This week I’ve felt an immense sadness, pain and anger that I haven’t felt since discovering the murder of Yair Yaakov z”l in February and of course on October 7^th. The gut-punch Saturday night, the lack of sleep and seeing Hersh’s funeral early Monday morning. I give this sermon as one who felt the grieving and mourning all too closely, now leaving shiva for shloshim and ready to take the next steps.

We learned a glimpse of each of the hostages during Tuesday night’s vigil. Today I want to focus on something different-resistance. Each of these hostages resisted in their own way in his/her own way. Carmel Gat taught spiritual resistance through meditation exercises and yoga in the tunnels. She helped the others remember to stay calm during a torturous captivity, demonstrating that the one thing that cannot be taken away from you is your sense of self. Alex and Ori physically saved the lives of those they did not know before they were captured, showing their actions of selflessness. Almog tended to his girlfriend, showing the power of love. Eden kept others going through her vibrant spirit.

And then there was Hersh: Hersh Goldberg-Polin- a household name and the face of the hostages. We saw Hersh’s parents speak at major events, including both the Republican and Democratic conventions, travelling the world in order to save him. These past 11 months it felt as though his release along with the 5 with whom he was imprisoned was just around the corner. Painstakingly, it was not meant to be. At Hersh’s funeral, his mother Rachel said “you six lived together, you six died together, and now you will be remembered forever together.” His father Jon reminded us that the name Polin stands for פועלי ישועות, workers of salvation-or as I prefer to see them “miracle workers.” The hostages have become a global symbol for bringing improvement to our world. In remembering Hersh, Jon used the phrase adopted by his friends יהי זכרונו מהפכה -may his memory be a revolution. It is to that revolution that we are called now.

We need to be those miracle workers now. We CANNOT, We MUST NOT lose sight of the 101 remaining hostages in captivity. All steps must be taken towards their rescue. The ultimate value of Judaism is פקוח נפש, the saving of a life. These hostages may be beyond our reach halfway around the world but they are deeply embedded within our hearts. It is my hope and a prayer that a deal can be made to BOTH release the hostages AND keep Israel in control Gaza, badly needed so that Hamas cannot cause an October 7^th-like attack again.

Here are the actions you can take to remember these 6 and to pray for the remaining 101 in captivity:

1. If you are in Los Angeles between now and October 8 and are at least 16 years old, please go to the Nova Exhibition in Culver City, at which 5 of these 6 were taken. My best friend went when it was in New York, and she told me how powerful it is. If you cannot attend like me, commit yourself to learning about Nova-what it is about and why young people came together year after year.
2. Dedicate yourself to learning at least one story from the captured and missing who were murdered since October 7^th. Learn about their lives, their visions, their hopes and their dreams. Keep their memories alive through telling their stories.
3. Continue to pray not only with words but also with your feet, for those hostages still in captivity, including Keith Siegel and Omer Wenkert, for whom we have chairs. As Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt, founder of Zionist Rabbis, persuasively argued,[1] it’s time to change the narrative from “Bring them Home” to “Let Them Go.” I can only imagine what it felt like to say these words in the 1980s campaign to save Soviet Jewry. They might have meant something different then but their power will reverberate today. We say “Let Them Go” to demand that Egypt, Qatar, the United States and the United Nations exert pressure on the pharaoh of our day: The Islamic Republic of Iran, demanding that it pressure its proxy Hamas into releasing the hostages. In so doing, I’d like us to say the words that have impacted us for thousands of years. Please join me…LET THEM GO!!!

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[1] StandWithUs Rabbis’ United WhatsApp Group

My words at a time when there is none. Community Vigil September 3, 2024.

          I first want to thank Rabbis Mona Alfi of B’nai Israel and Steven Chester representing Congregation Beth Shalom as well as the leadership of the Sacramento Jewish Federation and Jewish Community Relations Council and Hillel of Davis and Sacramento. Your presence here speaks volumes. We are one community.

