It was 8 PM in late August of 2000.  The subway car screeched into the 14th Street Station in Chelsea; Danny stood near the door with impatience.  He was running late for dinner with his partner, Pete. It had been a big year for them.  After nearly three years of dating, they had decided to move in together.  It seemed like he had finally found his happily ever after.  He didn’t want to let Pete down by making him wait. He rushed off the subway and headed towards the stairs.  Just as he began to dash up the stairs, though, dodging fellow travelers, he noticed something strange out of the corner of his eye.  It looked like there was a doll swaddled and wrapped up under a bench.  That was weird.  His legs pumped automatically as he walked up the stairs thinking—what child would deliberately stash their baby doll under a bench like that? He looked back.  The doll’s leg moved.  He raced down the stairs and towards the bench. He crouched by the bench and peered at the little baby.

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

A Different Choice with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger

This year, everyone is talking about Naomi Osaka. At 23, Naomi Osaka is one of the best tennis players in the world. Literally.  She is a four-time Grand Slam champion and the first Asian player to be ranked number one in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association. In May of this year, Naomi made the bold decision to skip a press conference for which she accepted a $15,000 fine, and then to skip the French Open and Wimbledon all to protect her mental health. At the time, Naomi explained that she has struggled with depression.  She shared that questions at press conferences sometimes cause her to spiral into depressive states and harm her game. In response, the sports conglomerate explained how she was wrong. They fined, threatened her if she continued to refuse, told her they knew better than she what was best for her and claimed they are committed to supporting the mental health of their athletes. In other words, because these officials and organizers don’t experience crippling mental health challenges, they assumed Naomi’s experience was just like theirs. They thought about what it would be like for them to attend a press conference, they thought objectively about what happens at press conferences, and they arrived at the conclusion that Naomi’s needs were excessive and in violation of her contract.  They did not consider that her reality might be different.  They just punished her.

My Heart’s Song with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger

What do we do about what happened to Rabbi Shlomo Noginski on Thursday afternoon? What do we do when a man, a husband, a father of ten, an idealist, a rabbi, a teacher, who leaves his home in Israel and comes to our home, Greater Boston, where we live, where we try to have a rich and safe Jewish community, he comes here to be a sheliach, an emissary, at the Shaloh House, a teacher of Torah especially to our beloved Russian Jewish community? What do we do when such a man is stabbed multiple times, after being held up at gunpoint? What do we do when this happened two miles from here?

American Paradox with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

A few weeks ago I was in Los Angeles on a family reconnection tour seeing relatives I had not seen during the pandemic.  I was speaking with my niece Megan and her husband Randy, and they shared an improbable story about a dog. Randy and Megan and their children had loved their dog, a miniature schnauzer, named Kelsie, that was a part of their family for 15 years.  That is a long life in dog years.  When Kelsie passed away, it was a big loss, and they mourned her. She died just as the pandemic was setting in.  Pets became intensely popular during the pandemic.  Cute little puppies were in great demand.   Megan and her family would have wanted another dog to love, but given the great demand for puppies during the pandemic, they thought it would be a very long time until they had their new puppy. Then one night something unexpected happens.  Megan is preparing dinner, getting ready to put chicken in the oven.  The phone rings.  It is her mother-in-law Helene who says to her:  If you want a really cute puppy, a Cavapoo, come to my house right now.  Off to her mother in law’s she goes.

Bashert with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

This week, I was speaking with one of our graduating seniors and he shared a story with me that I just can’t stop thinking about. He was at a graduation party. During the festivities, he hears some kid opining about how Jews are the worst and Israel has no right to exist. His blood immediately boils, and he rushes to confront the offender. He asks the kid, “how can you say that? That’s so Anti-Semitic.” The room falls silent. Everyone is watching and listening. No one says anything. This other kid continues unperturbed. Our graduate argues with him and yells until he is so angry and so hurt that he leaves the party. Another story. In May, during the worst of the violence in Israel, a young adult who is converting to Judaism reached out to me to talk about what was happening in Gaza. She told me her friends were all hateful quotes and videos on social media and she felt caught. She unfriended a few people she wasn’t close with who were posting terrible things, but some of her closest friends were also posting problematic videos and memes. It was making her sick. She told me that she tried talking to some of her friends about it, but she didn’t know enough yet to make a compelling case and the whole situation left her feeling anxious and stressed. She wanted to know, if she was going to be a good Jew and a good Zionist, what should she do? I have these conversations all the time.

