This is the sermon I delivered at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, on Yom Kippur 5786.

​In January of 2024, Temple Sinai gave me the chance to take a month-long sabbatical. I want to thank this holy congregation for giving me time for rest, renewal, study and travel. I also want to thank members of the Temple’s staff, lay leaders, and volunteers who stepped up during my absence. It was a reminder that this community is strong enough and active enough to take care of itself.

I spent the largest part of my time on sabbatical researching and writing about the history of the Jewish High Holy Days. I focussed on the way that the holidays have changed, particularly the changes in the way that Jews have understood the meaning of the holidays and their symbols. Today, I would like to share some of what I learned and wrote about.

The Torah says relatively little about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Here is a key passage for both holidays:

“On the first day of the seventh month, you shall observe complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts. You shall do no occupational labor and you shall bring an offering by fire to Adonai.… The tenth day of this month shall be the Day of Atonements. It shall be a sacred gathering for you. You shall practice self-denial and you shall bring an offering by fire to Adonai.” (Leviticus 23:24-27)

There are additional passages that describe the penalties for people who don’t observe the holidays. There is a description of the scapegoat ritual in which two goats were sacrificed to purge the Tabernacle and the people of their sin and impurity. But there are no details about prayers, confessions, or seeking forgiveness. There is no mention of rules for fasting, or what fasting means, apart from the cryptic phrase about “practicing self-denial.”

Most of what we actually do on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur was developed long after the time of the Torah by the people we call “the rabbis,” the (mostly) men who wrote the Talmud and other central Jewish texts from about the 1st to the 6th centuries of the Common Era. The rabbis sought to transform the Torah – which was written in a time when most people were farmers and shepherds – into a way of living in partnership with God for their more urban and philosophical time.

The rabbis re-envisioned Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur into days for inward contemplation and transformation. They made the holidays into a ten-day period for making apologies for wrongdoing, asking for forgiveness, and feeling forgiven by God for a fresh start in the new year.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur did not stop evolving after the era of the rabbis. Through the medieval era and into modern times, the meaning and understanding of these days has shifted.  We are going to look at three different symbols of the holy days to understand that shift.

The Shofar
The first and most obvious symbol of the High Holy Days is the shofar, which we heard sounded last Tuesday and Wednesday on Rosh Hashanah. We won’t hear it again until this evening to mark the end of Yom Kippur.

The shofar was a basic musical instrument in the ancient world. The ram’s horn was used to muster the community when there was a natural disaster, a fire, or an attack from an enemy. It was used to signal troops in warfare to advance or retreat. It was also used in public rituals to mark the entrance of a king or the start of a public celebration.

It was natural for the rabbis to continue to use the shofar on Rosh Hashanah as described in the Torah. However, instead of using it to celebrate the beginning of the year, the coming of the fall harvest, or the entrance of a king, the shofar became a symbol for the sovereignty of God over our lives. The rabbis reimagined Rosh Hashanah as an annual coronation of God and the anniversary of God’s creation of the world.

We see this in the three sections of the Rosh Hashanah shofar service devised by the rabbis. The first section, Malchuyot (Kingship), acknowledges God as ruler of the world. The second, Zichronot (Remembrance), focuses on God’s covenant with the Jewish people. The third, Shofarot (Shofars), speaks of the shofar blasts heard at Mount Sinai and those that will be heard to announce the redemption of the world.

In medieval times, the shofar was again reimagined. The great medieval philosopher Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, known as Maimonides, described the shofar as a kind of spiritual alarm clock. He wrote that we should hear the shofar as an announcement saying, “Awake you sleepers from your sleep! You who slumber, arise! Inspect your deeds, repent, remember your Creator… Look to your souls! Improve your ways and your deeds and abandon your evil ways and thoughts.” (Hilchot Teshuvah 3:4)

Over time, the shofar has evolved from a battle cry and a trumpet fanfare, into a reminder of God’s rule over the world and of the covenant between God and the Jewish people, and then into a spiritual wake-up call to prod us to introspection. What will it be next?

Contemporary Jewish writers often remark on how the shofar is a complex symbol, making sounds that remind us of laughter, crying, and of alarm. We are in the midst of a time in which we are reimagining the shofar’s calls as a way to see God’s presence in all of life’s joys and sorrows.

The Book of Life
The second symbol of the High Holy Days I want to talk about is a symbol that is not a real-world object like the shofar. Rather, it is the imaginary book that looms large over this ten-day period: The Book of Life.

We refer to the Book of Life repeatedly in the prayer books of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We even refer to it in the formal greeting for the High Holy Days, L’shanah tovah tikateivu v’techateimu, “My you be written and sealed for a good year,” and G’mar chatimah tovah, “May you have a good final sealing.”

In the book of Psalms, there is a verse in which the author talks to God about his enemies: “Let them have no share of Your goodness. May they be erased from the book of life and not inscribed among the righteous” (Psalm 69:29). This is probably the oldest reference to a “book of life” in the Hebrew Bible. It reflects an idea that existed for more than a thousand years in other cultures in the Ancient Near East – the idea of a divine book in which human affairs are recorded.

The difference between the “Book of Life” in the Hebrew Bible and what we see in other ancient cultures, though, is an emphasis on moral judgment. The author of the psalm says that God can change what is written in the book, and even erase it, according to whether people live up to God’s moral standards. In other ancient cultures, the gods’ record books were to assign each person’s fate – how many years each person would live, for example – a fate that could not be altered, not even by the gods.

This idea of the Book of Life was developed further by the rabbis, and they connected it tightly to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In the Talmud, Rabbi Yochanan is credited with saying: “Three books are opened on Rosh Hashanah. One for the entirely wicked, one for the entirely righteous, and one for the in-between. The entirely righteous are immediately written and sealed for life. The entirely wicked are immediately written and sealed for death. Judgment for the in-between is left suspended from Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur. If they merit, they are written for life. If they do not merit, they are written for death.” (B. Rosh Hashanah 16b).

Notice that the description of three books is mostly rhetorical. I don’t think that Rabbi Yochanan believed that anyone is entirely righteous or entirely wicked. At the very least, he knew that those first two books would be extremely thin. His point is that everyone (no matter how good or bad they are) is given a chance prove themselves worthy – especially in the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s the third book, and our ability to improve ourselves to get our names into it, that really matters.

The most famous Jewish text about the Book of Life is the one that we recited earlier this morning. The poem, Unetaneh Tokef, was likely written in the early medieval period. It conveys powerful images of God deciding “who shall live and who shall die … who by fire and who by water,” and so on. But you might notice that the poem makes some subtle and important changes to Book of Life of Rabbi Yochanan in the Talmud.

For one thing, there is only one book. Unetaneh Tokef makes no pretense that anyone is entirely good or bad. Also the poem states that it is not God who records judgments in the book. We ourselves are the authors of the Book of Life. The poem says that God only opens the book and “it reads from itself… each person’s signature is in it.” Through our actions, says the poem, we ourselves determine our fate.

There is one more thing I find powerful about Unetaneh Tokef. The most famous part of the poem – the list of ways that people will die – starts with a rather gruesome list: by the sword, by wild beasts, by starvation, and so on. But the tone shifts halfway through. The poem then asks, “Who will rest and who will wander? Who shall be at peace and who will be pursued? Who serene and who tormented?”

The poem wants us to consider that our real fate is not a matter of God’s decree about our moral righteousness. It is more a matter of our attitude. Whether you experience life as peaceful or tormenting, serene or restless, is as much about your outlook and the way you choose to accept life’s quirks and challenges.

So, we see that this central symbol of the Days of Awe, the Book of Life, has itself lived several different lives. It has gone from a heavenly score card that tracks human behavior, to a statement that we live in a moral universe in which our actions (good or bad) matter and have consequences, and then to a reflection on what makes a life truly fulfilling.

What should the Tree of Life mean to us today and in the future? It may be to focus on how the spiritual quality of our lives is determined by our choices. A life dominated by greed and anger may not be shorter than a life dominated by generosity and compassion, but it is likely to be more bitter, more fearful, and less joyful. A life dominated by service and kindness may not be longer or more luxurious than a life dominated by egotism and selfishness, but it is more likely to be hopeful and filled with love. We write ourselves into and out of the Book of Meaning and the Book of Joy and Satisfaction with every choice we make in life.

