My Mom, My Daughter, My Granddaughter, and Me (Vayigash 5776)

The distinct and sometimes parallel paths of my mother’s life and my daughter’s life intersected powerfully this week at a hospital in Santa Monica. 

My mother has lived in Santa Monica for more than 50 years; my daughter and her husband moved there just five months ago. 

At the hospital my mother received challenging and sad news about the return of her cancer. At the same hospital, by sharp contrast, my daughter joyfully delivered her healthy (beautiful!) baby girl. [Mother, father, and daughter are all doing great]

The powerful intersection of two life paths is almost too poignant for words. Yet words are mixing in my mind that have to be shared. One set of words comes from my mother. The other comes from this week’s Torah portion.

Bringing Light to Darkness: #OneCandleForChesed (Chanukah 5776)

During this season when days are short and nights are long - when the darkness of violence and destruction threatens to envelop the light of hope and peace, Chanukah comes as a reminder of our power to bring light into the world.  

The darkness of the last few weeks - killings in Paris, killings on American streets, killings in Israel, killings in San Bernardino - bring darkness threatens to swallow up the light. So much sadness. Too many unanswered questions. It's time to affirm that every life is precious. In that way, we can begin answering questions for which there are no easy answers. 

After A Long Night of Darkness . . . (Vayishlach 5776)

The darkness of the last few weeks - killings in Paris, killings on American streets, killings in Israel - bring darkness that threatens to swallow up the light. So much sadness. Too many unanswered questions. 

One way to work through our questions is to start close to home. Children, for example, develop empathy and caring regard for those who are a world away by practicing empathy and care right at home. Practicing care for a sibling who drives us crazy or a close friend in need helps us build our muscles of care for those we don't know. 

The recent killing of Ezra Schwartz - being a 2015 graduate of a Jewish high school in Brookline killed during his gap year in Israel - is both close to home

Impact v. Intent (Toledot 5776)

Similar to doormat outside JCHS lab-class 

While sharing a dvar Torah during a recent school community gathering I said something hurtful that I deeply regret. It was not what I said so much as how I said it. Yet the negative impact was the same. 


I meant to say something inclusive about the diversity of Jewish culture around holiday celebrations. When I referred to one particular Persian custom, however, my body language and tone suggested distaste or disrespect. My impact was the opposite of my intent. 

A Journey of Courage, Collaboration, Faith, and Failure (Vayeira 5776)

Courage & Collaboration

To shave a few minutes off a late night road trip recently, I permitted Waze to direct me off the highway, behind an industrial park on onto an unlit, roughly paved, and very hidden road. It was terrifying.

Rather than relying on my ‘faulty’ intuition, I have come to rely on a seemingly ‘perfect’ device. With that ‘perfect’ device, I can relax any learning from my failed guesses or mistaken hunches. When I suspend the learning that comes from corrections, I also dull my instincts for avoiding danger. In other words, Waze not only dilutes my sense of direction, but also it numbs my sense of judgement.

But when we remain alert to them, we can learn a great deal from our journey failures - even as we cannot possibly avoid all of them.

Kathryn Schulz (the ‘wrongologist’ whose seminal book, Being Wrong, I assigned as summer reading for educators at Jewish Community High School a few years ago) suggests that journeys are often the only time adults permit themselves to explore the unknown and “get lost, literally and otherwise.” Through our journeys, we “embrace the possibility of being wrong not out of necessity but because it changes our lives for the better.” (pp.291-92)

On the Path Toward . . . (Lech Lecha 5776)

Standing at chuppah with son

Walking my son down the aisle at his wedding capped one thrilling journey for me just as powerfully as it started a momentous one for him.

The relative shortness of the wedding aisle belies the long journey toward it. It begins at birth, if not sooner. It's customary to welcome an infant into the Jewish community with hopeful expressions including that she or he grow to find a life partner under the chuppah (wedding canopy).

But parent wishes for their children's path come to little unless the journey also is embraced by their children. While the destination may be similar for one generation as for the next, each generation takes its own unique journey.

That lesson is exemplified by two seemingly parallel statements separated by just a few verses in Torah. One comes at the end of last week's Torah portion about Terach and the other from the beginning of this week's Torah portion about his son, Abraham (still called Avram).

Your Brother's Blood is Crying Out . . .

