On Friday nights, the full 11 verses of Lecha Dodi include the words: קֽוּמִי צְאִי מִתּוֹךְ הַהֲפֵכָה. Arise and get out from the turmoil…. In keeping with the themes of Shabbat, it is meant as a call to awakening, setting a hopeful tone for the day. It gives us the vision – and the possibility – of rising out of the turmoil, of shaking off our sackcloth and ashes, of rejoicing as we do with bride and groom. It is a text for “the day after.” Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed taught  Words from the Midst of Turmoil: Responding to the Devastation. And one of her framing questions, having cited these words that we sing each week, was: “What do we need to speak about hope truthfully?” She answered by saying what any of us who have suffered loss knows. She said: “You first have to speak in and from the turmoil; before the [...]

Earlier this month, I had the honor of spending ten days learning at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. As we move through the three weeks leading up to Tisha B’Av, this week will feature reflections on some of what I studied there through the lens of Tisha B’Av and October 7. Perhaps the most powerful of the classes I took and the lectures I heard over my ten days in Jerusalem was my elective course (3 days), Poetry in the Wake of October 7  with the incredible teacher, Dr. Rachel Korazim. As I have shared, I am in love with the Hebrew language and I am deeply in love with Hebrew poetry, in both written and song form. And in my many years of studying Hebrew poetry, I have never encountered anything like the pieces which Dr. Korazim shared with us; they are stunning in every sense of the [...]

Earlier this month, I had the honor of spending ten days learning at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. As we move through the three weeks leading up to Tisha B’Av, this week will feature reflections on some of what I studied there through the lens of Tisha B’Av and October 7. Imagine that it is 1943 and you are living in Brighton, Massachusetts. It is Yom Kippur at your Orthodox synagogue, and your rabbi is a Munich-born Jew, known for his fiery rhetoric. What do you imagine he might say at that moment? Or, in Detroit in October 1918 – as World War I is still raging and you are sitting in your Reform synagogue and your rabbi gets up to speak. What might he say? And, of course, the unspoken question in a room full of rabbis – on October 8, 2023 or High Holy Days 2024… what [...]

Earlier this month, I had the honor of spending ten days learning at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. As we move through the three weeks leading up to Tisha B’Av, this week will feature reflections on some of what I studied there through the lens of Tisha B’Av and October 7. On the Jewish calendar, today is the 23rd of Tammuz – placing us 6 days into the count from the 17th of Tammuz to the 9th of Av, two significant days in Jewish historical tradition. Be it because of summer vacation schedules or an ideological rejection of rebuilding the Temple, these days have often been lost to the liberal Jewish world – and yet this year they loom – powerful and intense. According to tradition, the 17th of Tammuz marks the day that the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem; Tisha B’Av, of course, marks the destruction [...]