The Lesson of Achnai’s Oven with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger

Some 45 years ago, in 1976, I saw an episode of a sitcom that I still remember today.  It was an episode in the seventh and final season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show entitled “Ted’s Change of Heart.”  Ted Baxter, the pompous news anchor played by Ted Knight, has a mild heart attack in the middle of delivering the evening news.  After a brief stay in the hospital, he is restored to full health, a rephuah shelaimah, as we would say. But while he emerges from his cardiac incident healthy and whole, he is not the same person.  The trauma changed him.  He is filled with an acute sense of wonder and gratitude for blessings that he had never noticed before.

Wonder Takes Work with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

Enjoy our wonderful Rabbi Michelle Robinson's sermon from June 5, 2021

Welcome Home with Rabbi Michelle Robinson

I want to tell you an odd story, not well known. I’ll call it the case of the missing mitzvah. The Hebrew Bible relates two cases when important mitzvot were lost to the Jewish people. Jews just stopped doing them, in one case for 40 years, in the other case for hundreds of years.

The Case of the Missing Mitzvah with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

We have all been thinking a lot about Israel the last two weeks.  I want to talk to you this morning about an Israel story, and a human story, that you won’t find in the papers.  It is about a kiss. It is a kiss that many of us will give, and many of us will receive, in our lives.  It is a kiss that we about this past Tuesday, on Shavuot, in the Book of Ruth.

Orpah's Kiss with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

Join our wonderful Rabbi Michelle Robinson on May 15, 2021.

New Normal with Rabbi Michelle Robinson

Madeline always loved to sing.  As a teenager, she had a gorgeous voice, a two-and-a-half octave range, and the kind of creative artistry that made people swoon.  She and her friends would sing along to Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Judy Garland, and she took the stage at every wedding and bar mitzvah she could.  In high school, won an adult talent contest at the Adams Theater in Newark. On her way out, comedian Joey Adams told her that she “had a very good voice and…should pursue it.” That dream was tempting....but Madeline’s family was struggling. 

Anything, Not Everything with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger

We’ve known this for a while, but suddenly the realization that you only live once has taken on a fierce urgency.  The acronym YOLO, you only live once, was popularized by the rapper Drake in 2013, but as we are emerging from the pandemic YOLO has a new energy as a call to action.  Last week New York Times writer Kevin Roose authored a piece entitled “Welcome to the YOLO economy” about how many millennial workers, as they emerge from the pandemic, want to make real changes to their lives because you only live once.

YOLO with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

I want to tell you a story about a magic spoon.  The story comes from a different time and place, the 1870s in a town in Romania called Stefanesti, where there was an illustrious Hasidic dynasty.  The most famous of these Hasidic masters was Rabbi Avrohom Mattisyou Friedman, who became the Second Shtefaneshter Rebbe in 1869 and continued for 64 years.  He was considered a hidden tzaddik who could effect miracles.  The most famous of these miracle stories concerns a Hasid who comes to see the Rebbe because his daughter had typhus.  She was desperately ill.  She had very little time left.  Rebbe, only a miracle can save her.  What happens next is told in a history of this Hasidic dynasty:

The Magic Spoon with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

I heard a story on NPR this week that kind of blew my mind. They were talking about how, since the start of the pandemic, requests for plastic surgery procedures have gone up something like 85%. Plastic surgeons shared that they are getting so many more requests that they have had to hire additional people just to field those phone calls. They are working overtime, late into the night, trying to accommodate everyone. And what is so interesting is they are getting requests for procedures that did not used to be so popular. People are looking to tighten their jawlines, adjust their nostrils, tighten their necks, and bodywork as well. And when people reach out, nine out of ten people share that they’re reaching out because of ZOOM. Because now that they’re on ZOOM all day long, they’re looking at their faces and they’re noticing the way they look when they talk, when they interact, when they work.  They’re noticing places they never knew they wanted to improve.

A Pandemic Makeover with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger

You do not have to be Jewish to love Shtisel, the fabulous Netflix series about a Haredi family in Jerusalem.  While this family is Haredi, their problems are human and universal.  Anyone can relate to them.  Season 3 was just released, and one vignette is so poignant it captures the complexity of saying Yizkor. Shtisel, the family patriarch, has been a widower for seven years.  One day he  experiences heart pain.  He calls the number of his kupat cholim, his medical network in Israel. Again, while it’s about Israel, and the dialogue is in Hebrew, the story connects with any human anywhere who has ever been caught up in electronic phone hell and cold bureaucracy.

Somebody Who Got Me - A Yizkor Sermon with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

Bringing weekly Jewish insights into your life. Join Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz, Rabbi Michelle Robinson and Rav-Hazzan Aliza Berger of Temple Emanuel in Newton, MA as they share modern ancient wisdom.

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From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

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