Dover Emet: Speaking the Truth

In the Torah reading this week, the unthinkable happens. There’s a moment that no parent should ever have to see: to witness the death of one’s own children. Nadav and Avihu, the two sons of Aharon HaKohen, Aaron the High Priest, bring esh zarah, strange fire, before God. As a result of their actions, fire comes out of the sacred shrine, and the two young men are killed before their father, and before all 600,000 Israelites. It’s a stunning moment. And in the shock and horror, Moses speaks God’s words: birkrovai ekadesh, through those near to me, I, God make myself holy. And in response to Moses words, in response to the shocking death of his children, the Torah uses only two words to describe Aaron’s reaction: vayidom Aharon, and Aaron was silent. Most of could only imagine how we would respond at such a sight: searing horror, grief, agony, screaming out in indescribable anguish. But in the case of Aharon, all it says is vayidom Aharon, Aharon was silent, still. Perhaps...

During our seder last week, we came to the section where we take ten drops of wine from our cups, reducing our joy because of the suffering of the Egyptians from the plagues. A young woman at our seder table raised a very poignant idea, one that plagues us all during the course of life: she said, it’s fine that we should feel compassion for the Egyptians. But how can we believe in a God who can bring about that kind of suffering at all? I responded with a very traditional, albeit difficult response: that the Haggadah makes it very clear that God is responsible not just for the good things, but for the whole experience, the bad with the good. The same God who brought about our freedom and redemption, is also the same God who brought about the plagues on the Egyptians. Just as, in Judaism, we bless God for the good, so too in life, when death and loss happen, we say a blessing: Dayan Ha’Emet, that God is the True Judge. And this young woman, like so many of us, had real problems ...

In the Haggadah we read how, in each and every generation, we must see ourselves as though we personally went out from Egypt. This is a central message of Pesach, perhaps the fundamental experience of the whole seder. It’s not enough just to imagine what it was like for the Israelites as slaves leaving Egypt. On a gut level, we are to feel as though it happened to us: we literally taste the bitterness of slavery through the Maror, the bitter herb. We feel the wonder and terror of the plagues. We sing out in joy as we witness our Redemption. The Hebrew word "Haggadah" means "The Telling." It is through the stories that we tell that we build our understanding of the world, of who we are, of the nature of Truth. The very identities that each of us hold as "ourselves" are really a collection of personal stories that we believe about ourselves. Through the experience of Pesach, we add to our personal narrative, the story of the redemption of our people. We hold...

One of the most shocking images in the Torah happens after the Israelites fashion the golden calf: the Israelites are dancing joyously celebrating their new god of gold. Moses comes down the mountain, sees the dancing, ‘vayichar af Moshe,’ and Moses was enraged, ‘vayashleich miyado et haluchot’ and he hurled the tablets, ‘vayishaber otam tachat hahar’ and he smashed them at the foot of the mountain. It’s stunning on every level: it’s the shattering of the most sacred of objects, the Ten Commandments. It’s the sight of the worst kind of idolatry. It’s an image of humanity totally failing to live up to its potential. And frankly, a question we can ask is, ‘What was Moses thinking?!’ When you think about it, it’s real chutzpah to take the tablets of the ten commandments, written with the very ‘finger’ of God, and smash them. Where did he get permission to do that? Isn’t that act blasphemous in and of itself? And of course, our ancient sages have wondered the same thing. What did Moses hop...

President Obama, at his inauguration, articulated a critical message for our times when he called for a new era of personal responsibility in how we live our lives. In many ways, Obama’s presidency is deeply symbolic of a great spiritual shift in our society. We’re moving from expectations of easier times and self-fulfillment to expectations of challenge, and joining together to fix a broken world. It’s an era of learning from past mistakes, of affirming integrity and working together for a common good. There is a great hope right now that the Obama era will be an era of service, of participation in national programs that engage people in all walks of life to give of themselves. It’s very possible that we’re on the brink of a galvanized society and culture, with large segments of our society helping the underprivileged and transforming the face of local communities. We can potentially emerge from economic crisis with deeper connections with our neighbors in true bonds of communit...

Since the war has broken out in Gaza, many people have come to me expressing their deep concerns and anxieties about this war and about Israel’s future. I have heard many expressions of confusion, ambivalence, anger and frustration : ‘There’s nothing good that can come of this war.’ ‘This is just another outbreak in the cycle of violence.’ ‘Once again, the world isn’t giving Israel a break when Israel has no choice but to make war where innocent civilians have been deliberately put in harm’s way.’ ‘How is this going to make things better in the long run?’ ‘Too many innocent people are getting killed in the cross-fire, whether deliberately put in harm’s way by Hamas or not.’ In all of these expressions, I’m finding, once again, Jewish people in this country angry and feeling a sense of being isolated and hopeless in the world. Time and again, people ask me, ‘Rabbi, what should we do?’ And here’s my answer. To every expression of dismay and frustration, of sadn...

If there’s any one subject that is on all of our minds these days and weeks, it’s “change.” Change is in the air. We’re eager for ‘change’ as our new president takes office. We’re eager for ‘change’ as we think about economic challenges. We’re eager for ‘change’ as we begin a new era at Adas Israel as well. People tell me that they feel a positive energy in the life of the synagogue, and that ‘sense of change’ is electrifying. This is all wonderful, but what exactly do we mean by ‘change’ anyway? It seems to me that the all-encompassing desire for change at our synagogue, and in the whole country is the feeling that we just want things to be different. It’s the feeling that the old ways have been spent, they’ve had their moment, they no longer work, and we need new ways of doing things in order to fix all the problems that the old ways have created. We all agree that “Change is Good,” but for many of us, there is an undercurrent of deep anxiety behind the desire for change. Our desire ...