I cannot adequately describe what I felt Saturday night in words.  The closest I get is being run over time and time again by a truck. Whenever I hear of another person murdered, our hopes for their return dashed in a moment after hundreds of days in captivity, there’s nothing left to say.

  We are here tonight to come together in grief and mourning while also doing our part to get the remaining 101 hostages released. Each of us here tonight is impacted by so many things. Our feelings are genuine and authentic as they are and should be accepted free of judgment.

Tonight we are gathered in part to remember 6 precious soles: Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov, Carmel Gat and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, originally from Berkeley, California. These 6 were among nearly 400 captured or murdered from the Nova Festival in Re’im, dubbed as “a journey of unity and of love.” Our message as a people should always be love, not hate; life, not death and destruction. I still cannot get past the fact that each and every one of those recently murdered were under the age of 40-so much potential and so many hopes and dreams falling by the wayside. The cruelty of their captors taunting the victims’ families through sending post-mortem videos and  threatening to post “last minute videos” of their lives is beyond sickening.

The question is how do we remember them? Not by how they were found Saturday night but rather by how they lived their lives! In Mishnah Avot, Rabbi Shimon said, there are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood, and the crown of kingship. And the crown of a good name is superior to them all. We will remember the good names of each of these six precious souls followed by an El Malei for all who were murdered since October 7^th and the Mourner’s Kaddish.

          Then we will transition to our hope for the release of the remaining 101 hostages. We will sing אחינו, the song showing that each and every one of us is united. We will recite the prayer for those who are captured followed by התקוה, the anthem that has kept our people hopeful for numerous years.

          Today we come together to grieve and to mourn; it is my prayer that tomorrow we will come together to dance and to celebrate the remaining hostages being brought home.

In two congregational events this past week politics came up-in one case it sounded like a political rally. I have a challenge with this not because I don’t have my own opinions but because assumptions came up that I don’t think one should make. I’ll speak for myself-I don’t fit in a box. Conservative Judaism is the best fit for me but it’s not perfect; similarly, political parties not a perfect fit. I think there’s a lesson we need to have as we head towards November and beyond.

 In Judaism we are loyal to one thing and one thing only-God. Not a particular political party, not a particular ideology, but God. In the blessing after the Haftarah which Rabbi Leider beautifully chanted, she readונאמנים דבריך נאמן אתה הוא ה אלקינו  “You, Adonai our G-d, are loyal, and your words are loyal.” In Parshat Eikev, G-d commands us to observe all of the commandments. Throughout Eikev G-d commands us to remember and take heed of what we are being told. The word זכור, remember, appears 200 times in the Torah. The word שמע, to take heed, not just to listen but to harken-to really take something in-appears 92 times in the book of Deuteronomy alone! Incidents which occurred long ago, such as provoking G-d with the golden calf or testing G-d when there was no water in the desert, are repeated at length here. These are drummed into this new generation, about to enter the Land of Israel so that none of them can say they were not informed of the importance of observing G-d’s commandments as they embark on this new adventure.

In Judaism, we are required to have loyalty to G-d and to be informed of what G-d wants us to do in the Torah; in return G-d will be loyal to us. Whether we like it or not, it is a quid pro quo relationship. We are not commanded to be loyal to anything else, whether a person, institution or political party. When we wanted a human king, the prophet Samuel almost went into mourning and opposed this because he feared that allegiance to a human king would take the peoples attention away from the King of Kings, G-d.[1] We see the foibles and the weaknesses of the kings as you look in the Books of Samuel and Kings.

When the ark was opened before the Torah was taken out, I shared the following words: “I do not put my trust in any mortal, nor upon any angelic being do I rely, but rather on the G-d of Israel who is the G-d of Truth, whose Torah is Truth, whose prophets are prophets of truth and who abounds in deeds of goodness and truth. In   G-d alone do I put my trust and to G-d I utter praises.”[2] The motto on US currency-in God we trust. Of course, it’s easy to forget this-it’s easy to go astray-and of course it’s human nature to feel joy or fear based on what’s going on in the world. What I am saying is we often have short memories and pledge or fealty and loyalty to a certain cause and we don’t often think about what is at stake here.