The Fast
The last symbol of the High Holy Days I’d like to discuss is one that might be on your mind right now as we move toward the afternoon of Yom Kippur, and that is the fast that many of us are experiencing right now.

Like the other symbols I’ve discussed, the fast of Yom Kippur is rooted in a passage from the Torah. In fact, it’s a verse I’ve already mentioned, the one that says, “You shall practice self-denial.” That phrase appears six times in the Torah, all of them in relationship to Yom Kippur. The confounding thing is, though, that the Torah never directly states what it means to “practice self-denial.”

Our best clue comes from the passage in the book of Isaiah that we read as today’s haftarah portion. The prophet says that the people complained to God by saying, “Why, when we fasted, did You not see? When we practiced self-denial, did You pay no heed?” (The verse equates fasting with the same phrase, translated as "practice self-denial," that we saw in the Torah.) God, in response, says that fasting does not earn divine favor when it is hypocritical – when, at the same time that people fast, they also allow the hungry to go without food and the unhoused go without shelter.

But why fast? What does fasting on Yom Kippur symbolize? How is going without food supposed to help a person seek and receive forgiveness?

The Talmud says that fasting is a form of personal sacrifice like the animal sacrifices that were conducted at the ancient Temple. Rav Sheshet asks God to accept the fat and blood he loses during the fast as if it were a ritual sacrifice offered on the altar to atone for his sins. (B. Berachot 17a).

I don’t know about you, but I find this interpretation difficult, unsatisfying, and even a bit grotesque. I definitely don’t think of the pound or two I lose on Yom Kippur as any kind of animal sacrifice. Even if I did, it would just make me feel even more guilty about the three or four pounds I am bound to put on during the break-fast after the end of Yom Kippur.

By the medieval era, the purpose of fasting had become more cerebral. In the 12th century, Maimonides wrote that the fast was to elevate the soul. By releasing us from worldly distractions, the fast would help us separate ourselves from material distractions so that our focus on Yom Kippur could be solely on the spiritual pursuit of repentance.

In the 20th century, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, had a very different take on fasting. Heschel connected the fast directly to the prophecy of Isaiah that chastises people for fasting while, at the same time, oppressing the poor. Heschel wrote that the fast challenges us to put our beliefs into practice. Fasting should help us feel solidarity with the poor and all who are deprived of basic needs. The ritual of fasting, he said, is only meaningful if it awakens an urgency to address the suffering of others.

The Yom Kippur fast began as an act of mortification in which people would afflict themselves with hunger to cleanse away their sins. The rabbis, mourning the loss of the Temple, turned it into a substitute for animal sacrifices to earn God’s favor and forgiveness. In the medieval period, it became a meditative practice to subdue the desires of the body in favor of the spirit. In the modern era, it has been likened to a call-to-action to prod us toward pursuing social justice.

What should it mean to us now? How should we make fasting on Yom Kippur a meaningful practice for today?

Here’s another take. Yom Kippur is a day of taking ourselves to the edge of our ego. On this day, we try to come to terms with the mistakes we make in life repeatedly – the bad habits that we just cannot seem to get rid of.

We all have habits we know that we would be happier without: an anxious need to keep up a break-neck speed in our work, reluctance to turn off the electronic gizmos, repeated failure to confront the way we hurt people who are close to us or to see the pain we have caused. It is so hard to change, even when we know that change would make us happier. Our egos convince us that we don’t have to change. Part of us keeps saying, “I know that what I’m doing is wrong, but I have to do it anyway. I’m too set in my ways.”

That’s where the fasting comes in. On Yom Kippur, we spend an entire day doing whatever it takes to break down that ego. We repeat prayers that remind us of choices that are not working – for us or for anyone else. We deprive our bodies of food to confront our mortality and to remember how fragile and short our lives are. Fasting on Yom Kippur leaves us naked of our conceits and our belief that we are the center of the universe.

We hope to reach the point where our defenses will be exhausted. A full day of fasting and asking for forgiveness helps us to see the foolishness of clinging to old habits. The fast helps us give in to the reality that we are imperfect. It helps us realize that we can and should do better … that we can and should be happier.

Will today be the day that you break down your ego and allow yourself to change to be a better person – maybe even a happier person? Why shouldn’t it be today?

Looking at the Past to Understand the Present and Future
We look at the Jewish past to see how our understanding of our practices have changed because we, too, are a part of Jewish history. As much as the rabbis of the Talmud, the medieval philosophers, and modern commentators, we here at Temple Sinai are helping to shape the Jewish future and the way that Jews make our tradition meaningful for ourselves and for future generations. By examining past understandings and our own understanding of our tradition, we help keep it alive as an inspiration and a source of meaning for today’s Jews – not as an object to be viewed as if it were an exhibit in a museum.

Yom Kippur is meant to be a day that challenges us to be better people, and that idea is timeless. It is our obligation to find the symbols, rituals, metaphors, and interpretations that make this day a day that can change our lives.

The research and writing I did on the history and meaning of the High Holy Days during my sabbatical in 2024 has had an impact on the way I think about these holidays, both as a rabbi and in my own personal spiritual life. I will always be grateful to this congregation for giving me the time for this learning and reflection.

I will be taking another month-long sabbatical in the summer of 2026, during which I will continue this work. It hope that it will inform the way that I lead our High Holy Day services and it will inform the way that I care for myself and my family.

Again, thank you for giving me the time to do this. And thank you for your own commitment to hearing the shofar, writing your name in the Book of Life, and of pushing yourself to be better and to be happier. May Yom Kippur be meaningful for you this year – and year after year.

G’mar chatimah tovah,
May you be sealed for a good year.

This is the sermon I delivered at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, at the Kol Nidre service on October 1, 2025.

​My family and I vacationed in the San Francisco Bay Area last year. On the second-to-last day of our trip, we spent an afternoon at Muir Woods National Monument just north of San Francisco. The park has some of the most famous old growth coast redwood trees in the world. The trees there plant their roots in the water of Redwood Creek and they soar above the foggy marsh to heights of 250 feet and more. The trees are breathtaking. They are even more astonishing when you consider that these trees began life, 500 to 1,200 years ago, as seeds no larger than an eighth of an inch.

As I admired those redwood trees, the question occurred to me, where did they come from? I don’t mean in a spiritual or figurative sense, but a very literal and material one. Some of the older coast redwood trees in Muir Woods weigh more than a million pounds. That’s not an exaggeration – one million pounds. All that mass had to come from somewhere. Where did all of that material come from?

Now, people have this idea about trees. We say, “trees grow out of the ground,” and that seems to make sense. We see that they have big roots burrowing down into the earth, so we imagine that this is where they get their substance – drawing it out of the ground through their roots. 

But this is not actually how trees work. That becomes clear when you consider that there is no big empty hole beneath a tree from which it drew its material. If a million pounds of redwood were sucked out of the ground, there would have to be a huge void left behind.

A 17th century scientist from Brussels named Jan Baptist van Helmont discovered this when he conducted a simple experiment. Van Helmont grew a willow tree and he measured the weight of the soil it grew in, the weight of the tree itself, and the weight of the water he added to it. After five years, the tree had gained 164 pounds, but the weight of the soil was nearly the same as it had been when he started the experiment. From this he concluded that the tree’s weight did not come from the ground, but that it came entirely from water. 

He was right that the tree does not consume the ground. But he was wrong about the water. Trees do not build their weight from water. So, if it’s not from the soil and it’s not from the water, where does a tree’s mass come from?

You might be thinking about the biology class you took in ninth or tenth grade and remember that there’s a process called photosynthesis that requires sunlight. Trees and all green plants need sunlight to grow. So, does the tree’s mass come from sunlight? Do trees directly convert energy into mass? No. Wrong again.

