David’s general Joab knows this is a sin but doe…

Dronme Davis tells a powerful story. She was nine. At the time, she had developed the habit of biting her nails until they were raw and sometimes even bleeding. A teacher told her, in all seriousness, “if you keep biting your nails, one day you’re doing to meet a boy and you’re going to want him to date you and he’s going to be holding your hand an…

Please look at this iconic photograph of a chair at the Constitutional Convention. The chair has a sun which is ambiguous. Benjamin Franklin famously wondered out loud, is the sun rising or setting?https://files.constantcontact.com/d3875897501/094c58c3-688a-4ef0-a325-c75a886b067a.pngNow please read this evocative article entitled “The New American …

This week we enjoy the reflections of Sonia Saltzman, Noah Rivkin, Rhiannon Thomas, Michael Gardener, and Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz on their Mitzvah Mission to Israel.

The Temple Emanuel 50-person mitzvah mission to Israel last week experienced the confusing reality that diametrically contradictory truths can both be true.Normal or not normal? Is Israel a nation in mourning, as Rachel Korazim taught? Or is Israel getting past October 7, not in mourning, trying to live a normal life, as Donniel Hartman taught? Yes…

February 17, 2024

This Shabbat, I’m going to share a personal story very different from the kinds of sermons I used to give when I worked in a congregation. I want to be clear it is my story. I recognize that in this room there are Autistic people and family members who have their own perspectives that may differ from mine. They are just as important and valid. We a…

Have you ever said yes to a commitment without knowing what that yes would mean to your life? If you have taken a new job, moved to a new city, gotten married, had children, or nurtured a loved one through a rough patch, you have said this type of yes. The address for saying yes without knowing what yes means is the famous phrase “na’aseh v’nishmah…

Rabbi Michelle Robinson sits down with Annette Miller to discuss her role as Golda Meir in 'Golda's Balcony,' a play opening in Boston on February 23. They discuss inhabiting the iconic figure and what her legacy can tell us about the events of today.

The holy grail in Jewish education is “transformational.”An Israel trip like Birthright or any of our Passport experiences are supposed to be “transformational.” Going to any of our wonderful day schools is supposed to be “transformational.” Jewish summer camp--24-7 immersion, lifelong friends--is supposed to be “transformational.” The idea of a “t…

January 27, 2024

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” Mark Twain I think of the Mark Twain quote whenever I ponder a signaturepiece of wisdom of my late mother that I resisted as a teen, but that I agree with …

I have been thinking a lot about something that many of us—not all, but many—have in common: brothers and sisters. I have been in a deep brother and sister place this week for two reasons. I am the youngest of six children. My five older siblings live in different places. Two live in Los Angeles, one in New Jersey, one in Denver, and my sister Jill…

There is a Jewish holiday that few know, Tu B’Shevat, the new year of trees, celebrated next Wednesday night and Thursday, January 24-25. If Passover is the most broadly observed holiday, Tu B’Shevat is among the least observed—a holiday about trees in the dead of winter.To prepare ourselves for the holiday next week, we are going to study three st…

January 13, 2024

Our reading this week, parshat va’era, features otot u’moftim, signs and wonders, that are intended to persuade Pharaoh of God’s power and therefore that he should let the Israelites go. The problem is, while the signs and wonders are indeed powerful-- a rod turning into a snake, the Nile turning into blood, millions of frogs jumping up and down--t…

If a picture paints a thousand words, then a screen shot I saw this week conveys a truth that we need to reckon with. The screenshot shows the different realities of New York City and Israel on New Year’s Eve. New York: fireworks. Israel: taking fire, the glare of missiles and rockets that Hamas still manages to fire into Israel. New York: people o…

Wisdom. We could all use it now. Many of us had hoped andprayed for a better 2024, a happier 2024, a more peaceful 2024. But now that we are in 2024, we are faced with the same stubborn challenges of 2023, deepened. The election cycle in America. The ongoing war in Israel and Gaza and the simmering threat of war with Hezbollah. Ongoing tensions on …

A member of TE, Dr. Heller is a respected member of the Hebrew College MEAH Bible faculty and has taught many courses at TE. Dr. Heller combines her passion for biblical text with her academic background in Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature and holds a Ph.D. from NYU.

My grandfather was a curmudgeon, especially this time of year. He would start to get grumpy mid-November, when Christmas lights started going up around town and his mood would really sour after Thanksgiving when retailers began blasting Christmas carols. Then a simple trip to the grocery store would send him muttering angrily under his breath up an…

With Rabbi Michelle Robinson

The prayer life of the Jewish people gives voice to contradiction and dissonance.On the one hand, all week long we have been singing Hallel, in which we acclaim how God saves us: I called on Adonai; I prayed that God would save me.... God has delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I shall walk before Adonai in the land…

Ever since October 7, I have been living in an anxiety-filled, doom-driven stupor. All day, from the moment I wake up until I go to bed at night, I check my news apps compulsively and obsessively, worried that there will be some new development that will rock my world the way that horrible attack did. At night, I delve deeper. I doom scroll. I read…