Two months into my rabbinate here I spoke at a United Farm Workers rally, looking at is as an opportunity to show what Judaism says about how we treat workers. What I was unaware of was that the rally was based off a particular piece of legislation that one of the organizers told me was bad legislation in its current form.[3] What looks like something that everyone would stand behind-treating workers fairly-does not necessarily take into account that there’s more than meets the eye. We have to be aware of that. Not that it should make us paralyzed and afraid to take a stand on anything-that is certainly not the goal! We need to be aware of what it is that we’re standing for and that our ultimate loyalty is to G-d; not to any cause, not to another person, but to G-d alone.

We’re required to read these words over and over again, year after year. Humans by nature have short memories. We need to read and repeat in Mishneh Torah,[4] the repetition of the Torah, until things become second nature, and we develop positive habits. We have in Parshat Eikev words that demonstrate this. In the second paragraph of the Shema, the one which many are afraid to talk about and which some denominations have excised from their liturgy, G-d says to us “impress My words upon your very heart; bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, and teach them to your children-reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up; and inscribe them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.”[5]

One of the things I love about Judaism is that there’s no dogma or one belief/opinion that one must follow. Sure, there are declarations of faith-Maimonides wrote one of the most famous. But we are encouraged in Judaism to be independent thinkers, to question things, to take what we have and arrive at our own conclusions. We’re given a roadmap for life in the Torah, but we have free will to do with it as we choose. We’re a people where belief is secondary to action, where doing the right thing, Tzedek,[6] that comes first before anything that we may believe. Remember the section of the Talmud “study is important when it leads to action”[7]-thoughtful, informed action.

What makes our community at Mosaic Law Congregation so wonderful is to have multiple opinions and at times vehemently disagree but to come together as a unified community. We’re here for a greater purpose than the latest story on the news, the latest rally. We’re here to come together and be unified as a community-not shying away from what we believe but being thoughtful and careful when we express it, not making assumptions that others think like us.

Everyone here is welcome at Mosaic Law Congregation regardless of what you believe provided that it will not lead to physically or emotionally harming another. If it’s destructive, then we have to have a conversation. We come together as a congregation for the greater good. We’re commanded to remember the shared narrative of our past, and to hearken to what we hear, keeping it near and dear to our hearts. We’re commanded above all else not to be loyal to a cause at the expense of everything else, only to be loyal to the One Above. That’s what we need to hold onto. The danger comes when we think “how could someone else think this way?” True it is fostered in the political environment, when someone says, “How can Jews think _________?” NO, NO. Jews like anyone else and anyone at Mosaic Law Congregation are entitled to their opinion. It doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily be given a platform to espouse it, but you need to be treated with kindness and respect. I’m not naïve that stakes are high, but what’s most important to me, the highest value is for everyone to feel comfortable, safe and welcome at our congregation.

That is what we are being reminded in Ekev. Remember the past, remember that our ancestors often disagreed, even on occasion reached the brink of civil war but they ultimately stayed together as a community. They were not always loyal to G-d, but it got drummed into their head that they could not sever from one another, that our core principle of faith in a better future and belief in G-d, the blueprint that is the Torah, which is what stood firm. Before responding at Kiddush, I want each of us to think-not to jump into the fray but to recognize that we are all images of G-d and that here we come together for a higher purpose, connection to G-d and to our community.

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[1] 1 Samuel 8

[2] Breich Shmeh D’marei Alma in Torah Service

[3] I am grateful the legislation got amended and adopted a few short months later.