Let’s go back to that high school biology class and the process of photosynthesis. Green plants take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and water from the soil. They use the energy in sunlight to strip the carbon atom off of carbon dioxide (CO2) and recombine it with the oxygen and hydrogen from water (H2O) to turn into a sugar called glucose – (C6H12O6, for anyone who’s taking notes). That glucose becomes the building block for almost all of the plant’s mass – leaf, branch, stem and root. The plant also releases some oxygen back into the atmosphere as a helpful byproduct of this process. 

When I say “helpful byproduct,” I mean “helpful” as in, “allows all animals on this planet to breathe.” That kind of helpful. It is also “helpful” in the sense that, by removing all of that carbon from the atmosphere, plants transform the earth into a place where all kinds of life can thrive and not a scorching hot rock with temperatures magnified by the greenhouse effect. 

If you haven’t thanked a plant lately, now might be a good time.

The upshot of all of this is that the source of most of a tree’s mass – 95 percent of it – comes from the heaviest element that it takes in – carbon. And where does all of that carbon come from? You’re breathing it right now. It comes from the carbon dioxide, CO2, in the air. Plants turn air into solid material. The tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of pounds in a tree – a million pounds in a large redwood – come from the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Trees are literally made out of thin air.

Now, I’m going to come back to those real, literal trees in a little while, but first I want to use trees as the foundation of a metaphor. There is a long tradition of trees being used as symbols in Judaism. In the book of Proverbs, the Torah is called “a tree of life to those who hold fast to it” (Proverbs 3:18). And the menorah – the seven-branched candelabra you see on either side of our ark behind me, the oldest symbol of Judaism – is actually modeled on the branches of a tree. You might also remember the burning bush – a small tree – from which God spoke to Moses. For thousands of years, Judaism has used trees as a symbol of life and of God’s presence.

Just as it is literally true – against all of our intuition – that trees grow out of the air, we can figuratively say that our lives are also made out of things as insubstantial as thin air. Think about it. What are the things you most value in your life, the things that give you a sense of meaning and purpose? Chances are, the first things you think of are not your house, your car, and your bank account. You probably have an intuitive sense that the real foundation of your life is in other things: friendship, trust, compassion, justice, faith, belief, and love. 

In this sense, we are similar to the trees. We may look substantial and other people may see us first for our physical and material assets, but our lives are truly composed of things that are not things at all. Our existence is built out of thin air (metaphorically speaking).

What would your life be without the relationships you value the most? What would it be without your values and beliefs, hopes and aspirations? Most people would agree that life would be miserable and meaningless if life were just about our possessions and physical attributes. When the pursuit of the material becomes the central focus of a person’s life, it magnifies unhealthy attitudes: envy, greed, hardheartedness, and a belief that no amount of wealth can ever be enough.

When healthy, our lives are built upon values that cannot be weighed on a scale and that cannot be perceived under any microscope. Our lives are the cumulative assemblage of dreams, thoughts, emotions and wisps of hope.

Jewish tradition strongly endorses the idea that it is the non-material that really matters in our lives, and it warns us against worshipping “stuff” – things that can be seen, bought and sold. This is the essence of the second of the Ten Commandments – “You shall have no other gods besides Me. You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.” (Exodus 20:3-4).

You thought that the second commandment was just about not worshipping idols? It means much more. 

The second commandment is interpreted in Jewish tradition to mean that we should be on guard against the human tendency to think that our lives are based on things that are dug out of the ground, built by our hands, parked in our driveway, or saved in a bank. Our reverence should be reserved only for the God that cannot be represented in any physical form because God represents values that have no material substance.

The things that we should really revere in life are the divine attributes we experience in our most precious moments – the lift we feel in our soul as we watch our children grow up, the satisfaction and joy we experience when we help a friend in a difficult moment, the integrity we feel when we right a wrong, and the warmth in our soul when we embrace our beloved. That is what makes up the substance of our lives – and it comes to us as if out of the thin air.

And now, I want to come back to those very real and literal trees. As I said, one of the ingredients that allows trees to turn air into solid wood is sunshine. The energy that is absorbed by a tree’s leaves from the sun is used in the process of photosynthesis to turn carbon dioxide into glucose. The energy of that sunshine does not just disappear as the tree grows, or even after the tree dies. The energy is stored in the chemical bonds in every molecule of the tree. 

As you surely know, if you add enough heat to a tree it will start a chain reaction that can toast your marshmallows…or burn down a forest. Human beings have used the stored energy in trees for hundreds of thousands of years – either as firewood or as coal. It was our main source of energy until the development of petroleum in the 19th century. 

It is only in recent centuries, though, that we have used so much of the world’s trees that we face a worldwide crisis. In the last 300 years, roughly 35 percent of the earth’s forests have been lost to agriculture, urbanization, and logging. About half of those losses have occurred in just the last century. As we destroy our trees, we also damage the earth’s ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make the world habitable for human beings.

We can now return to the metaphor in which we recognize that our lives are sustained by ideas and values that are as insubstantial as the air from which trees derive their mass. Those ideas and values can also be burned to the ground. If we are particularly poor stewards of our lives, we can destroy the ideals and beliefs that sustain us. They are as inflammable as dried leaves. It is a painfully easy mistake to make.

When people lose sight of what really matters, and put their trust instead into wealth, status, fame or ego, they are metaphorically burning down their own house. Relationships are lost, values are sacrificed, and paranoia blossoms. I’m sure that you have seen this happen to people as I have seen it happen. Just like a tree, our lives can be destroyed by the fires of thoughtless greed, egotism, and tyranny. 

This is also true of the values and beliefs that we share as a society. Justice only exists so long as people hold its rules and customs as sacred. When a system of justice is treated as a game to wield power over others or to punish enemies, it loses its meaning and part of the glue that holds society together is lost. 

Equality only exists as long as people agree that every life is sacred and everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. When we give in to the impulse to treat some as superior and others as inferior, we burn down the promise that all lives matter.

Hope – that word on the Rhode Island state flag and the word that is the translation of Israel’s national anthem – is made out of people’s shared ability to believe that things can be better than they are. Without hope, we lose the energy to repair what is broken in our lives and in our world. Without hope, we lose the ability to believe that our aspirations have any chance of ever being realized.

Justice, equality, hope, faith, integrity, and many other foundational values, too, will not be found as a literal ingredients in the bricks that build our homes, in the fuel that fills our gas tanks, or the food we put on the table. We might be tempted at times to say that we can’t live off of these insubstantial, high-minded ideals. In a real sense, though, they may be more important to living a meaningful life and to building a sustainable society than concrete, steel, oil or wheat. We, like the trees, are sustained by the insubstantial and our lives are built out of thin air.

On this Yom Kippur, take a look at your life and ask yourself what are the true foundations of your life. Consider the loving relationships that give you a real sense of meaning and fulfillment in life. If you are not paying enough attention to some of them, decide today to begin feeding them as they require and deserve. Think about your beliefs and values and pick out the three or four that really define who you are as a person. Recommit yourself to putting them at the center of your decisions and life choices. Make a list of the principles that you hold dear as the basis of a society you would like to live in. If you feel that they are fading, stand up to proclaim what you stand for.

All of these ideas, beliefs, relationships and experiences are fragile. Consider how easily they could disappear like smoke unless we make the conscious choice to tend and nurture them. Remember that our lives are not as permanent and fixed as we like to think they are. Our existence stands on a foundation of air. 

On this Yom Kippur, let us remember the things that really matter to us that are not things at all. Let us dedicate ourselves to a year in which we place our highest values and dearest beliefs at the front of our lives, so that we will know that they are a tree of life when we hold fast to them.

G’mar chatimah tovah.
May you be sealed for a good year.

This is the sermon I delivered at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, for the first day of Rosh Hashanah 5786.

Menachem Mendl of Kotzk, also known as the Kotzker Rebbe, was a prominent chasidic leader of the early 19th century. There is some enigma around him because, although he was very highly regarded as a great scholar and spiritual teacher, he essentially gave up his role as the leader of a distinguished chassidic community when he was in his early fifties. He lived in seclusion, away from the community he had led, for the last twenty years of his life. 