"Your brother's blood is crying out to Me." Gen. 4:10

Our hearts ache over the turmoil in Israel. The world seems very dark when a 13-year old from East Jerusalem attacks and stabs another 13-year old simply because the other was an Israeli Jew. Or when a Palestinian man attacks and stabs a 70-year old woman on the street in front of Jerusalem’s central bus station because she is an Israeli Jew. Or when one Israeli Jew attacks and stabs another Israeli Jew because the first man mistook the second for an Arab. Or, when some Israeli Jews gather and chant “death to Arabs.”

The world is dark when innocents -- elders and children alike -- are targeted for no reason other than that they carry the name Jew or Israeli or Arab.

Standing Together on a Path of Purpose (Nitzavim 5775 and Rosh Hashanah 5776)

Standing Together: Asia and Aubrey

The journey of a school year is not a sprint, although it can feel like one when our plates are overflowing with opportunities or challenges.  But neither is it a marathon completely beyond the reach of most of us. 

Each new school year is more like a 10k race. That is, short enough to be finished. Long enough to require perseverance and partners. 

The start of each new Jewish year also is brief enough to be completed and long enough to require perseverance and partners. This idea is reflected in the final Torah portion, Nitzavim, of the year that is just coming to a close.  

But before more on Torah, I have in mind a particular 10k from March 2015 in Louisville. It involved two ordinary folks who did extraordinary things: Asia Ford, a black mom, and Aubrey Gregory, a white cop. Asia entered the race and Aubrey worked the race.

Heads or Tails (Ki Tavo 5775)

Have you every flipped a coin to help make a decision? For some it is way of handing decision authority over to 'fate' or letting a coin toss seem like an expression of divine will. "Heads or tails" also are invoked at some Rosh Hashanah (Jewish new year) tables. Around some Rosh Hashanah (lit. 'head of the year') tables one might hear a wish for the new year to be made "a head and not a tail." 

That odd formulation has ancient roots in in this week’s Torah portion. When Moses is describing the benefits of positive engagement with the ways of the Jewish people, those benefits include becoming "a head and not a tail . . . and never the bottom."  (Deut. 28:13) Although this is voiced in the singular, some commentators hear it as a group aspiration: the Jewish people wish to be autonomous and set their own destiny. Or wish to inspire or lead other communities toward acts of justice and mercy.

One commentator, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev (18th century Russia/Ukraine) reads it differently. He questioned why "tail" and "bottom" was included at all - if coming out a head was all that mattered, why did the text even need to say "not tail, not bottom."

Who Taught You to Ride a Bike? (Ki Teitzei 5775)

Who taught you how to ride a bike? My dad taught me. But it was two, dear graduate school classmates that taught my kids how to ride a bike. There is plenty that we learn from our parents. Yet, there are so many valuable lessons that we learn from other adults, mentors.  

When I ask students to raise their hands if someone other than one of their parents taught them how to ride a bike, or dribble a basketball, or drive a car, or bake challah, or get over being homesick, or play a musical instrument, or act with kindness -- nearly every student raises their hands. 

Consider all the lessons that each of us learned from someone other than our parents.  In our modern world no parent can do it alone and every person needs the coaching and encouragement of people other than our parents.  

Finding A Path Out of the Forest: Together Pursuing Justice and Peace (Shoftim 5775)

Yesterday was the first day of classes at JCHS. Every student took a slightly different path to arrive. Though we traveled along separate paths getting to school, we join together daily to form a single, unified community. 

The first day of school is the start of a year-long journey that will endure a lifetime. In that spirit it has become my custom to use themes developed in Tefillat Haderech ("traveler's prayer") to acknowledge each class of students. Tefillat Haderech expresses hope for a safe journey. The explicit destination of every journey, in that sense, is not the place but the path, a path that is whole, complete, harmonious, and full of peace.

Identity: Not So Black and White (Summer Reading 2015)

Each summer, as students engage their assigned summer reading, the entire JCHS professional community (educators and staff) also have assigned reading. This summer’s reading was Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race. Her language can be stark at times, but it is also instructive.

