From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

Rabbi Elan Babchuck serves as the Executive Vice President at Clal (National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership) and the Founding Executive Director of Glean Network, which partners with Columbia Business School.  He has published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Washington Post, and Religion News Service, writes a column for The Wisdom Daily, contributed to Meaning Making – 8 Values That Drive America’s Newest Generations (2020, St. Mary’s Press) and is the co-author of Picking Up the Pieces: Leadership After Empire (2023, Fortress Press). His newest book about Shabbat, Sacred Time, is coming out in 2027.He also serves as a Founding Partner of Starts With Us, a movement to counteract toxic polarization in America, and is a founding Research Advisory Board Member of Springtide Research Institute.

What do we do with what we remember? How does what we remember cause us to act? This question comes from two places. It is Shabbat Zachor, the special Shabbat before Purim when we remember Amalek that hated us, that tried to kill us, and that inspired commands to never forget that hate, and to respond in kind. And it is the week of the US Men’s Hockey Team’s first Olympic gold in 46 years. Poignantly, the team’s victory picture included the #13 jersey of their teammate, and hockey super star, Johnny Gaudreau, who was killed along with his brother Matthew in August, 2024 while they were riding bikes by a drunk driver at the wedding weekend of their sister. The team also featured Goudreau’s young children in the photo. All of us move through life carrying all sorts of memories. Painful memories that evoke hurt, loss, indignation, grievance. Joyful memories that evoke triumph, accomplishment, blessing. We carry the memories of people whom we have loved and lost who were always there for us. And the memories of people who disappointed and wounded us. What do we do with all those memories? There is a special mitzvah in Jewish tradition to remember: zachor. There is a special Shabbat, tomorrow, to focus on remembering.  Remembering is the easy part. Where the rubber hits the road: what do we do with what we remember?

The Torah offers more than one account of what was revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai. This week’s reading, Terumah, suggests that the Ten Commandments were not the focus of revelation. What are the implications for us of the different portrayals of Moses’ experience?About Rabbi Peretz RodmanRabbi Rodman is a Jerusalem-based writer, translator, and editor. A native Bostonian, he has studied and taught at Brandeis University, Hebrew College, and the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University.

There is a depressing news story that won’t go away. There are fresh chapters every week. The story goes something like this: People who were preeminent in their field—law, business, finance, real estate, professional sports, entertainment, higher education, medicine, health and wellness, spiritual counseling, politics, government—were emailing with a registered sex offender.What is that? So many people. So many different fields. So preeminent. So polished. So terribly off.If our Torah is to speak to our world, in a way that helps us understand our world and live a better life, we need to get to the bottom of this conundrum.Our weekly Torah portion speaks to this dilemma with a simple question: Are we the same person on the inside as we project to the outside world?What are some practical strategies for being the same person on the inside and out?

Even before she stepped into her ski boots to compete in Cortina, Lindsey Vonn’s story was profound. To be a top contender at the age of 41, after six years of retirement, after a partial knee replacement and countless serious injuries, is remarkable in and of itself. But Vonn wasn’t just competing 24 years after her first Olympic games, and she wasn’t just competing on a body which had recovered from countless serious injuries. Just days before the Olympics, Vonn ruptured her ACL racing in Switzerland. Where most athletes would have taken a year to recover, Vonn was planning to ski nearly 100 mph down a notoriously difficult cliff face in the hopes of winning another Olympic gold.The New York Times story about her leading up to the race was titled, “Linsey Vonn is Skiing on One Good Knee, but It’s a Helluva Knee.” There was so much excitement for her race. As her teammate, Mikaeila Shiffrin put it, “her tenacity and grit, and what she’s showing up with this Olympics and staying true to her own values, that’s just straight up beautiful.”When Lindsey crashed, all that positive energy shifted. There were nasty comments all over the internet and social media. People said she had no business skiing on a ruptured ACL. That of course she wiped out. How irresponsible. The blow back was so intense that her teammates and coach, even the president of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, all began making public statements to defend her.It was a fascinating turn-around. Before Vonn crashed into the gate, there was no critique of her choice, simply admiration. Everyone was talking about how amazing it would be if she could win. But when she caught the gate and crashed, suddenly there was so much blame, so much anger and resentment directed towards her. As if she were wrong to dream. As if the only thing that mattered was winning. As if losing with an injury was somehow embarrassing.We have to talk about that turn-around, about that shift. Because that move, to applaud effort as long as it’s successful, to criticize risk-taking when it doesn’t turn out, that instinct is so tempting and so dangerous. How often do we hold back because we are too afraid of failing? How often do we foreclose the possibility of joy because we are too afraid to take a risk?