We don’t know a lot about why the Kotzker Rebbe chose to isolate himself. There are stories that, even before his self-imposed exile, he would spend Shabbat afternoons locked in his room and would refuse to see anybody, even while his students were singing Shabbat songs and sharing words of Torah. There is a story that one of his students once had the temerity to knock on his door; the Rebbe emerged from his room shouting in a loud voice, “You are all wrong!”

We have collections of the Kotzker’s sayings and teachings, and there are some that seem to hint at the crisis he faced and the reasons for his decision to leave his community. They create a picture of a man who was troubled by the way his followers revered him. The Kotzker knew that he was fallible and that there were others who possessed fine and discerning minds, yet he, “the rebbe,” was considered to be the final word on everything – the virtual link between heaven and earth. That was deeply unsettling to him.

We can also see in his sayings the extremely high spiritual demands he placed upon himself and upon his students. For the Kotzker, devotion to God and Torah was all consuming. He wanted his every breath and moment to be devoted to prayer and study. To do anything less, it seemed to him, was a betrayal that would make him a hypocrite. 

That was what he hated most of all – hypocrisy. Menachem Mendl of Kotzk wanted to be fully himself and he would admit no compromises. This fixed idea of being deeply and authentically himself is expressed in one of the most famous sayings attributed to him:

“If I am I, because I am I, and you are you, because you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But, if I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.”

Enigmatic, right? Students of the Kotzker Rebbe have puzzled over this saying for centuries and it appears to hold multiple meanings.

Let me read it to you again:

“If I am I, because I am I, and you are you, because you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But, if I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.”

People love this teaching, I think, because it says something powerful about identity. I can only be myself if my identity is not tangled up in the identity of anyone else. My identity cannot be contingent or dependent upon anyone else. I have to be my own person and not expect anyone else to inform me or define for me what I should be, or must be. 

And, the teaching also says that what is true for me is also true for you and for everyone else. You cannot truly be who you are if you are waiting upon me or someone else to confirm or validate your existence. 

I would like to ask you to consider how this applies to your life. When have you felt like you were most authentically being yourself? When did you choose not to allow your identity to be hijacked by the expectations, judgements or examples of another person or people? When in your life have you best proclaimed, “I am myself and need no one else to inform me of who I am!”

These may all seem like lofty and cloud-minded questions and concerns. They may seem like questions that have no practical value to the way you live your life. But you should know that there are people for whom these questions have real and immediate importance and real-life consequences. For some people, making the choice just to be themselves can even be a matter of life and death.

Most of us grew up in a time when it was not considered socially permissible for gay men and lesbians to live publicly and honestly as the people they are or were. It can still be difficult and painful today to be gay in a family or community where homosexuality is shunned. But, in a time when some people’s sexual identity was literally classified as a “sociopathic personality disturbance” by the medical establishment, in a time when a person’s sex life could literally be criminalized, the level of misery for people who could not choose to be themselves publicly was intense.

As I said, there are still hardships in our society for queer people, particularly young people. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was often fatal. Although there are no statistics to verify it, the suicide rate among gays and lesbians in that era is generally believed to have been very high.

And you probably know that there is a cruel debate raging in our society right now in which some people are still being told that they are not who they think they are, and that they cannot be allowed to express the identity that they know is within them. In some states, laws have been passed and enforced to prevent people from living the truth of their own identity. 

Twenty-seven states have banned gender-affirming care for minors – which almost always means hormonal treatments that temporarily and reversibly pause the onset of puberty. These states have effectively told parents that no matter how certain their children are of their gender identity, and no matter how much the parents want gender-affirming care for their children, they are forbidden to seek care that would allow their children to live their lives with the gender identity within them.

Other states have laws and regulations forbidding teachers to even call students by the names they have chosen to affirm their gender identity. Florida, Indiana and Kentucky, have rules that require teachers to call students only by the names on their birth certificates. Imagine being a six-year-old child known by all of your family and friends as Stephanie, but having a first grade teacher who is required by law to call you Steven. How would that make you feel about going to school each day?

There are statistics on the suicide rate among transgender people in America today, and it is absolutely frightening. Research shows that 82% of transgender people have considered killing themselves. Forty percent have attempted suicide, with suicidal thoughts and attempts highest among transgender youth.

Yet there is still massive amounts of misinformation in our society about transgender people and the care they require. A lot of that misinformation says that transgender people are a new phenomenon, that being transgender is a fad, or that it is the product of ideological indoctrination. None of this is true. Being transgender is a medically documented and understood phenomenon. It has existed, literally, for thousands of years.

Jewish tradition has recognized gender diversity since the time of the early rabbis. The Talmud and other early rabbinic texts from as early as the sixth century CE describe legal categories for a person described as androgynos (a person with both male and female sexual characteristics), tumtum (a person who has sexual characteristics that cannot be assigned to either male or female), ayelonit (a person who was assigned female at birth but later developed male characteristics), and saris (a person who was assigned male at birth but later failed to develop masculine characteristics). 

The ancient rabbis did not have a concept of an internal gender identity. That idea did not exist in the ancient world – even though everyone then knew what gender they were, just as people do today. The rabbis’ categories are about external sexual characteristics, not an internal identity. Yet, they absolutely understood that gender and sex are not a simple binary determined at birth. The rabbis approached the issue with a desire to treat human beings according to the realities of their experience, and not to try to force their preconceived notions onto others.

What rabbinic Judaism did fifteen hundred years ago is what our society should be doing now – recognizing that people are different, that simplistic understandings of human diversity are almost always wrong, and that all human beings should be allowed to be who they are – and not be beholden to somebody else’s idea of who they should be.

I think that the crisis faced by Menachem Mendl of Kotzk had something in common with the experience of people today who are told that they are not what they know themselves to be. The Kotzker's crisis, at least in part, was a product of his extreme discomfort with not being able to be the person he knew himself to be. He could not reconcile himself to being the great and infallible “Rebbe” that other people needed him to be. He knew that he could never be himself if he accepted that role.

But, there is also an important difference. Menachem Mendl of Kotzk could not tolerate being a hypocrite. For transgender people today, not being able to live their lives as they know themselves does not just provoke a feeling of hypocrisy, it creates a total alienation of the self. For many, youth in particular, it provokes a constant state of believing that there is something intrinsically “wrong” or “bad” about them. Some transgender people describe the experience of repeatedly being identified as the wrong gender as a constant scream in their head saying, “That is not me.”

I said earlier that the famous saying attributed to Menachem Mendl of Kotzk can be understood in multiple ways. Here it is again:

“If I am I, because I am I, and you are you, because you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But, if I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.”

There is another way to hear these words that, paradoxically, is almost opposite in meaning from what I have discussed so far. Maybe the Kotzker meant to say that none of us is really who we think we are. Maybe his intention – or part of his intention – was to remind us that we all have identities that are necessarily shaped by the people around us who teach us, inspire us, challenge us, or influence us. If that is the case, then “I am I” only because “you are you” and that when I think that “I am only I,” I am actually mistaken. 

“I am I,” in part, “because you are you.” I cannot live in isolation from the impact that you have on my life. And you cannot live in isolation from the impact that other people have on your life. Therefore, in some way, it is a true statement to say: “I am not I, and you are not you.” We are all in the process of being people who are made up of ourselves along with all the other people who shape us, inspire us, and influence us.

Think about the people who have had the biggest impact on your life. Could you be who you are today without their influence? Think about the people who have guided you, shaped you, taught you – either for the better or for the worse – aren’t you who you are, in part, because of them? When have you been in the state of: “I am I because you are you”?

This alternative reading of the Kotzker Rebbe can be true, I think, at the same time that the first reading is true, even though they appear to be opposites. The paradox is that both interpretations may be necessary. 

We should strive courageously in life to be ourselves. But there is also a courage necessary to allow others to be themselves, too, and to see how we all need each other and are shaped by each other. Without that courage, we will trap ourselves in the myth that other people are supposed to be nothing more than versions of ourselves – and that anyone who fails to be like us is wrong and invalid. We will live isolated from the richness life offers when we authentically connect with others as they truly are.