Tatum’s framework of domination and subordination brings to mind a Talmudic legend about a vision that comes to Rav Joseph during a near-death experience. In his vision, he sees the dominant and subordinate in society switch places.  He sees those who are dominant in his world inverted to become subordinate in his vision, and vice versa. In the midst of his inversion vision, one group stays in the same, respected place in both worlds -- righteous scholars. When R. Joseph wakes his

Pursuing Inclusion: Equal Does Not Mean Same (Korach 5775)

Each summer as students engage their assigned summer reading, my school's professional community (educators and staff) also have assigned reading. 

This summer it's Beverly Daniel Tatum’s “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria: And Other Conversations About Race.”  I selected this book to read as a professional community in order to advance our crucial Inclusion & Anti-Bias initiative.  It is essential that Jewish Community High School of the Bay fulfill its  pluralistic mission by actively pursuing inclusion and teaching that bias is corrosive to our community. Respect for difference and pursuit of inclusion also are at the heart of this week’s Torah portion and echo through rabbinic literature.  

In the Torah portion this week there is a serious leadership rebellion when Korach challenges Moses and Aaron.  Korach claims to be speaking on behalf of the inherent equality among the three of them.  But he fails to acknowledge the unique differences in their skills, abilities, relationships, and attitudes.  As expressed by Rabbi Bradley Artson Shavit, “Korach’s flaw was to confuse equal worth with equal skills. Korach was threatened by diversity.”

On Beyond Zebra: Making Meaning of Torah (Graduation 2015) (Shelach 5775)

My precious students:* Your graduation and this opportunity to offer a blessing and charge for the future that you will invent, arrives in perfect harmony with the Torah portion this week, Shelach. In it we read from the story of Moses blessing and offering a charge to twelve scouts about to enter Canaan, to begin a journey toward a future of their invention.  

We tend to think that in telling its stories Torah is limited to using only the now fixed in time 22 letters that comprise the Hebrew alphabet. This is reinforced by the very first words of Torah, “In the beginning God created et” (Genesis 1:1) What’s et? Et is a definite article in Hebrew spelled by joining the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet (aleph) to the last (tav).

Some read et as a kind of synecdoche for the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In other words, “In the beginning God created the 22 letters and with those letters God created the world.”     

Yet a Torah scroll does not limit itself to 22 fixed, uniform letters. For example, this week in one verse the letter yud is super-sized. (Numbers 14:16) That yud is but one of 16 letters that are sometimes written super large or super small. In every Torah scroll some other letters by design have decorative dots or crowns or are written upside down. The Sages of Talmud refer to nearly 100 variants for letters in the Torah.  

That there are differences is clear. But making meaning out of those differences is up to us. My graduates, just as you have made meaning out of the differences among your unique selves, making meaning out of the Torah is now up to you.

Which brings me to one of my favorite and least well-known Dr. Seuss books, “On Beyond Zebra!”  The book turns 60 this year.  It actually came out before “The Cat in the Hat” or “The Lorax” or “The Places You’ll Go.”

Like Father Like Son (Not Exactly) (Naso 5775)

Sometimes when we look in the mirror we see ourselves looking just like our parents or we catch ourselves acting just like one of them. But at other times not. 

How can both be true?  There is a clue in this week's Torah portion, Naso. The Torah describes in repetitive detail the nature of each tribe's offering for the dedication of the wilderness altar. 

The Torah is repetitive and seemingly redundant in that each tribe's offering included the same things - measure for measure - as the other tribes.  There seems to be a lesson in Torah abandoning its typically efficient language to repeat the list of offering materials twelve times instead of just once. 

One lesson may be that even one's actions that look identical to another person's actions, could be different if one person's motivation animating those actions are different from another person's.  In other words, conduct animated by one motivation is different than the same conduct if animated by another motivation. 

Another lesson may be that things that look the same are often different.  The Jewish tradition recognizes the power of individual motivations to transform actions.  For example, Proverbs 22:6 teaches, "Teach a student according to his

Measuring and Treasuring Time (Emor 5775)

We can do just about anything with time. Consider all the actions or verbs we associate with time: add, bend, count, delay, extend, find, get, have, invest . . . just about anything. 

Alicja Kwade's 'Void of the Moment in Motion'

This is a season for counting days -- counting up all the projects and learning we've accomplished approaching the end of a school year, counting down to the final days of high school for our seniors. It also is a season of counting in Jewish terms -- we traditionally count each day between Passover and Shavuot. We learn that custom from this week's Torah portion, Emor. The portion also reminds us about counting days in the week for Shabbat and counting other moments in time for festivals. 

