The Gates of Tears: Nitzavim VaYelekh 5780
A student touched me deeply today when I opened our Zoom meeting and found them weeping. “Why are you crying?” I asked. They said, “How can I stand before my community and lead them in prayer when such terrible things are happening? How can I pray for blessing when things are so wrong?” How indeed?…
Exile from the Land, and from the Earth: Nitzavim/Vayelekh 5774
Yearning to enter and inhabit the land is the great desire that suffuses Deuteronomy; fear of exile is the dark counterpart that lurks insistently by its side. Midrash Sifre (Ekev, piska 43) says that, “exile is equal to all other afflictions.” Indeed, the experience of exile has been the all-too-real nightmare of Israel, though paradoxically,…
Abstract Love? Nitzavim/Va-Yelekh 5773
Is it possible to love an abstraction? To love the idea of someone or something? I don’t think so. An abstract idea may be compelling or attractive, but a powerful emotion such as love requires both immediacy and reciprocity. Each of those conditions can be qualified; you can love someone who is not currently close…
Rabbi Danny Nevins 