Transformation. We were one thing. Now we are different, and better. How does transformation happen?Do our sources believe in the effectiveness of a transformational experience, that we are wowed and inspired and changed by some profound moment? Or are our sources skeptical that a single experience, however powerful, can sustain long-term personal growth? The Book of Exodus has a definite point of view.  If ever there were a transformational moment, it would have been Sinai. God literally comes down to earth and gives the Jewish people God’s laws. The Torah spends a lot of ink on the pyrotechnics, the thunder, the lightning, the fire, the smoke. Sinai was the epitome of intensity. Our senses were never more alive. We could see thunder and hear lightning. Sinai was intense, but was it effective? After Sinai, the Israelites build and worship the Golden Calf, violating the Commandments that they had just agreed to uphold. A lot of razzle dazzle, but it did not work, and it did not last. What does work? The unsexy answer? Boring works. The second half of the Book of Exodus, five portions that are a slow read, detail the building of the Mishkan, the wilderness Tabernacle. The opposite of exciting. But that’s the point. Redemption is found in granular small acts, that are repeated day after day. The sewers sew. The wood carvers carve wood. The jewelers fashion stones. The builders put it all together. Each person gives their gift. No razzle dazzle. No seeing thunder and hearing lightning. No senses on fire. Just doing ordinary deeds every day. What are your daily rounds that heal and restore you?daily exercisedaily prayerregular therapyregular AA meetingsregular visits with elderly parentsregular phone calls checking in with out-of-town loved ones so we stay connected despite the distancemaking your bed, doing your dishes, taking out the garbage, doing your laundry,maintaining your physical space.One powerful experience rarely to never transforms, says the Book of Exodus, as its most electrifying gambit—Sinai—did not work. Transformation takes a lifetime of repetitive, granular, very local deeds.  By doing these deeds every day, we become better. Boring is a compliment.

Over the last 30 years, Adrian Gonzalez met and married his beloved, Leslie, joined Temple Emanuel, raised four wonderful children, and celebrated their bnei mitzvah right here on the Rabbi Samuel Chiel bimah. For all of this time, Adrian has been on his own spiritual journey. This year, he made the decision to officially join the Jewish people. Adrian shares his journey and about the love that brought him into the covenant.Adrian Gonzalez, the son of Cuban immigrants, was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. After earning a Materials Science Engineering degree from Cornell University, he began his career at Motorola in Tempe, Arizona, where he met his wife, Leslie. They later moved back East to be closer to family and settled in Newton, Massachusetts, where they have lived since 1996. Adrian and Leslie have four children and have been members of Temple Emanuel for nearly 25 years. Today, Adrian is a trusted advisor and leading industry analyst with more than 26 years of supply chain research experience. He is president of Adelante SCM, which includes Talking Logistics (an online video talk show and blog) and Indago (a research community for supply chain and logistics executives). Adrian is also a LinkedIn Top Voice with nearly 250,000 followers. Outside of work, Adrian is an avid cyclist, a fundraiser for Breakthrough T1D, and the author of a best-selling book yet to be written.

Inertia is super strong. What, if anything, is stronger? My late father-in-love used to say, “more than people know what they like, they like what they know.” People like what they know. They like certainty, clarity, predictability. They don’t like being rattled. They don’t like uncertainty. They don’t like unpredictability. They don’t like staring into a murky future. The address in our sacred canon for the strength of inertia comes from last week’s reading. When the children of Israel left Egypt during the Exodus, the Torah says they left chamushim. Rashi offers two explanations for that word. One is that they left with arms, as they would need to fight wars on their way to the promised land. But the other explanation Rashi brings is that chamushim is related to the Hebrew word chamesh, five. Namely, only one in five Hebrew slaves chose to leave. Fully four out of five Hebrew slaves chose to remain slaves. That Rashi is so evocative, so prescient, so rich. Fully 80 percent of Hebrew slaves chose the predictability of slavery over the insecurity of freedom. This despite their moaning and groaning under the burdens of slavery. This despite seeing God’s saving power with their own eyes—it’s dark for the Egyptians, not dark for us; the first-born of the Egyptians perish, our first-born are fine. Despite an interventionist God redeeming them from the misery of slavery, 80 percent of the Hebrew slaves opted for slavery. More than people know what they like, they like what they know. How often has this dynamic played out in Jewish history, with fatal consequences for those who opted to remain where they were.  Rashi goes on to add that the 80% died in Egypt. Throughout Jewish history, inertia has proven not only strong but deadly. How does inertia show up in your life? How does inertia show up in our life? What, if anything, enables us to resist the incredible power of inertia? What can we learn from David Brooks’s final piece for the Times about how to resist inertia? Would you have been the 20%? Or the 80%? Are you the 20% or the 80%?