It is a way of saying that every moment in time should be valued and treasured; no moment should be taken for granted.

To illustrate our relationship with time, I shared a corny story with my students this week.  A woman was on the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall in Jerusalem and wanted to check the time.  But her cell phone battery had died so she asked a stranger for the time.  The stranger replied, "I don't know the time; I don't have a watch or phone." "Then how do you keep track of time," she asked.   "Oh, during the day," he told her, "I ask people on the street for the time."  

Food for Thought: Generosity and the Stork (Shemini 5775)

We all know food is an essential element of Pesach. But why is it that as soon as Passover is done food is also prominent? Many crave a return to pizza or other foods traditionally off-limits during Pesach. At the smallest of Israeli pizza shops, i have heard the phone ring off the hook an hour or two after Pesach ends. (I have a special fondness for pizza with corn and green olives because of Pizza Sababa in Jerusalem).  

The power of food both during and after Pesach illustrates that food is about much more than physical nutrition it also is about emotional nourishment.  

That theme echoes in this week's Torah portion, Shemini, which contains detailed descriptions of the types of food that are fit or kosher and those that aren't. Only certain animals are eligible to be kosher. There are rules as to what makes an animal or a fish kosher. Fish, for example, must have both fins and scales. 

But when it comes to birds -- the Torah does not describe general rules. Rather Torah specifically describes each specific bird – by name – that is disqualified.

One explanation for treating birds differently is that the disqualifying characteristics for most animals and fish are visible to us. One can readily tell, for instance, if a fish has fins and scales (at least if one actively fishes).

But for birds it's different. 

Empowered to See and Seek Freedom (Pesach 5775)

Rev. Martin Luther King and Rabbi Joachim Prinz
(next to each other above)
meeting with President Kennedy

The festival of Pesach annually rehearses an ancient national journey from bondage to freedom. It also inspires us on the personal journey aspects of life that enslave us toward aspects that liberate us.

This came to mind last Shabbat when Rabbi Gershon Albert of Beth Jacob Congregation taught the community about the essential duality of Pesach symbols and rituals. More on that below.

Duality in life is persistent and especially manifest at this season during which we experience both darkness and light, decline and renewal, and suffering and hope.  Ironically, we often need the lack of something to truly appreciate its value. What would light mean to us without the experience of darkness? What would innocence mean to us without the experience of wisdom? What would liberation or freedom mean to us without bondage or slavery?

Taking Pleasure From Giving: When a Table Is More Than a Table (Terumah 5775)

We love having people over for dinner or lunch on Shabbat!  But our beautiful, antique dining room table was getting in the way -- too wide and too many table legs.   People sat so far apart they had to practically shout across the table or were always bumping a table leg jostling the table, spilling soup.  

So this week we decided to swap out the antique for a plain oak table in the studio because that one is narrower and has only only four legs.  

My dad used to manufacture furniture. The plain oak table was a gift from him almost 40 years ago when i first had an apartment big enough for a dining room table. Since then it has moved across the country with me -- it has been a kitchen table, a dining room table, a table for my kids' art projects, a desk, and a study group table when I returned to graduate school.  I've seen a lot of it over the years.  But only this week when we carried it into the dining room did I see a distinctive marking from my dad (who died this 17 years ago this month) on the bottom of the table.  Seeing that marking brought a flood of memories of my dad giving me that table -- that table holds precious memories.

There also is a table to hold precious items in this week's Torah portion that is part of the tabernacle in in the wilderness.  As work on the tabernacle begins, our ancestors are instructed, "take for Me an offering . . . from their hearts." (Exodus 25:1-2)  The Hebrew seems odd at first because it does not say, "give to me" instead it says "take for me."  

One understanding of this oddity is that in order to give from the heart, we need to take from among those things that are precious to us.  My dad's marking under the table reminded me that he specially took from his inventory something precious to give to me.  

Yet in a more powerful sense, when we give to others we tend to feel better about our world and about ourselves.  We take delight when we are able to give to others. I know how much pleasure my dad took in giving the table to me. And the greater pleasure even that he took watching me study and eat, create and play, and host others around that table.  

