Everyone wants our attention, and technology has made it both easier and more difficult to focus on what is truly important. Facebook keeps nudging me about the birthdays of people I haven’t spoken with in years, if ever, and there is no escape from the latest escapades of our politicians. Disasters cluster and clamor for…
How Much is Your Child Worth? Korah 5776
“Which do you prefer—your firstborn child, or the five coins required to redeem him?” This disconcerting question is part of the ritual known as pidyon haben, the redemption of the firstborn son. Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel (13th–14th centuries) reports this question as part of the liturgy from the geonic period in his Talmud commentary, and…
Jealousy and the Humble Leader. Beha’alotekha 5776
When is jealousy justified? When is humility heroic? Such questions come to mind upon rereading the remarkable story of Eldad and Meidad (Numbers 11:26-29) and the conference held between a worked-up Joshua and his implacable master Moses. Eldad and Meidad were apparently among the group of elders summoned by Moses to share his divine inspiration, but for an…
The Troubled Religious Zealot, from Samson to Orlando: Naso 5776/2016
He was big and burly, dressed in a black leather motorcycle jacket, and his gray ponytail ran all the way down his back. When I introduced myself I learned that he was the brother of a quiet member of my congregation known for knitting pastel colored blankets for the babies. The two siblings were different…
Kind Criticism and the Holy Community. Shabbat Kedoshim 5766
The first 19 verses of Parashat Kedoshim are an astonishingly broad code of religious life. The passage opens with a mandate for Israel to become holy like God, and it ends with preserving the integrity of plants and animals. In between is a remarkable series of commands designed to inculcate social solidarity and equality—we are…
Tying Up the Ram, Trying to Be Free: Shabbat HaGadol 5776
The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes taught a course that I took one year in college, and I still savor his exploration of magical realism with our class. One of his grand themes was the elliptical nature of time. Some cultures, he claimed, view time in cyclical terms, with each development merely a return to a…
Babies as Spiritual Giants: Tazria/HaHodesh/RH 5776
Newborn babies are miraculous to see, and even more remarkable to hold. To let their tiny fingers curl around your pinkie and breathe in their new-to-the-world fragrance is divine, but sometimes this pleasure isn’t possible. A few days ago I met a newborn so small that even his parents can’t hold him—at just 2 lbs, this…
Don’t be Cowed–Shabbat Shmini/Parah 5776
Shabbat Parah, Cow Shabbat, is one of our more perplexing customs. We chant the passage describing the red heifer ritual in Numbers 19, and then read Ezekiel’s prophecy of a re-purification of Israel, which has been sullied in exile, and which will now receive a new heart and new spirit, returning them to their land…
7 Days of Joy and Sorrow: Tzav 5776
Joy and sorrow, birth and death, creation and destruction—these opposites are bound together; one is not possible without its antithesis. All too often does joy come attended by sorrow—Purim is the great example of a “redemption” that is tempered by ongoing exile, of a victory which leaves the victor debased in his resemblance of his drunken…
Amalek Inside–Zakhor 5776
It is considered a mitzvah this Shabbat for every Jew to “remember what Amalek did to you,” to blot out the memory of Amalek, and not to forget. This mitzvah is easily fulfilled by listening to the maftir reading in synagogue on the Shabbat before Purim, but it is not at all easy to understand the…
On Being A Jewish Installation–Pekudei 5776
One of the hardest adjustments for me as a young rabbi in a large suburban synagogue in Michigan was learning how to sit on the raised bimah of our enormous sanctuary, which sat 1,500 on the holidays, and frequently held 500-800 people on Shabbat. I learned the costume—dark suit, black shoes, white shirt and tie—and even a black…
Hold Your Hands Up! VaYakheil-Shekalim 5776
Sometimes it is not ornament but infrastructure which is the most interesting and enduring feature of a building. The tabernacle was a beautiful building with bronze, silver, gold as well as luxurious and colorful fabrics. Underneath all that was the acacia wood, atzei shittim, with upright planks that were held together by staves—also made of acacia and…
Rabbi Danny Nevins 