[4] A rabbinic name for Deuteronomy

[5] Deuteronomy 11:13-21

[6] Thanks to Rabbi Mark Margolius for this framing in Institute for Jewish Spirituality Awareness in Action

[7] Talmud Kiddushin 40b

          Parshat Behaalotecha teaches us that “when you kindle the lamps, towards the face of the Menorah shall the seven lamps cast light.”[1] Each of these lights, whether on the right or the left, faces towards the center. It demonstrates that each light joins together to form a greater light than each can do separately. That is the case with us as well-we need to join together to support one another and demonstrate that what unites us is greater than what divides us.

This week we observe Juneteenth, the commemoration of slaves in Galveston, Texas finding out that they were freed in 1865. We also have a holiday celebrating freedom from slavery-Passover.  In college at UW-Madison, I took a course on Black-Jewish Relations that centered on the community of Brownsville, Brooklyn. It was fascinating to learn about how Black-Jewish relations have changed over time. I also learned firsthand from Jews of Color, being mentored by Rabbi Capers Funnye of the Israelite congregation in Chicago (first time I ever gave a D’var Torah and people shouted “Amen Brother!”), in working with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and in being part of the Rabbinical Assembly’s Racial Justice Committee.

          As we celebrate the abolition of slavery, we need to remember that there remain those adversely affected by slavery even as we approach 160 years since the anniversary of Juneteenth. We must keep this in mind as our state senate passed three reparations bills a number of weeks ago. The senate has agreed to “issue an apology to Black Californians for the state’s role in instituting slave laws and discriminatory practices since its founding.”[2] As we move forward as a society, let us recognize the mistakes made in the past and as such may we work together towards a brighter future.

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[1] Numbers 8:1

[2] https://www.foxnews.com/media/california-state-senate-passes-three-reparations-bills-apologizing-slavery-debt-owed

I learned with great excitement about the rescue of 4 hostages at the Neseirat camp in Gaza. I learned in the podcast Call Me Back that while the rescue of Noam Argamani went off without a hitch, the rescues of Shlomi Ziv Almog Meir Jan and Andrey Kozlov were met with great challenge and needed extra Israeli forces to come in to ensure its success. Thanks to Israeli soldiers who came in when the truck carrying Israeli special units and 3 of the hostages got stuck in order to make the rescue.

I feel for Meir Jan’s father who died of a heart attack just hours before the army arrived to deliver the news of his son’s rescue. At the same time, we saw the pure joy in the embrace of Noa Argamani and her father. Life is bittersweet, and we saw examples of both the bitter and the sweet with last week’s rescue operation.

We also saw secular Israelis enter into synagogues on Shabbat to inform religious Jews of this amazing rescue effort. It was a Fauda-like operation, with Avi Issacharov saying, “This is beyond belief” and if he tried to write this into a scene for Fauda it would have been unbelievable.

Due to the complexity of such an effort, it is unlikely to be repeated. This is because of the challenges of urban warfare, needing to make simulations with models of the buildings, weeks of preparations and strategy sessions and catching Hamas by surprise with a daytime attack, as well as multiple factors needing to line up. We pray for a hostage deal in which all Israeli hostages are released-and if not possible, for Israel to do everything it can to eradiacate Hamas and set the hostages free.

Please check out Rabbi Taff’s article in The Times of Israel about Arnon serving with his nephew https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-806269

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech.” As Jews we laud the principle of free speech as enshrined in the First Ammendment of the United States Constitution. Our people have lived in numerous countries where speech has been censored as well as practice of our religion. Yet too often there are people who hide behind free speech to spew hatred and threatening remarks. Too often people engage lawyers who know where the lines are drawn between free speech, hate speech and incitement and skirt on that line. Should #Hitlerwasright be free speech? How about having “easy access to Zionist journalists?” Do we need to wait for someone to be harmed in order to view speech as crossing a line?

On one hand we need to support free speech because of times when we were unable to speak out against evil and violence. On the other hand we must routinely condemn hate speech whenever we hear it-provided of course that our safety is not impacted in said situation. There is no such thing as an innocent bystander in Judaism. Not only must we condemn this hateful rhetoric but we also need to work with allies at creating a kinder, gentler world. Love will always triumph over hate and goodness will over evil.