What applies to an individual also applies to society. If our society cannot accept people for who they are, how they think, and what they have to say – but tries to force people to conform to a single mindset, a single perspective, a single identity – we will be a society in which no one is safe. In such a society, everyone eventually will be told: You can’t be who you are. You may not live as the person you think you are. 

Unfortunately, we Jews have seen such societies. We should understand how destructive it is when people are not allowed to live as themselves, when being yourself, speaking for yourself, becomes a crime.

“If I am I, because I am I, and you are you, because you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But, if I am I, because you are you, and you are you, because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.”

On this Rosh Hashanah, let me wish for you that these Ten Days of Awe be a time in which you rediscover yourself, have the courage to be who you most deeply are, and love yourself for it. May it also be a time in which you grow in courage to allow others to be themselves and for you to delight in the ways that they are a part of your life. May this world be a world filled with people who are connected to each other, each one helping others to be who they are, and who they might become.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu. May you be inscribed for a good year.​

This is the sermon I gave at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, on Friday, November 18.

The comedian Dave Chappelle was the guest host on Saturday Night Live last weekend. Chappelle has built a reputation for controversy for jokes about sexual assault and about trans people. In his monologue on Saturday night, he made similarly controversial jokes about the antisemitic social media posts by music performer and producer Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) and by basketball player Kyrie Irving.

I won’t try to repeat Chappelle’s jokes. First of all, I could never duplicate his expert timing and delivery. Second, the content of the jokes is not really the point I want to make tonight. Let it suffice to say that Chappelle’s jokes about antisemitism were all based on the idea that while Jews may or may not control the media, it’s a bad idea to even talk about it because doing so will get you in trouble with … well, he wouldn’t say directly, but I think you get the point. It was hard to listen to Chappelle’s act and not get the idea that, rather than repudiating antisemitism, he was working to get laughs by repeating some of the most tired and destructive stereotypes about “The Jews,” as he referred to us repeatedly. What a shame.

Of course, complaining about a comedian’s jokes is a rather futile task. Comedy has its own language and style. Trying to criticize comedians as if they were college professors or politicians usually ends up sounding mean-spirited, culturally clueless, or just like you “don't know how to take a joke.” It’s not a game I want to play.

Maybe the best response to Chappelle came from a fellow comedian. Jon Stewart, who is Jewish, when he appeared on The Late Show. He made his own jokes about the idiocy of conspiracy theories that say that Jews secretly control everything from oil prices to bagel flavors. Sometimes the best way to counter a nasty joke is with a joke of your own.

Also, I will mention that a few of my Black Jewish friends have said they did not find Chappelle’s performance to be antisemitic. Dave Chappelle is Black and much of his humor is in the idioms and style of Black American culture. I may be deaf to the nuance of Chappelle’s jokes that were intended to make fun of antisemitism, not amplify it. I’m open to that.

Nonetheless, what I heard, and what some four million viewers on the show’s live broadcast heard, was a comedian who was willing to talk about antisemitism in a way that we don’t often hear in America. Chappelle himself stated in his monologue, “It shouldn’t be this scary to talk about anything,” and, of course, he is right. Many Jews in America right now are feeling very scared by the way that antisemitism keeps popping up in the news and in popular culture, but with very little context to show how dangerous it can be. We know. We remember. But much of America seems to be scared to talk about the fact that this type of rhetoric, if left unchecked, will lead to hateful violence against Jews, just as it always has in the past.

Tonight, I want to talk about what we are seeing in America and the world right now and what we can do about it. It’s not any easy topic for me to talk about and, I believe, it’s not easy for most of you to hear it. But it has to be said.

Since Ye’s antisemitic tweets a few weeks ago, there has been a surge of hateful speech and threats against the Jewish community throughout the country. Here in Rhode Island, antisemitic flyers were thrown onto driveways and front yards in the Oakland Beach neighborhood of Warwick and in North Providence just this week.  In Bethesda, Maryland, not far from the congregation served by Rabbi Eric Abbott, who grew up here at Temple Sinai, antisemitic messages were found spray painted on fences and brick walls. My social media page is filled with reports from rabbis across the country about antisemitic posters, threatening messages on Temple voicemail, and loud public opposition to even the most basic statements against antisemitism. It all feels surreal. We wonder how this could be happening in America.

Well, I know what’s not happening. We are not living in a world where antisemitism disappeared, once upon a time, and now has mysteriously come back. No. We know that antisemitism has always been here. It is the conspiracy theory that never seems to go away. From medieval times to today it has hardly changed at all. “The Jews are secretly spreading the Black Plague.” “The Jews are secretly kidnapping children for their blood.” “The Jews are secretly manipulating the world economy.” “The Jews are conspiring to take your job and give it to a Mexican.” The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The difference now is that antisemitism has come out from the shadows and into the mainstream. It may have started with an American President who openly courted and gave legitimacy to far-right white supremacist groups that are openly antisemitic. It has now spread to other cultural groups who see Jews as a convenient scapegoat for their own oppression. There is something about hating Jews that has always seemed more acceptable in American society than hating any other ethnic or cultural group, and it sometimes seems like we are the only people who notice.

So, what do we do? I like Jon Stewart's approach of fighting humor with humor. It’s smart and culturally savvy, but it is not nearly enough. We also need to start doing a better job of calling out antisemitism when it appears and we need to do a better job of “calling in” people who are blind to antisemitism (sometimes even their own hidden antisemitism) and inviting them into conversation and partnership. That is the approach that the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island is taking this week.

They have prepared social media messages calling on our allies to support and show up for the Jewish community. They are contacting non-Jewish leaders asking them to speak out against antisemitism. They are also reaching out to local news programs, meeting with business, civic and elected officials, consulting with law enforcement, and generally issuing a wake-up call to begin the scary conversation that nobody seems to want to engaged in – a conversation about the rise of antisemitism and what real and tangible support for the Jewish community would look like.

I’ve been doing this, too. Yesterday I had a meeting with a group of Episcopal priests with whom I have partnered in the past and directly asked them to talk about antisemitism from their pulpits. They have agreed to do that. I had a separate meeting yesterday with a diverse group of Christian clergy members in East Greenwich, and they have agreed to issue a joint public statement about antisemitism. Slowly, we are getting the word out that the normalization of antisemitic rhetoric is going to be countered by the normalization of calling out antisemites and the message that antisemitism is not compatible with our society’s civic, religious and moral values. It won’t happen overnight and there is a need to stay vigilant against hatred, but we can do it.

And the task of opposing antisemitism is not just a job for Jewish leaders and rabbis. I want to ask you to participate in this task, too. I recently completed an adult education class on antisemitism on Zoom and the videos and class materials from that class are available on the Temple’s website. Take a look and consider the advice I gave on how to identify and counter antisemitism in your own personal interactions.

When you hear or see language and behavior that amplifies negative stereotypes about Jews, don’t be silent. The simplest response can be the kind that Jon Stewart gave on The Late Show. Point it out. Don’t let it go by without comment. Even make a joke about it. It’s a better response than nothing. But you can do more.

Ask people who make such comments how they imagine their words affect Jews and other people who face ridicule and oppression. Invite them to share their own stories about how they learned to think and talk about Jews and tell them your own stories.

And we can do more than that, too. Enlist the aid and support of non-Jewish allies. Do you think it was easy for me to say to a group of my non-Jewish friends that they need to speak out about antisemitism? I assure you it was not, but it is necessary. Antisemitism is not a problem that was created by Jews and it cannot be solved by Jews alone. We need to know who are friends are and ask them to stand with us.

Finally, here’s another thing you can do – educate yourself. Learn about the history and tropes of antisemitism so you will notice it when it arises and so you can help others identify it, too. While you’re at it, also learn about the history of other forms of racial and ethnic hatreds and get more comfortable talking about all forms of racism and bigotry. When our friends in the Black community, the Muslim community, and the LGBTQIA community see that we care about the hatred directed against them, they will feel more willing to care about and to act against the hatred directed against us. That’s how you build a movement.