January 31, 2026

Suzanne was happily married to her first husband, with whom she had two daughters, and four grandchildren. All lived happily in Baltimore. He died. At the age of 70, she was blessed to find love a second time with a man whom she married. Suzanne and her second husband went to Israel, and they loved it.She writes to Abigail Shrier, an advice columnist for The Free Press. Now age 74, Suzanne shares her dilemma: I feel I am in my last act….I will soon be enfeebled to some degree, and not myself. Right now I’m still energetic, connected, engaged. I searched for what to do next, for fulfillment, to find meaning, to leave a mark. When my husband and I were last in Israel, it hit me. Took my breath away. I want to live in Jerusalem…But my conundrum: I have two daughters, and four grandchildren…between 6 and 12. They love me; I adore them. My daughters need me, and I need them. We don’t live far from one another and are together often. But I am never as alive as I am when I am in Israel, or as close to the meaning of my life….Should my last effort be to embed a lasting bond with my grandchildren, or should it be to be in the place that allows my soul to sing?Several questions to ponder: What does it mean to be a listening ear? If Suzanne had asked you, how would you understand your role?  What do you think on the merits? For Suzanne, for all of us, the clock is ticking. For Suzanne, for all of us, our time is limited. Alexander Hamilton wrote like he was running out of time. His sense of his own finitude inspired him to write 51 of the Federalist papers. How does the fact that we are all running out of time shape what we do with the time we have left?  Do you have your own version of Suzanne’s dilemma, loving two things, and not able to do both well at the same time? How do you resolve your dilemma? What does Jewish wisdom teach us about how to think about this most human dilemma: since we are all running out of time, what do we do with the time we have left? Abigail Shrier has a definite point of view! What do you think about what she says (the merits) and how she says it (her style)?

The surge of antisemitism has left many of us unsettled, confused, and struggling to understand what type of Jewish future is possible in the Diaspora. In fact, we can have a large hand in shaping our future, but to do this we first need to better understand the challenge before us.About Robert LeikindRob Leikind has been director of AJC New England since 2008. A child of parents who survived Hitler’s Europe, he grew up with a deeply rooted regard for the opportunity that American democracy affords Jews and other vulnerable minorities. Throughout his career, Rob has been a passionate defender of civil rights, an ardent advocate in the fight against antisemitism and other forms of bigotry, and a vocal proponent of a just and secure future for Israel and its neighbors.Rob began his career working with Holocaust survivors in Brooklyn, New York. A lawyer by training, he served as an Assistant District Attorney before going on to be Director of the ADL’s Connecticut and Boston offices and Senior Vice President of Hebrew College.Rob has been a contributor to various media on topics ranging from Israel and anti-Semitism to intergroup relations and civil rights. He received his bachelor’s degree from Vassar College, an M.S. from Columbia University and his J.D. from the Boston College Law School.

