Judaism for the Thinking Person

4 Minute Teaching: How to Be Mindful of the Stories You Tell in Relationships Over Time

As I've been reflecting on the relationship of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Garden of Eden story, and as I've been working with staff on the role of one's personal stories in engaging people in a holy way, I offer this teaching on when one's stories keep a relationship fresh and when they are a hindrance.  Avoid pointing to the skin that is sloughing off even as you are so invested in it being your identity.

"What Kind of Relationship Do I Want to Be Having?" - Constructing Our Relationships Without Superiority and Inferiority

The signature prayers of Yom Kippur are confessionals whereby everyone says together lines including "We have been guilty of slander" and "We have sinned wittingly and unwittingly."  The language is often felt to be archaic.  What does it mean for someone to say "We've slandered!"  I use examples from my own life, starting with a congregational rabbi's relationship with my community, to make it real, and then I expand to other relationships in my life, and to The Choice we all have to make:  Can I live a life of relationships in which there is no "higher" and "lower" in the relationship?  Can I live in which we're all just travellers on the earth trying to relate to each other in a real way, with no "higher" and "lower" judgments?  Our greatest power in "teshuvah," changing our lives for the better, is to purposefully ask of our relationships, "Is this the kind of relationship I want to be having?"  And if the answer is no, then I try to give a guide for changing it.  My sources are the books: Tribal Leadership, The Choice, and the essays of Natalia Ginzburg ("The Little Virtues").

The Middle Way: Conservative Judaism Without Apology

Conservative Judaism is pretty much always on the defensive these days.  We live in a world where all the legitimacy is ascribed to the Left or to the Right, and the voice of the Middle Way is discounted, even by those who are living it!  In the sermon, I try to show that the deepest religious path of spirituality, wisdom, and practice is The Middle Way.  In a world where conviction is shown in the extremes, we ought to embrace the holiness of truly believing and practicing The Religion of Hillel, not of Shammai.

Judaism and Buddhism: Enlightenment, Nirvana, and Shabbat

This is a summary lecture from a lecture series I did in Ann Arbor on Judaism and Buddhism: Examining Jewish Mysticism and Philosophy through the 4 Noble Truths.   What if we understand "revelation" as "enlightenment" rather than miraculous supernatural dictation (which is, after all, a thoroughly incoherent concept)?  What if the entire "teaching" (Torah) of Shabbat has to do with bringing enlightenment to the masses?

Did the Exodus Happen? Archaeology, Biblical Criticism, and The Torah As the Coming Together of Two Hebrew Peoples

A lecture in which I present the thesis of Richard Elliott Friedman's book on Exodus, which focuses on the two most ancient parts of the Torah (the Song of the Sea and the Song of Deborah), the historical trends in Biblical archaeology and criticism, and why the Torah could well be a story of two long lost parts of the Hebrew family tree coming together in Israel, possibly under a female leader.  The theme reflects the issues of our time:  overcoming tribalism to have a national vision based on values, and (surprisingly?) those values/Torah coming from those refugee cousins newly in the Land.

I've made an optional source-sheet of Biblical texts to go with this lecture.  See:

https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/178990?lang=bi

Why Are The Prayers Constantly Speaking of "When we lie down and when we rise up?" - A Practical Guide

If you were a literary critic analyzing the evening prayers, you would have to note how often the trope of going to bed and waking up is repeated:  Ahavat Olam before Shema, VeAhavta and VeHaya Im-Shmo'a after Shema, Hashkiveinu, and then Barukh Adonai  Bayom 'VaLayla on Weekdays or the Shabbat Psalm on Friday night.  Wow:  for a twelve minute service, you've prayed about going to sleep and waking up five times!) What is this all about?  And why is the most commonly studied volume of Talmud, Berakhot ("Blessings"), concerned greatly about the timing of nighttime and morning prayers as well?  In this podcast, I connect all of these with reflections about the psycho-physiological aspects of falling asleep and waking up, including theories about the function of prayer and a recent study on when one should be waking up.  I conclude with a very practical exercise for improving one's spiritual and physical health.

The Ten Commandments as Your Path to Encounter God Directly

We all know that the Ten Commandments are important, and many of us know that there's some way they're different from other "commandments," but we rarely get to the heart of the matter.  In this spontaneous presentation (and hence inferior audio quality), I try to convey exactly what this difference is, and why the Ten Commandments are truly a unique spiritual path of immediate connection to God's presence.  In addition to using real-world examples from my own life, I also explain the importance of Rabbi Abraham Joshua's theology without the typical poeticizing or trivialization of it.  We experience God at our own Sinai, no different from our ancestors, and yet we often walk away from our connection to God.  Why?  I try to explain in this very personal podcast.  

Q&A: Why is the Translation of "In the Beginning" Wrong? The First Word of the Bible

A question to the Rabbi: What is the literal translation of the first three words of the Hebrew Bible?  Why so some translations say, "in the beginning, God created..." and some say "In the beginning of God's creating..." and what's the difference?  A short piece of Torah study...

Why Doesn't God Build Up Moses' Self-Esteem? A Discussion about God and about Parenting

As some of my recent podcasts have been lectures, I decided to mix it up by sharing a Torah discussion in which I raise a simple question asked by Mechon Hadar's Dena Weiss:  At the Burning Bush, when Moses is too humble or scared to accept his mission, and Moses asks God, "Who am I to go to Pharoah?" why doesn't God say, "You're the one who killed an Egyptian to save a Hebrew from being beaten!  You're the one who, with no backup or support, took on a large group of male shepherds to stop them harrassing the girl shepherds!  You're the one who has made a life in a foreign land all on your own!  You're the one born with supreme gifts!?"  I ask our group, "If you had a child, wouldn't you point out how successful they've been in the past, that they have natural gifts and talents, and boost their self-esteem?  Why does God handle it so differently?"  As usual, I've edited out all participant answers (since they were not near the automatic microphone) but I've given summaries of each wonderful answer.  (Note that several children participated actively!  Wish you could have been there!)

What is Judaism, What is its Influence on Current World Affairs, and Why is Fundamentalism a Very Modern Movement?

This is my lecture to the World Affairs Club where they assigned me to present on the Influence of the Abrahamic Religion of Judaism on World Affairs as the first of a three part series on the influence of the Abrahamic religions.  While the topic is problematic (how does "religion" cause "history?"), I address the essentials of Judaism, focus especially on the rise of fundamentalism in the last twenty years as a result of the internet, and consider how fundamentalism itself is a "modern movement with an anti-modern rhetoric."  I also look at how seeing religion as the cause of, say, terrorism, fails to see the geopolitical context that leads to this phenomenon.  I apologize for my voice fading when I faced the Powerpoint slides on the screen [and I am happy to share the Powerpoint with you --just email me].  I did not include the 1 hour Q&A session afterward in which I addressed the U.S. endorsement of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, my polemic against the Anti-Semitic and destructive BDS movement, the Arab-Israeli peace process, and whether the world would be better off without theism entirely.  If you want the slides, just contact me and I'll send you the PDF.