Dover Emet: Speaking the Truth

We Jews have a lot to be proud of. We have a long and ancient history. We have been beacons of justice and ethical teachings for countless generations. We have survived more attempts at annihilation than we care to number. And despite everything—exile, civilizations rising and falling, ever-shifting politics and locales—we have survived and have been successful beyond anyone’s imagination. There’s a very special feeling that we have about our identity as Jews. Yes, it’s pride. But it’s also gratitude and wonder, and a deep feeling of a collective heritage and destiny in this world that we share. And there’s also a phrase that often gets quoted and bandied about: we’re the “Chosen People.” Many of us associate our special feeling of Jewishness with that “chosenness.” How could we not—there is so much that feels special about being Jewish. But for obvious reasons, the “Chosen People” expression also engenders a lot of resentment from other peoples, both non-Jewish and Jewi...

This is a very special weekend here at Adas Israel. This is the weekend where we will have our Garden of the Righteous ceremony, which honors the memory of Righteous Gentiles who saved Jews during the Holocaust. This year, we honor the memory of Jose Arturo Casstellanos, an El Salvadoran diplomat, who used his influence to issue visas to Jews imperiled by the Third Reich. Castellanos, incredibly, is credited with saving 40,000 Jews from almost certain death from the Nazis. We are, of course, so honored that his daughter, Frieda and granddaughter, are with us. And we are so awed by his amazing story. Once again, we can marvel at this quality we call ‘righteousness,’ this unbelievable courage to risk everything, even one’s own life, for the sake of strangers. The purpose of our event is not just to tell the story of a hero, but to inspire us all, to impart the message that this kind of righteousness is, in fact, something that we are all—as Jews, as human beings—called to in this ...

It never ceases to amaze me how deeply passions run about Israel. And I don’t mean just among members of this congregation. I don’t even mean among Jews alone. It’s amazing how the whole world seems always so impassioned, so hyper vigilant, so ready to scream and yell and battle over the fate of Israel, the Jewish State. Why is that? Why is the media so focused on it? Why do so many people, everywhere it seems, have such definite, absolute opinions about who is right and who is wrong in Israel? Why is the whole world so quick to polarize over this place? At times, it really seems as if there’s something supernatural going on, something particularly energizing about the Land of Israel in the collective human unconscious. And maybe this really is so. If you read the Torah, there’s no doubt about the particular spiritual power of the Land of Israel. It really is a unique focal point of the world. According to our ancient tradition, things happen in that particular place that don...

My grandmother had a good death. One that any of us would hope for. She was 99 years old. She had seen her children, her grandchildren, and great grandchildren grow and flourish. She never lost her mental abilities, or her wicked sense of humor. She lived her life devoted to her family and her people. One of the greatest lessons of her amazing century of life came at the very end itself. My Grandma lived her life with great simplicity. She neither had riches nor required them. She never craved extravagance. Whenever a milestone, an accomplishment or a special event came up through the years, she and my grandfather always marked the occasion in one special way. They would sit down together and have a little vanilla ice cream in a glass of ginger ale . By the time Grandma died, she hadn’t had this treat in many years, maybe not since Grandpa died 20 years ago. But that final day of her life, she told the woman caring for her that she was having a craving: coul...

Last week, President Obama delivered a message when President Hosni Mubarak finally stepped down from his place of power. Obama said “while the sights and sounds that we heard were entirely Egyptian, we can’t help but hear the echoes of history -- echoes from Germans tearing down a wall, Indonesian students taking to the streets, Gandhi leading his people down the path of justice. As Martin Luther King said in celebrating the birth of a new nation in Ghana while trying to perfect his own, “There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom.” Those were the cries that came from Tahrir Square, and the entire world has taken note.” These are beautiful and inspiring words of our president in the face of extraordinary change in the middle east. As Jews, we have watched the images on television, read the reports in the newspapers, and we heard Obama’s remarks. And we can’t help but have a terribly ambivalent reaction. This isn’t just any popular uprising for the sake of democrac...

I am endlessly amazed by our great city. It is one of the most exciting places in the world to live. People in our congregation, people you run into any day on the streets around here, are committing to changing the world, and making it a better place. Perhaps that’s why it’s all the more shocking to realize that Washington DC is a city racked with terrible poverty and injustice. You wouldn’t know it walking around this lovely Northwest section of the District. But you only have to go a couple of miles from here, to other neighborhoods, and the city looks radically different: dangerous neighborhoods, crime, drugs, desperation. When you study the statistics, the numbers are staggering: one out of eight households in the District of Columbia struggles with hunger-related issues. The number of families on the foodstamp program in the District is at an all-time high, with 120,000 residents—one fifth of the population of this city—using foodstamps. In recent months, perh...

Perhaps you have heard some Jews laugh and brush off Hanukkah : “If only people knew how relatively minor and insignificant Hanukkah is,” they say, “they would never make such a big deal of it.” Have you ever heard this before: “It’s not that Hanukkah isn’t important—of course, it’s an important holiday about a miraculous victory of the Maccabbees,” they say. “It’s just that, compared to major holidays like Rosh Hashanah , Yom Kippur , and Pesach , Hanukkah can’t—if you’ll excuse the expression—hold a candle!” I grew up hearing this message about Hanukkah , that it’s a nice, pretty holiday, but it’s not that important. And implied in this is the rather guilt-provoking message: You know, Jews of America, if you were more serious about your commitment to observance, you’d know that Hanukkah is getting more press than it deserves. And more than this, the secret that we Jews have to acknowledge is that the only reason Hanukkah gets all the attention it does is because of Christmas. All...