Am Yisrael Chai!

I had a wonderful 3 years at the University of Wisconsin. Some of the best friends of my life were made there. Sure there were regular anti-Israel protestors but they were almost comical in nature (Jews United for Justice-4 middle aged men with a small protest sign). After seeing what is going on on liberal college campuses today, including at Columbia, a mere 6 blocks from JTS, I am enraged but not surprised. 

What can we do as these protests spread to numerous colleges throughout the United States? One thing is to withhold our funding to any of these universities that are not keeping our Jewish students safe. However I believe we need to do more. We need to call our local politicians and impress upon them the need for safety of our students-it is even better if we call on our non-Jewish allies to make these calls for us. We must also call on sanctions for those who are funding these demonstrations as well as elimination of federal and state funding for those who are allowing them to occur and putting their students in danger.

I want us to hear from our college students, as we did from Carly Klinger of Aggies for Israel on April 7, as to what they go through on a daily basis. I also want us to encourage sanctions on the countries who are funding Middle East programs who are inciting this hatred, most directly Qatar. It is no accident that these students are not only getting violent but also trying to incite Hamas to attack Jewish students on campuses. 

This is a crazy time that keeps getting crazier yet we will get through it with resilience and resolve. Am Yisrael Chai!v

Since October 7, members of my synagogue, Mosaic Law Congregation, have been coming to me grieving and in mourning. Many have lost family members and close friends. The cousin of one of my congregants and good friend of another are kidnapped in Gaza. My family friends are off in Lebanon and Gaza, and I have no idea if I will see them again. Many have told me they no longer feel comfortable wearing their Jewish stars or kippot (skullcaps). We have had the need for increased security measures. It is a terrifying time for my community.

My immediate response was to call other faith leaders with whom I have built relations through interfaith work and ask them to speak at the Mosaic Law Congregation on a Saturday morning. Seven of them did so. One thing which perplexed me was not receiving replies from those in the Muslim community with whom I had worked so hard to build relationships. We broke bread together, I attended their events and they came to my installation. It took me some time to realize that I was not hearing back from them because this is such a polarizing issue-one for which no amount of dialogue will help us come anywhere close to a mutual understanding.

I thank Mayor Steinberg for not giving the Valenzuela-Vang resolution a hearing and for his strong preference, “not to have any formal resolution come before the City Council.” I agree with his statement, “In most cases, I do not believe our City Council should spend council time on foreign policy.” There is so much work to be done locally, and anything we say about a conflict 7500 miles away will only increase the division between us. We don’t need shouting matches, broken windows or property burnt to the ground.
At the same time, we need to come together in a safe space to share our pain, recognize our suffering and see the shared humanity in each other as citizens of Sacramento. As the language of the Santa Cruz resolution mentions, we must “acknowledge the suffering of the Peoples of the Middle East, affirm our shared humanity and wish for peace, call for collaborative efforts supporting peaceful dialogue among all parties involved; and urge our community to develop and participate in activities that foster tolerance, empathy, education, and understanding of people of all backgrounds and religious faiths.”

I view Mayor Steinberg’s statement “Our interfaith communities are not talking to one another. They are too angry, distrustful, and hurt to reach across the divide” as a challenge to come together-NOT to pass a resolution but to find common ground in other areas. I want to give an open invitation based off his message and the Santa Cruz resolution to all faith leaders find common ground and work together to benefit the greater Sacramento community. Currently we are working on a Latino-Jewish Seder with Bishop Soto and the Catholic Diocese, and we are always looking for more opportunities to join forces. Our approach should never be to shrink into my bubble and silo off. We must view this as an opportunity to build bridges.

As a precursor to doing so, however, we must recognize the hurt, pain, loss and suffering that we are feeling. Any attempt to come together that does not acknowledge that is tone deaf. It is time to understand that each of us is grieving and that many are going through trauma. Only through doing that can we respond to the other in a way which will be productive rather than destructive.