The practice of hagba’ah, the lifting of the Torah scroll, is always dramatic, but especially when one can see unusual features of the scroll from a distance. This is the case with the poem Ha’azinu (Deut. 32: 1-42), which is presented as two narrow columns of parallel verse in phrases of three or four words….
Digging In Against Anti-Semitism: Rosh HaShanah 5780
Anyone here from Kansas? Two weeks ago I made my first trip to Kansas City to give a talk about tzedakah at a beautiful synagogue there. Afterwards I stood in the parking lot, schmoozing with the rabbi about the 2014 attack on their JCC. Three people were murdered that April day by a neo-Nazi Klan…
Standing Together: Nitzavim 5779
One of the greatest privileges and responsibilities of a rabbi is to train candidates for conversion to Judaism. Such people are often spiritual seekers, and their questions challenge teachers whose Jewish identity and practice are well established. Why do you do this? What do you believe? What does this text mean? Will this practice make…
Tithing for Today: Ki Tavo 5779
What do the Torah’s tithes have to do with us? Is there a straight line connecting verses that call for support of the Levite, stranger, widow and orphan to the forms of charity practiced today? Our portion includes an emphatic command not only to mitigate poverty, but also to help the vulnerable achieve satiety: When…
Perfect and Whole in a Broken World Shoftim 5779
What’s our position on mediums? Years ago in Detroit some in the Jewish community were drawn to a woman who claimed that she could channel conversations with their deceased relatives. Families who with my help had faithfully followed the Jewish traditions of hesped, levaya, shiva and kaddish were, some time later, meeting with her to…
A Nuanced View of Comfort: Hazon 5779
Shabbat Hazon is one of only three Shabbatot known primarily for its haftarah—the others being Nahamu next week and Shuvah during the ten days. Our haftarah from Isaiah 1 culminates the three weeks of admonition (תלתא דפורענותא) and sets the stage for tonight’s reading of Eikhah. To understand this transition and its contemporary significance we…
JTS Ordination Address ל”ג בעומר תשע”ט/ May 23, 2019
This ceremony of investiture and ordination, Tekes Hasmakhah, represents the transmission of knowledge and authority down through the generations of Jewish leaders to the wise minds, sensitive souls and capable hands of our new cantors and rabbis. It is a moment of great celebration radiating from this room across the world, and up to the…
Defective Priests and Animals; Dignity Demanded for All. Emor 5779
Last week in Parashat Kedoshim we read one of the most enlightened passages in the Torah. In verse 14 the Torah commands us not to curse the deaf, nor to trip the blind, but to fear the Lord your God. This verse is embedded within a glorious section about social solidarity, including concern for the…
Silence Above and Below: Aharei Mot 5779
Ze’ev Wilhelm Falk was a professor of law at Hebrew University who also served as rector and faculty at the Schechter institute in Jerusalem. Born in Breslau in 1923, he fled Germany alone at 16, arriving in Israel in 1939, and went on to study in the Hevron yeshivah and then at Hebrew University. He…
Why is this Shabbat different from all others? Shabbat HaGadol 5779
I recently noticed a curious feature of the Passover prophetic cycle. On Shabbat HaGadol, the final Shabbat before Pesah, we read the final verses of the final prophet—Malakhi 3:4-24. The next haftarah, on the first day of Passover is from the first book of the prophets, Joshua, albeit not the first chapter (which is read…
Become a Mitzvah Agent: HaHodesh 5779
Our third Torah reading this Shabbat (Ex. 12:1-20) is the fourth and final special maftir related to Purim and Pesah. As with the entire complex of Passover rituals there is an intentional blending of individual and group identity. When each individual Israelite and then Jew participates in these rituals, they gently detach themselves from their…
Stupid Anger: Shmini/Parah 5779
Anger is often an understandable reaction, and yet it can be one of the most destructive and debilitating of emotions. It is hard to imagine how Moses feels when his two nephews Nadav and Avihu are struck dead in the middle of the inaugural service for the tabernacle. Guilty? Terrified? Shocked? All of these, I…
Rabbi Danny Nevins 