And that’s what we need. Antisemites have been building a movement for decades and even centuries. Not every person who holds antisemitic views is part of an organized antisemitic movement, but the few who are work hard to get as many people as possible to hear their message. We have to build a movement that will get people to hear our message – the true message of Judaism and the Jewish people.

Rather than being a people who conspire in the shadows with nefarious plans to overthrow civilization – as antisemites imagine – we are a people who have stood up for moral values. Where they see Jews overrepresented in the media, in the world of finance, and in government, we point out that Jews are actually overrepresented in the work of fighting poverty, addressing racial injustice, supporting democracy, advancing the arts, and building inclusion, equality and justice for all. If Dave Chappelle wants to talk about “The Jews,” he needs to include that crucial part of the total picture.

The times are frightening and we have every reason to feel troubled, but we are not without the ability to do something about it. Be a part of the movement.

Shabbat shalom.

This is the sermon I delivered at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island on the first day of Rosh Hashanah 5783, September 26, 2022.
 
There is a moment in the Book of Esther that always stops me dead in my tracks. Every Purim, I cannot read it without pausing and wondering. It comes right after Haman (thank you for not making the noise) is infuriated by Mordechai’s failure to bow down to him and he decides that the Jews must be destroyed. He goes to the King and says, “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in your Majesty’s interest to tolerate them” (Esther 3:8). 

In one verse, the Hebrew Bible sums up two thousand years of antisemitism. So, the question I always ask myself on hearing this verse is, “How on earth did they know?” 

How did the authors of the book of Esther know that, for centuries to come, the Jewish people would be maligned as a scattered, insidious force working to destroy civilization? How did they know that we would be slandered and persecuted for the invented crime of disloyalty to the nations in which we live? How did they guess that villain after villain, like Haman, would rise against us seeking our destruction, all while applauding themselves for their self-righteousness? How did they know?

Let me assure you that I do not make this observation as some kind of proof of the divine origin or the inerrancy of the Hebrew Bible. I’ll leave that to the biblical literalists and fundamentalists – I’m not one of those. But I do make the observation to make a point about the antiquity and persistence of antisemitism. It is, perhaps, the world’s oldest form of hatred, and it is still very much with us today.

Consider these examples:

• At the University of Vermont last year, a teaching assistant made antisemitic remarks on social media threatening to lower the grades of Jewish students. Two student organizations, including a sexual assault support group, boasted that they would exclude students who “expressed support for Zionism” from membership in their organizations. UVM’s President released a statement two weeks ago denying that antisemitism is an issue at the university.

• In Kentucky, the Bracken County Republican Party put a message on its Facebook page accusing the newly confirmed director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms of being part of "a Jewish junta” that “is getting stronger and more aggressive." As at UVM, the county’s party board denied charges of antisemitism with the claim that they would never do that because they have party members with Jewish heritage.

• In Boston, a Democratic City Council member tweeted, “Y’all are letting the Zionists SHAKE YOU DOWN” in response to a federal court ruling that allowed a new law against boycotting Israel to go into effect.

• Right here in Cranston, flyers with hateful antisemitic messages were distributed by a white supremacist organization. Two men with the flyers were arrested in East Providence for refusing to identify themselves to police who witnessed them illegally posting them on utility poles.

We don’t only have anecdotes to show that antisemitism is on the rise. According to a report by the Anti-Defamation League, last year saw a 27-percent year-over-year increase in anti-Semitic messaging from white supremacist groups. The World Zionist Organization reports that it was the worst year in a decade for antisemitic incidents around the globe. 

What is going on? What has been going on for the last 2000 years? Lies against the Jews are practically the same today as they were in ancient Persia when the biblical Haman talked about Jews as an insidious affliction, bent on destroying a decent, law-abiding society – an affliction that could only be stopped by force. 

And why is it that the Jews, of all people, have been singled out for this kind of suspicion, animosity and hatred? Scholars have puzzled over it for centuries. You, too, have probably wondered, “Why us? Why the Jews?” Of all the nations and peoples of the earth, why have we been singled out by those who wish to find a scapegoat for humanity’s ills?

You have probably heard some of the theories: Jews were stigmatized by Christianity with the charge that we were responsible for the death of Jesus. But if that is the root source of the hatred, why is antisemitism also so prevalent among Muslims and other non-Christians? 

Jews have been stereotyped as money-grubbing exploiters of the poor. But if that is the reason for antisemitism, why has the persecution of Jews actually been at its worst when Jews have been desperately poor and exploited themselves, as we have been for most of our history?

Jews revere a singular God of universal morality, and that has been perceived as an intolerable threat to those who revere only their own power. But if that is the source of antisemitism, why are other minority religions that also uphold a moral deity not also singled out for hatred? 

Some people today claim that the State of Israel is the reason for the rise of antisemitism. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complicated, and I have no intention of doing it justice this morning. But I do note that nothing Israel does actually reduces anti-Jewish hatred. If Israel today pulled out of the West Bank and declared a Palestinian state, does anyone seriously believe that anti-Jewish rhetoric would be reduced? Is that what happened 18 years ago when Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza? No. If anything, it has gotten worse, with increasing claims that the Jewish people are actually colonialist invaders in the Land of Israel – the only people in the world who are called colonialists for living in their native land.

The truth of the reason for antisemitism’s persistence may be the sum of all of these factors and more – a perfect storm of prejudices. Maybe. But I want to suggest a different interpretation – the interpretation expressed by Professor Deborah Lipstadt, the American historian best known for documenting the deliberate falsification of history by Holocaust deniers.  

Lipstadt’s observation is so simple – and also so contemporary – that it is surprising that we fail to recognize it immediately. Antisemitism is a conspiracy theory – an unlikely or bizarre explanation of events that depends on belief in sinister, powerful groups. Conspiracy theories gain traction, not because of evidence or arguments, but because of the desire to blame circumstances on a hated group that is defined as evil. 

In the middle ages Jews were accused of killing gentile babies to drink their blood. Today, antisemites spread stories of a Jewish conspiracy to replace the white race by promoting the immigration of black and brown people into the United States. They tell stories of Jews not showing up to work at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, which “proves” that the attack was secretly a Jewish plot. 

When we actual inspect the underlying beliefs of antisemitism, all we see is delusional thinking. We see beliefs so absurd and without a shred of evidence that could only be the product of hatred and imagined terrors run amok. We easily understand that such conspiracy theories are the product of paranoia and irrational rage. They have nothing to do with history, theology, socio-economic or geopolitical trends, policies or facts. Conspiracy theories do not need reasons. Hatred has no logic.

The unsettling idea that there is no “why” behind antisemitism presents a big problem for people who want to combat it. If there is no rational basis for antisemitism, there is no reason to believe that any amount of facts or  arguments will undo it. Antisemites believe that Jews are greedy, evil, inferior, or plotting to overthrow civilization because that is what they believe. They may present so-called evidence in support of their beliefs, but debunking false evidence does not stop them from hating since their hatred was never actually based in facts or evidence to begin with.

Does this all sound familiar? In many ways, we are living in an era of conspiracy theories. Bizarre, ugly lies are rampant today and readily believed by the gullible – about faked school shootings, about the origin of the Covid virus, and, yes, about stolen elections, too.

So, what do we do? How do you stop a hatred that is based on nothing?

We have to admit that the answer cannot just be the main thing we have tried so far – education. The movie, Schindler’s List broke a record when it was shown on television unedited and without commercial interruption in 1997. Sixty-five million people watched it, by far the largest audience of any non-sports TV program that year. People were moved to tears. It was the most compelling piece of public Holocaust education ever conceived. In the wake of it, mandatory Holocaust education programs were enacted across the country, including here in Rhode Island.

And what has it gained us? Twenty-four years after Schindler’s List was shown on NBC, white supremacists marched down the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”

At one time, we might have been convinced that the worst of antisemitism was just among fringy whackos on the edge of society. Not any more. The stories about the World Trade Center and “White Replacement Theory” are not confined to corners of the dark web. They are now mainstream. They are promoted by commentators on cable news and by college professors at distinguished universities. Antisemitism is spreading.

