I imagine most of you have by now been forwarded some email about the convergence of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving this year.  Yes, it is true that the first night of Hanukkah this year is the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving and it is also true that this will not happen again for another 79,000 years or so.  This strange phenomenon has captivated many American Jews and non-Jews alike and brought many unaffiliated families out of the woodwork – perhaps because it reflects the intersection of our Jewish and American identities.  

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Who here has seen the musical Les Miserable?  I still remember the first time I saw Les Mis –  I remember my parents taking my to the Wang Center in Boston.  It was amazing!  The moving stage, the costumes, the music, the emotion – I was blown away.

As I was reading this weeks Torah portion, one song from Les Mis kept popping into my head.  Picture the scene: Jean Valjean is on his deathbed.  The curtain between the living and the dead has been raised and he is joined by Eponine and Fantine.  And then his entire life is summed up in one of the most beautiful verses I have ever heard:

Click here to listen!

The final line that we just heard is actually a Victor Hugo original from the book, “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

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If you’ve ever seen the Adam Sandler movie, Don’t Mess with the Zohan, you may be familiar with the band, HaDag Nachash.  Their name which literally means Snake Fish, is a Hebrew spoonerism of the phrase Nachag Chadash, a new driver.  Through mixing hip hop and rock, western and eastern music, HaDag Nachash bring to light some of the most important issues in Israel today.  One song that particularly touches upon what it means to be in Israel is, “Hinei Ani Ba, Here I Come.”  The song tells the tale of the dichotomy between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv:

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I’ve been waiting my whole career to start a D’var Torah with a reference to baseball.

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In the spring of my senior year of high school, after the stress of college applications and acceptance were over, my best friend and I both had the overwhelming urge to…color.

We went to the drugstore and bought a brand-new 64 pack of Crayola crayons and a couple of those super-sized coloring books, the ones that are as big as our entire upper bodies. Mine had Sesame Street characters. We took them back to my house, sat on the floor stretched over the pages, and colored.

We wanted at that moment in our lives, I believe, to break free from the pressure to produce a product and instead to enjoy the process of taking a black and white outline, choosing only a place to start and a color to start with, and watching the picture emerge.

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Remember. It’s one of our first Jewish lessons. It’s in the Ten Commandments, it’s in the poem L’cha Dodi with which we greet Shabbat each week, and it’s repeated throughout the liturgy of these High Holy Days. In our worship on Rosh HaShanah, the sound of the shofar awakens us specifically to remember our covenant with God. We return now to memory in our Yizkor service which allows us to honor those whom we have lost, to remember them.

But what if memories hold us hostage? What if our memories are the stumbling blocks that obstruct our future? As the Israeli novelist Amos Oz wrote, “Apart from the obligation to remember, is there also a right to forget?” (The Slopes of Lebanon)

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Why do we build a shelter that provides no shelter at all?

Growing up in suburban NJ, my home was not in a high-crime area.  Yet, always, we locked the doors and we turned on the security alarm.  We even had a big dog bowl on the front porch, to convince all external threats into thinking we had a guard dog (we didn’t even have a goldfish).  And I don’t think our family’s efforts for  protection were unusual.  But friends of ours who lived not far away took a different approach.  they left their doors unlocked every time they left their house.  Simply because that is how they wanted to live their lives.Continue reading

In an episode of the TV sitcom “Friends,” entitled “The One Where Phoebe Hates PBS,” two characters, Phoebe and Joey, engage in a contest based on the theories of philosopher Immanuel Kant.

Is there such a thing as a truly unselfish act, they wonder, one in which someone benefits while the person performing the act receives nothing in return?  Joey believes not; Phoebe sets out to prove him wrong.  After several failed attempts, Phoebe lets a bee sting her “so it can look cool in front of its bee friends.”  Surely, she believes, this is a selfless act; Phoebe allowed herself to be hurt so that the bee could benefit.  Nope, Joey points out; the bee likely died soon after losing its stinger in Phoebe’s arm.

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The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.Continue reading