A Grater Message

Rosh Hashanah, First Day, 5772 — Creating the World We Want

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:00:42 -0700

When I was a first year rabbi, serving as a fellow at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, I did something that was, shall we say, ill-advised. I actually did many things that year that could be described as ill-advised, but this one thing has been hanging around my neck as a never-ending laughable moment for my teachers and mentors. In the summer of 1999, a flight leaving Halifax, Nova Scotia, disappeared off radar and crashed into the Atlantic, killing everyone on board. I happened to catch the beginning of the story on CNN that night, just after havdalah, and I proceeded to watch until 3 am, glued to the screen and the details as they unfolded. I was mesmerized primarily because I personally DON’T like flying. The following week, I wrote a response to the crash and asked the senior rabbis to send my letter to the congregation, and they did. The letter said, in a nutshell: Dying in a plane crash is a horrific way to die and maybe it is time that we humans examine whether or not it is morally sustainable to fly in airplanes and put ourselves at such risk just for the convenience of getting around the world faster. Yes, you heard correctly; I said it was immoral for society to participate in air travel. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the responses we got from the congregation were scathing. “Who hired this idiotic, immature rabbi who spouts such nonsense?” “Rabbi, just because you are afraid of flying, don’t lay a moral guilt trip on the rest of us.” People offered me Xanax and liquor as a cure for my anxiety. Needless to say, it was not a fun week, and going to shul that Shabbat was pretty embarrassing for me.

Erev Rosh Hashanah, 5772 — Overcoming Disappointment

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 20:00:57 -0700

Like many of other Americans, I fell in love with the USA Women’s soccer team as they made their way to the World Cup Final this summer. As they won match after match, they seemed to grow stronger, more confident and more likable, drawing millions of us into their corner. While soccer is still not a huge sport here in America, I grew up playing it seriously, from club to my high school team. I love the flow of the game, the patience needed to play and appreciate the game, and I understand the heartbreak that comes with split second mistakes, last second goals, victory turning to defeat in the blink of an eye. The semifinal game, against Brazil, one of the world’s best teams, was an incredible display of heart and fierce desire to never give up, as star Abby Wambach headed an incredible pass into the back of the net in overtime, in the 122nd minute to retie the game and send it to penalty kicks, which the USA team won on some incredible saves by their goalie and captain, Hope Solo. That victory led them to the finals, playing against a lower ranked and seemingly overmatched Japanese team. The USA appeared dominant to start, but the Japanese women, with the their ailing country and a good part of the world behind them as the underdogs and victims of the terrible earthquake and tsunami, found a way to tie it up, not once but twice, even as Abby Wambach had another magic header that seemed to seal it. In one of those split second mistakes, a defender passed the ball across the goal, a big no-no in soccer, and the Japanese scored. It went to penalty kicks and the USA team shot poorly, Hope Solo couldn’t save enough and in a shocking upset, the USA team, our team, lost the final, taking the silver medal.

Omer and Life

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:00:02 -0700

Sermon for Purim

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 20:00:44 -0700

Purim compels us to confront life’s utter unpredictability: Everything we know to be true might be turned on its head, everything that seems permanent might disappear in an instant. In the past several days we have witnessed two painful and powerful reminders of the truth of this claim. Our hearts break over the massive destruction and loss of life caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and at the same time we mourn the loss of the parents and children of the Fogel family who were brutally murdered in their home in Itamar.

Sabbath, Singularity and Shut-Down

Fri, 4 Mar 2011 20:00:40 -0800

I want to relate it to what is happening around the country this week, in some Jewish communities, called the National Day of Unplugging, a program under the Sabbath Manifesto initiative. This group is calling all of us to turn off our cell phones, leave our Facebook statuses as is, don’t Tweet, text, email, surf the web, or anything else we may do with the exponentially growing technological capability we all have. For, we are still human, we still need rest, we still need a break, for we are affecting our brains, as I spoke about last year, and Shabbat is the ultimate gift, even more so for our age of 24/7 activity.