What is the difference between the Exodus story we encounter in the spring in the Haggadah and the Exodus story we encounter in the winter in the Book of Exodus? One common answer is that Moses is hardly mentioned in the Haggadah and is obviously a major protagonist in the Torah’s telling. But there is another important difference. The Torah has a lot to say about the Israelites taking silver and gold on their way out of Egypt. The announcement before the 10th plague:“Tell the people to borrow, each man from his neighbor and each woman from hers, objects of silver and gold.” Exodus 11:2 The execution of the 10th plague:“The Israelites had done Moses’s bidding and borrowed from the Egyptians objects of silver and gold, and clothing. And the Lord had disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people, and they let them have their request; thus they stripped the Egyptians.” Exodus 12: 35-36 By contrast the Haggadah says nothing about the silver and gold. Why does the Torah make such a tzimmus about the silver and gold? What is the Torah trying to teach us here? Tomorrow morning we will consider traditional explanations that focus on reparations and a modern explanation that focuses on what Andy Stanley calls the whirlwind. The whirlwind is the daily intensity that keeps us from building the future we want to live in. Here God knows that the Israelites are going to need silver and gold to build the wilderness tabernacle, the mishkan. Even though the Israelites were dealing with the urgent business of getting out of Egypt, God has them plan ahead and gather the resources they will need for their tabernacle. Can we do that? Can we transcend the to do lists of today to work on the promise of tomorrow?

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was courageous beyond measure. He walked with clarity and conviction in the face of menacing dogs, water cannons, angry mobs, and violent police and never seemed afraid.  What gave him this courage? In this sermon, we will hear his own testimony from his book Stride Toward Freedom: the Montgomery Story, as Dr. King shares what enabled him to move from paralyzing fear to courageous action. Can we learn to do that? Can we do our own version of what he did?

What would you think about a nephew marrying his aunt—his mother or father’s sister—and starting a family together? It feels creepy, gross, incestuous. In fact, the Torah not once but twice bans nephew-aunt unions.Do not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is your father’s flesh. Leviticus 18:12You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or of your father’s sister, for that is laying bare one’s own flesh; they shall bear their guilt. Leviticus 20:19Why am I telling you this? What am I leading with this unsavory subject? Because in this week’s portion, the Torah abruptly slams the breaks on the telling of the Exodus story—Moses’s initial demand to Pharaoh to let my people go, Pharaoh’s rejection and demand that the Israelites make the same tally of bricks but gather their own straw, God’s reaffirmation that God has heard their cry and will redeem them, and then the first seven of the ten plagues—the Torah slams the breaks on all this suspense before the plagues begin, to offer a genealogy. Genealogies are eye-glazing. One tends to pass over it to get back to the drama. That would be a mistake.This genealogy contains a bombshell:Amram took to wife his father’s sister Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses…It is the same Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, “Bring forth the Israelites from the land of Egypt, troop by troop.” It was they who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt to free the Israelites from the Egyptians; these are the same Moses and Aaron. Exodus 6:20 and 26-27.Turns out, the dry genealogy is not so dry. It makes two points. One, Aaron and Moses are the fruit of a nephew-aunt union that we know to be creepy and incestuous, and that the Torah itself twice prohibits. Two, it is precisely and defiantly this Aaron and Moses that lead the Israelites out of Egypt.What is Exodus 6 trying to teach us?

TE Teen, Maya Afergan, delivers a special guest sermon as part of our Youth Shabbat Morning service on January 10th.

Why does Boston need a new Holocaust museum now? Jody Kipnis, Co-Founder and President & CEO of the Holocaust Legacy Foundation, shares the ways the museum (opening in late 2026 across from Boston’s historic Freedom Trail) urgently confronts the rise in antisemitism today, and how its exhibits teach about democracy, choice, and moral courage.