So, what does work? In my mind, there are several important steps to combatting hatred beyond just general public education. Here are four:

1) Speak Up. No antisemitism should ever be ignored or go unchallenged. When a neighbor makes an offhand semi-humorous remark about Jews controlling Hollywood, or the banking system, or what have you – reply without apology or antagonism, “That’s hurtful. You know, some people believe those awful stereotypes. Don’t tell jokes like that.” 

When a small, pathetic group of neo-Nazis posts antisemitic flyers in Cranston or anywhere, we won’t write it off as the product of a few disturbed individuals. We will report it to the police. We will go to the newspapers and demand coverage. We will publicize the names and faces of the perpetrators of hate. If people tell us we are “overreacting,” we will say that we will not be silenced and that all forms of hatred must be confronted. Antisemitism counts as hatred just as much as racism, sexism and homophobia.

2) We must educate ourselves. Maybe in our attempts to educate non-Jews we forgot to make sure that we ourselves understand antisemitism. Learning about the history and patterns of antisemitism will help Jews to identify it quickly and make sure that other people see it, too, even in our everyday interactions. I’ll be teaching an adult education class this year on antisemitism and we will discuss it in age-appropriate ways in our Religious School, too.

3) Join forces. Antisemitism may be the oldest hatred, but it’s not the only one. When we join with Blacks, Muslims, Asian and Pacific Islander peoples, LGBTQIA people and others who are also subjected to hatred, we not only gain allies in our fight, we also gain opportunities to show how the antisemitism we face is painful and harmful to us, and how it hurts them, too. We show that antisemitism is not just some relic from the past. It is here and it is now. 

A recent report in the New York Times showed that antisemitic propagandists have been working overtime posting messages on fake social media accounts designed to drive wedges of distrust between Jews and Blacks, and Jews and Muslims. We can’t be distracted or tricked out of building alliances with other victims of hatred. This is the thinking behind Temple Sinai’s Community Conversations program with a Black church in Providence and our Building Bridges program of dialogue with Rhode Island Muslims. I encourage you to participate with us.

4) and finally, we must dig more deeply into ourselves. Jews are not exempt from our own prejudices and stereotyping. Our reflections on the experience of antisemitism should not wall us off from the suffering of others people, it should heighten our awareness. We should become more determined to acknowledge prejudice and bias that exists within the Jewish community. We need to notice our own tendencies to marginalize Jews of Color, transgender Jews, and queer Jews. We should strengthen our resolve to build a community in which every voice matters. We know that such a commitment will make us better and stronger as people.

The book of Esther, for twenty-three hundred years, has been our warning about what can happen when evil people use conspiracy theories and malevolent lies to gain power. In many ways, we are seeing a repeat of that lesson in America today. It is no wonder that the oldest conspiracy theory of them all is also on the rise at a time like this. Working against the spread of lies is not only important for us as Jews, it is also essential to the stability of our society as a whole. 

This year, in 5783, be an Esther, be a Mordechai by taking action, educate yourself, build alliances, and dig deeply into yourself. Make a difference in the face of rising hatred by proudly being a Jew and fighting for our values.

L’shanah tovah tikateivu. May you be inscribed for a good year.

This is the sermon I delivered at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, on May 6, 2022.

In 1968, a 21-year-old Texas woman named Norma McCorvey became pregnant. Despite her young age, McCorvey had been pregnant twice before. 

At age 16, McCorvey had been married to a man who brutally beat her. She left him to move in with her mother, who also had a history of violence, and gave birth to her first child. Within the child’s first year, her mother took the child from McCorvey and coerced her into signing papers putting the baby up for adoption. The following year, McCorvey became pregnant again and gave birth to a second child. This time she willingly put the child up for adoption after she was born.

During her third pregnancy, McCorvey resolved that she wanted an abortion. From her previous experience, she knew that she would not be able to get or keep a job while pregnant; and she desperately needed a job. Also she did not wish to repeat the emotional ordeal of her two previous unwanted pregnancies and adoptions. 

Eventually, she was referred to attorneys who were mounting a legal challenge to Texas’ restrictive abortion laws. They filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, the Attorney General for Dallas County, and named McCorvey as the plaintiff using the pseudonym “Jane Roe.” 

As you know, the case eventually was brought to the U.S. Supreme Court, which announced its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, declaring that the U.S. Constitution protects the right to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restrictions.

We learned this week that a majority of the members of the U.S. Supreme Court have taken an initial vote to overturn Roe v. Wade almost fifty years after the decision became the law of the land.

I assume that people do not come to Temple services in order to hear political commentary, or, at least, I assume that they probably shouldn’t. I have my political opinions, but it’s not my job to share them. On the other hand, the political issue of the moment, the leaked draft of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, is one that has an unmistakable impact on religion and morality. 

For those who don’t like hearing their rabbi talk about controversial issues, I am sorry to disappoint you. Tonight, I regret that I must talk about what is probably the most controversial topic in America today. 

For those who do want to hear their rabbi talk about politics, I am sorry to disappoint you, too. I am not going to touch on the political or legal aspect of the issue – which political parties are helped or hurt, which Justices are going to vote which way, what Congress could or should do, and so on. For any of those topics, I direct you to your favorite newspapers, radio networks, and cable news stations.

I am going to talk tonight about what this topic says about the role of religion in America, the moral destination our nation is heading toward, and how we should respond to the challenge as Jews and as human beings.

There is no question that the topic of abortion has become inextricably linked with religion in America. As much as some people try to camouflage their opinions in arguments about due process, state’s rights or so-called “Constitutional Originalism,” it is evident that those who support legal bans on abortion under some or all circumstances, are motivated by a particular religious view about when life begins and the authority of their religious view to be imposed on others. It is also plain to see that many who support abortion rights see religion as their enemy. It is for this reason that I have to speak on this issue. If I do not, it will only tend to confirm people’s false assumptions about religion, about Judaism, and about this holy congregation.

Let me make it clear: Reform Judaism holds that access to abortion is a Jewish value and that it is essential health care. This is a position that Reform Judaism’s delegates of lay congregational leaders have made over and over again for many decades. It is a position founded in the Torah, in the Talmud, and in the centuries of rabbinic commentary. Jewish law states unequivocally that the life and wellbeing of the living woman is prioritized over the developing fetus within her. Traditional Jewish law holds that there are circumstances in which abortion is favored or required, especially in cases where the woman’s life is imperiled. 

Moreover, Reform Judaism holds that all people should be allowed to make the choices that are right for them – in consultation with medical professionals and their loved ones – about reproduction and about their bodies. The power of government to compel or force a choice – any choice – is a violation of this fundamental value.

Others, of course, are free to have different opinions about the morality of abortion, but there is more at stake in the present situation than just a challenging ethical issue. It appears that there are five Justices of the Supreme Court who favor restoring the power of government to impose one particular response to that challenge on all pregnant women.

In a constitutional democracy, should government be invested with the power to force itself into one of the most personal decisions a human being can make in her life? Is it the role of government to choose a position on a deeply contested religious issue like the beginning of human life and thereby force that position on people who believe differently?

This is not the first or only time that we Jews have been put into this position. Throughout our history, the majority populations in the places where we have lived have tried to force Jews to conform to their notions of God and morality. The resurgence we are seeing today of a Christian fundamentalism that insists that it has the right to impose its religious standards on our entire society should be deeply disturbing to Jews and to everyone, regardless of their position on the particular issue of abortion. There can be no question that success in overturning abortion rights on the state level will be followed by religiously motivated assaults on the federal level. There is no doubt that, once Roe v. Wade is dispatched, if it is dispatched, there will be an attempt to pass a national ban on abortions. There can be no doubt that it will result in attempts to overturn the right to contraception and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people, too. 

What can we do? Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. Right now, the U.S. Constitution still protects the right to choose to have an abortion. Regardless of whether you personally approve of abortion or not, I ask you to do whatever you can to protect that right for others. If not for yourself, do it for your children and for generations of Americans to come who may soon lose the right to choose for themselves how and when to give birth. Write to your lawmakers. Show up for public displays of support for abortion rights. 