The Sages teach a similar lesson in Talmud, "One accomplishes restoration  (lit. atonement) through the table."  (Chagiga 27a)  According to Rabbi Yissocher Frand now that there is no more sacrificial altar, the "table" means the dining room table.  How we use that table to nourish the hungry, to bring light at moments of darkness, to show kindness to strangers and guests -- all of that is, in effect, an altar bringing restoration.  

May we have the strength to take from that which is precious to us and share it with others.  May we have the wisdom to accomplish restoration through our nourishing others with food and laughter around our tables.  May we take much pleasure from all that we give others.  

From Slavery to Empathy: Treating Strangers With Compassion Instead of Fear: (Mishpatim 5775)

What do Black History Month and the 1865 letter from a free person to his former slave master have to do with Torah?  Quite a bit this week!  As a 7th grade student once told me two of the most conflicting sentences in Torah come from this week's Torah portion -- and they are about slavery.  From these we draw a powerful lesson about receiving strangers with compassion.   

Israelite Slaves appox. 1400 BCE

On the one hand there is the lofty "Do not oppress a stranger. You know the soul of a stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 23:9)  On the other hand, there is the gritty, "A Jewish slave may work for [another Jew] for six years but must be set free in the seventh year."  (Exodus 21:2)  

"Seriously!?!" this seventh grader moaned, "did our ancestors forget so fast what it's like to be slaves they started taking their own as slaves right away!"  It was hard for her to hear Torah talking about the ways to hold slaves right after we being freed from slavery in Egypt. 

Finding One's Authentic Voice: Empowered Through Others (Bo 5775)

We know Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to be one of the most inspiring orators -- ever. Yet there is a legend about when he entered seminary that King was still developing his 'voice.'  For example, he took nine (!) homiletics courses in just three years at seminary.  According to one legend about his time there, King was encouraged to go out with classmates and listen to other preachers.  Learn from them.  Even before that, King had developed many powerful ideas.  But he needed to listen to and collaborate with others in order to develop his own authentic voice. 

Rabbi Heschel, Rev King, Rev Abernathy,
 Rabbi Eisendrath  Rabbi Gendler (1968)

I shared that message with the annual Women in Leadership conference of the Bay Area Teachers Development Collaborative hosted by Jewish Community High School earlier this week. The conference theme this year was "Honoring Your Authentic Voice."  

An oddity in this week's Torah portion suggests an insight.  It opens with God telling Moses, "Go to Pharaoh."  (Exodus 10:1) The Hebrew here is different from the first time Moses gets a similar instruction.  (Compare "bo" in Exodus 10:1 with "lech" in Exodus 3:27.) Yet usually both terms are translated the same:  "Go!"  The Hebrew term used this week literally could be translated as "Come!"  Like Martin Luther King centuries later, Moses was a community leader still trying to find his authentic voice.  Moses had developed powerful ideas but was reluctant to express them in words.  Just the opposite, Moses expressed reluctance to use his voice; afraid he was not up to the task.  

De-stress: Express Gratitude (Shemot 5775)

This weekend is the 45th anniversary of my becoming a Bar Mitzvah.  I am grateful for many memories from that day (like my parents’ pride or overcoming my anxiety).  But I am embarrassed about one memory:  I did not publicly thank my parents during the service.  I was so intently focused on explaining compelling aspects of the Torah portion -- Shemot, the first in the book of Exodus -- that I did not publicly express gratitude to my parents for all they had done to bring me to that amazing moment.  And they had done a lot!  

Starting a Gratitude Journal

Was I feeling too cool to say thanks? Or trying to keep the focus on Torah instead of on me? Looking back it was very uncool and fairly conspicuous not to say ‘thank you!’ Ironically, that same Torah portion expresses a powerful example of expressed gratitude (more on that below).  

And its not only Torah that teaches us the power of gratitude. 

Neuroscience confirms the power of expressing gratitude.  One of the world’s leading researchers in this field, Dr. Robert Emmons from UC Davis, is partnering ed with UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center to develop evidence-based practices that promote gratitude.  Emmons research proves that those who express gratitude are healthier physically and psychologically -- lower blood pressure, more refreshing and longer sleep, more alertness, greater joy.  The social impacts are powerful too -- more feelings of generosity and compassion, less of isolation and loneliness.  Link to learn more about the science of gratitude, Dr. Emmons, and GGSC.