December 27, 2025

How did we get from Saturday night to Thursday night?The arc of this past week, the dizzying emotional trajectory, is hard to explain, a genuine mystery. Saturday night, December 13, was Bondi Beach and Brown. The Hanukkah celebration by the Sea that became the Hanukkah massacre by the Sea. The school shooting at Brown, an hour from here, where we have students, parents of students, and long-time faculty at Brown who are members of Temple Emanuel.Just five nights later, Thursday night, December 18, was our Hanukkah celebration. Now we do a Hanukkah celebration every year, but it was never better than this year. It was never more robustly attended, and never more robust in joy, in spirit. Hundreds of us were celebrating Hanukkah, parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, singing, clapping, smiling, shmoozing, catching up with each other happily, eating latkas and sufganiyot, our youngest learners making sugar cookies shmeared with way too much blue frosting, but eating it all with a messy smile. The choirs sang, the musicians played, the parents shepped nachus. We also skewed young, very young that night: preschool children, elementary school children, teens and their parents and grandparents. We sometimes hear the question: where are the young people? The answer is: The young people were at our Hanukkah celebration in droves. It was the world as it should be, utter loveliness.And we were not alone.The Jews of Greater Boston celebrated Hanukkah this week with intensity and joy. We knew exactly what happened when there was a public celebration at Bondi Beach. Did that cause us to cower? Did that cause us to cancel our public Hanukkah celebrations? Just the opposite. We had a profusion of joyful, public Hanukkah celebrations in the week of Bondi Beach and Brown, inspired by a resolve not to succumb to terrorism and darkness.We had joyful, public candle lightings in Newton, Chestnut Hill, Brookline, Needham, Cambridge, Somerville, Watertown, Everett, Quincy, the Boston Common. The MFA. How do we understand this arc from the darkness of Saturday night to the light of Thursday night? The darkness of Saturday night was real and deserved. The stories that came out—the 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, Alex Kleytman, who survived Hitler, Naziism, and lethal European Jew hatred, only to die on a beach in Australia in 2025, every story its own infinite tragedy—all these stories are completely heart-breaking. If this infinite tragedy had curtailed our Hanukkah joy, that would have been understandable, but the opposite happened—a joy that flowed from a resolute place. Our members who thoroughly enjoyed our Hanukkah celebration were not faking it. We were not acting. We were not Meryl Streep. We were genuinely happy in the same week as this deep tragedy that befell our people. What is that?

We are all horrified by the mass shootings at Bondi Beach and Brown University that coincided with Hanukkah. We mourn the tragic and senseless loss of innocent life. We pray for the recovery of those who were wounded. So too we are horrified by the murder of 47-year old MIT professor Nuno Loureiro in his Brookline home. So too we are horrified by the assaults on Jews this week in the subway in New York City. How to understand such hate and darkness on Hanukkah, a time of love and joy, is on everybody’s mind. The sermon tomorrow will be about that topic. In the meantime, we are going to center and anchor ourselves by the classic Jewish response to the vicissitudes of life: learning Torah.Should. A charged word. Even more charged: You should… When, if ever, should we say, “You should”? Many of us are wisely and properly reluctant to say those words. The last Daily of 2024 included an interview with Philip Galanis, the advice columnist for the Times. His advice was not to give advice. His advice was to ask questions, to listen carefully, to get the person with whom you are talking to clarify their own thinking and come up with their own solutions. When asked for a New Year’s resolution, he offered: to listen better. The humility and restraint of listening, asking good questions, and helping people come up with their own solutions was the core of an essay written by Rabbi Chiel in his classic volume Beyond the Sermon: Stories of Pastoral Guidance (2004), in which a woman with a troubled marriage wanted Rabbi Chiel to offer that she should get a divorce, but he would not weigh in on the merits for cogent reasons he explains in his essay entitled “Our Limitations.” And yet, there are two famous examples in the Torah of a biblical hero saying “You should.” One is Joseph in our portion this week. Summoned out of prison to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams, he does so. He interprets the dreams. Egypt will have seven years of abundance followed by seven years of scarcity. And then, Joseph offers unsolicited advice: store the abundant produce of the years of feast so that it will be there to sustain the people during the years of famine. Pharaoh heeds this unsolicited advice, and it saves the lives of hungry Egyptians (and in time the rest of Joseph’s family that comes to Egypt from Canaan in search of food). The other example is Yitro, who sees that Moses is working around the clock settling disputes among Israelites. Moses is exhausted. The people are exhausted waiting in line for their turn. Yitro offers unsolicited advice that Moses tap wise Israelites who can help adjudicate the claims so that Moses will not be ground down, and the people will not have to wait so long. Moses heeds this unsolicited advice to the betterment of himself and the people. Thus the tension between our common practice and our canonical tradition. Our culture trains us to listen, to ask questions, not to pontificate, not to offer our answers. We are supposed to know that our answers may not work for the person we are talking to. Yet the Torah offers two stories of unsolicited advice that was wisely followed for the betterment of all involved. When, if ever, should we say should?

Omri D. Cohen’s new book ‘Questions to Humanity’ contains 106 questions from people all over the world to humanity at large. Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz and Omri discuss what inspired the project, how he gathered the questions, and what we can all learn from the questions of our fellow man.You can learn more about about Questions to Humanity at https://qtohumanity.com/, on Amazon and with the video series on Instagram.