More than fifty years ago, the story of a woman named Norma McCorvey opened up the eyes of the U.S. Supreme Court. Seven of the Justices – all of them men – found that forcing a woman to give birth to unwanted children, in the words of their decision, “may force upon the woman a distressful life and future.” They saw that adoption was no solution to the problem. McCorvey herself had put up two of her children for adoption and knew that being forced to do it for a third time would do her harm.

Fifty years of living with Roe v. Wade has also taught us other important moral truths about abortion in America. We understand today that overturning Roe v. Wade will not end abortions. It will only force those who have the means and the ability to travel far to get them. Those who cannot will imperil their lives by attempting illegal abortions, as has happened throughout history when abortions have been restricted or banned. 

We have also learned that denying access to abortion will disproportionately imperil the people who, right now, have less access to healthcare: poor people, people of color, immigrants and disabled people.

The right to abortion that was codified in Roe v. Wade almost fifty years ago did not fall from the sky for no reason. It happened because of the tireless efforts of people who understood that government should not have the power to reach into the most intimate decisions of our lives. The fight is not over. We will continue to keep true to our faith and to our values.

Shabbat shalom

This is the sermon I gave at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island, on Friday, January 28, 2020, Shabbat Mishpatim.

This week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, includes a curious verse. I’m not sure everyone today would agree with it. The verse, Exodus 22:27, commands, “You shall not revile judges, nor put a curse upon a chieftain among your people.” Today, it seems, cursing our leaders is not just considered acceptable behavior, it’s practically our national pastime. I want to take a look at this commandment, what we think it means, and what it might teach us about our society today.

First, a word about the Hebrew words of this verse. The part of the verse that says that “you shall not revile judges” actually uses the word Elohim, which we usually translate as “God.” However, since ancient times, the rabbis have understood that the word Elohim sometimes means something more like “great people” or “powerful people.” The earliest commentators all agree that this verse is not talking about reviling God – which is certainly covered elsewhere in the Torah – rather, it is about not expressing hatred for human leaders – judges, kings, elected officials, officers of the court. Yet, the use of the word Elohim here is interesting, as I will discuss in a few minutes.

The ancient midrash collection, Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael [22:27:1], says that the prohibition against cursing leaders applies as long as the leaders do their job as their jobs are defined. You may not like the way they do the job, you may think that you could do a better job, you may believe that they don’t really understand their job, but as long as they are not renegades who ignore the rules of their job, you may not curse them.

So, I want to suggest that the rule is not really about not cursing the person in the leadership position; it is about not reviling the position itself. We have a similar idea in American society today when we say things like, “You may not respect the President, but you still have to respect the office of the presidency.” There needs to be a basic understanding in a society that once we cross the line of despising our political system just because we don’t like the particular people in power, we have undermined the very existence of the system we all depend on to keep us safe, to hold our society together, and to prevent anarchy from overwhelming us.

In American society, we often call this understanding “the rule of law.” It is a phrase made popular in part by the writings of John Adams, the second President of the United States. Adams wrote that a good government should be “an empire of laws and not of men,” meaning that our civilization becomes stable, just, and worthy of sustaining itself when not even the most powerful people can excuse themselves from obeying the law and when every member of the society is subject to the rights, privileges, and limitations of the law on an equal basis. The moment that the law becomes a weapon to use “against thee, but not against me,” the rule of law is broken and those who wield power should be regarded as illegitimate and as immoral, authoritarian despots.

But in observing the rule of law, which despises self-serving autocrats, we also relinquish our claim to despise the people who rule in ways other than what we would choose ourselves. It is a two-way street. Leaders have an obligation to live within the rules; the rest of us have an obligation to accept the authority of the people who govern within the rules.

That seems to be what this week’s Torah portion is telling us. You are not allowed to curse your leaders just because you don’t agree with them; you are required to give the respect due to their office. The only alternative is to ally yourself with the causes of chaos and anarchy that will lead to the ruin of the society as a whole.

If you imagine that the commandment not to curse leaders was more easily obeyed in ancient times than it is today – if you believe that the leaders of the past were so much better than those we have today – if you believe that people loved and appreciated their leaders in the past more – I am sorry to say that you must have a poor understanding of the ancient world and a worse understanding of human nature.

The Torah goes out of its way to remind us about how many Israelites really hated Moses during his forty years of leading them in Egypt and through the wandering through the desert. The Hebrew Bible tells us clearly that King David, the other paragon of leadership in ancient Israel, was so deeply disrespected in his time that even his own wife criticized him publicly and his children tried to overthrow him.

It has always been so. No leader, no matter how great, is without detractors. The game of "King of the Mountain," in which people try to pull down the person at the top, is the oldest game in the world. We never get tired of it. The struggle to “throw the bums out” without, at the same time, allowing all of society to fall into lawlessness is as old as civilization itself.

This is the observation of the Torah. You can see it in the way that the Hebrew Bible never invests itself too much in any particular human ruler. Even Moses and David are shown to have serious flaws and they have eager detractors. But the law itself, the rules by which society is governed, is never attacked in the Torah. It is venerated far more than any human being could ever be.

This week’s Torah portion is a virtual monument to the idea of the rule of law. Parashat Mishpatim contains 53 laws, one of the most of any Torah portion. Among the laws in the portion are laws against crimes like murder and kidnapping and laws for civil conduct like the repayment of loans and compensation for accidental property damage. But at the center of the Torah portion are laws for the administration of the legal system itself. This week’s portion commands judges and other civil authorities, “You shall not side with the powerful to do wrong. You shall not give false testimony to favor the interests of the mighty. Nor shall you show favoritism toward the poor in a dispute…You shall not take bribes" (Exodus 23:2-3,8).

There is a lot for us to learn from the Torah’s commitment to the rule of law and faith in human systems of justice and governance. The world today is experiencing a crisis in the rule of law that is unlike any time since the end of the Second World War. Democracies are falling toward despotism in countries like Turkey, Poland and Hungary. In just the last eight months, coups with military support have overturned the rule of law in Myanmar, Mali, Tunisia, Guinea, Sudan, and Burkina Faso.

And, lest we think that the United States is somehow exempt, we have seen in our own nation definite signs of decay in the rule of law. We can see, perhaps, how it started when the Supreme Court ignored the ballots cast in Florida and installed George W. Bush as president in 2000. The fractures deepened in 2016 when many people called Donald Trump’s Electoral College win illegitimate because of his failure to win the popular vote. Now it has reached near crisis levels as one quarter of all Americans believe that the result of the 2020 elections were false and the election stolen. The belief is, of course, primarily promoted by the false claims of the losing presidential candidate and his refusal to concede, a line that has never been crossed before in the nation’s history.

How much longer can this go on? What happens when nobody in a society believes that the rules matter as much as “winning” matters? In such a society, the rules will collapse. The rules will just be changed, after the fact, by people who have the power to create new rules that produce the results they want.

Regardless of your partisan allegiances, regardless of your preferred policy positions, you should fear this. It is a recipe for chaos and disaster.

And there is something else we should notice. Remember how this week’s Torah portion uses the word Elohim for the people in positions of authority who must not be cursed? Remember how the word Elohim is usually translated as “God”? I don’t think it is a coincidence.

The Torah itself recognizes that once a society rejects the rule of law, it will also reject the rule of God. Once people have tasted the power that comes with the ability to change the rules however they want, whenever they want to get the results they want, they will never accept the idea of any authority over them – not the authority of justice, not the authority of a moral order, and not the authority of creation’s supreme Source. The Torah understands that accepting the rule of law within the human realm is a necessary step toward accepting the rule of Heaven in our spiritual lives and in our basic understanding of who we are in the universe.

We are commanded not to curse our leaders – even when we disagree with them, even when we believe that they are dead wrong – not because they are above criticism or beyond reproach. We are commanded to respect the framework of governance and the rule of law because it is the floor beneath our feet. It is the foundation of all we aspire to do as a civilization.

Today we are standing on the brink of stepping over the line that leads to chaos. It is time to take a step back and to remember that there are ideals and there is a vision of what we are meant to be that are beyond merely “winning.”

Shabbat shalom.