Dvarim for TAA

(Delivered July 18, 2026)

There is something in the air at this time of year, and I don’t mean the yellow haze we’ve been experiencing. Although on the one hand it seems incongruous to think of teshuvah in the middle of summer, the High Holidays have a long on-ramp. On purpose. It’s hard and painstaking work to prepare ourselves, not to mention preparing to prepare ourselves. So we start early.

With Tisha b’Av this Wednesday night, the bottom is about to drop out. And then the pull starts to get stronger and stronger over the coming two months. Somehow we need all that time.

In rabbinical school and out, there is typically a sense of frenzy and overwhelm in the fall. Between regular work and gearing up for holiday pulpit work, the vibe among rabbis is joyful but stressful. Students and rabbis alike find that there’s a lot of energy around—what tune do you use here? How in the world am I going to get all these verses of Al Chet Shechatanu L’fanecha to sound fluent enough? Will my voice get tired and start to fade by N’ilah? Will I remember the right tunes at the right moments?

For clergy—and perhaps especially for student clergy—preparing for the holidays feels like standing at the base of a mountain that we’re both required and terrified to climb.

My wonderful teacher, Rabbi Allan Lehmann, taught me a lot about this during my time at Hebrew College. Allan had served as a congregational rabbi for over 40 years, and even after he left his pulpit to do other kinds of rabbinic work, he continued to lead high holidays in various communities, basically wherever he found himself. That’s almost half a century worth of carrying a community through the cycle of rebuke, consolation, return, and atonement.

One fall, Allan—who was not doing high holidays that year for the first time in basically forever—commented that he was still experiencing the symptoms, the old familiar worry and overwhelm. This was a guy who had led more services than anyone I know, and who knew every word and every nuance…and who wasn’t even scheduled to lead that year… and he was feeling stressed out.

He said to me, I thought when I retired from doing this stuff that I would be able to relax in this season. But I still feel it in my guts. I still feel the angst.

Allan’s wisdom was this: It’s not just about the standing in front of the community and leading. It’s about the meaning within the holidays themselves. We feel anxious because that’s the design of this time of year. It’s topical, and it’s inherent. We can’t help thinking: Is this going to be the year that God says my time is ending? Is this going to be the year I lose someone dear?

The more we are attuned to Jewish life and Jewish rhythm, the more the cadence of the calendar evokes this inner churning. The tug of this season is strong—like the tides we live by in our beautiful seaside community.

It’s not the yellow fog at all, but there IS something in the air… about needing to face ourselves and our mistakes. When we think of what teshuvah—real teshuvah—entails, it’s unsurprising that we need this on-ramp. Even admitting a small mistake can be hard for many of us. To face our most consequential errors—the ones that have resulted in hurt feelings or in shattered relationships—that takes a good deal of courage and readiness.

And so we take our time to find our way.

Our parsha this week, which is always read on the Shabbat before Tisha b’Av, suggests the model and tries to give us the push we need. The entirety of Sefer Dvarim (the book of Deuteronomy) consists of Moses looking back over the story of the Israelites—retelling, recasting, rethinking—as he reckons with the reality that he will not be privy to how the story ends. He describes many of the misdeeds of the Israelites as he sifts through the shards of the eventful journey he’s led and tries to make meaning of it. In the chaplaincy world, this is called life review and is a normative part of aging.

In a way, life review is also what we do in our souls in this long leadup to and through the High Holidays. We look carefully at our past and try to make meaning of it, searching for ways to make peace where needed.

So our parsha gives us a role model, fallible as he may be. And still, the language needs to noodge us along. Three times in our Torah portion, we encounter the phrase רַב־לָכֶם indicating a kind of too-much-ness. Two of the three are direct orders to get moving!

Dvarim chapter 1, verse 6 reads:

ה’ אֱלֹהֵינוּ דִּבֶּר אֵלֵינוּ בְּחֹרֵב לֵאמֹר רַב־לָכֶם שֶׁבֶת בָּהָר הַזֶּה׃
Adonai your God spoke to you at Horev, saying,
“You have stayed too long at this mountain.”

In the next chapter, verse 3 reads:

רַב־לָכֶם סֹב אֶת־הָהָר הַזֶּה פְּנוּ לָכֶם צָפֹנָה׃
You have circled this mountain too long; turn northward.

On the one hand, Moses is deep in reflection. On the other, the story he’s telling is one of pushing on, making our way. The parsha is balancing ruminating and movement, in a way that speaks to us if we listen.

And yet, listening is hard. And this is where the magic of Shabbat Chazon comes into focus. The call to movement, toward the work of teshuvah begins this week, with a faint whisper. Rather than coming at us with a blunt force, the wave of self-reflection starts as something like the still small voice we read about in the story of Eliahu haNavi.

It enters like a distant music that gradually but insistently comes closer, like a spiritual doppler effect. This Shabbat, we turn that corner not only through words (dvarim, ironically) but through melody. As you probably noticed, both the Torah and the Haftarah readings contained interpolations of a less-familiar sound, the sound of Eicha trope. I’ve mentioned before that Jewish liturgical music helps us tell time, and this is a beautiful example. The elegiac tone of the musical expression hits us in a place where resistance is lowered. The mournful tune cracks our defenses, allowing us to break, so we can heal.

The music speaks to us in a language that bypasses language. And so our tradition offers a multi-modal invitation into the work of teshuvah. Where words might tell us it’s time to move; it’s melody that actually moves us.

Shabbat shalom!

Matot-Mas’ei for TAA

(delivered July 11, 2026)

As we’ve talked about many times, our tradition makes a study and a practice of contradiction. And so it is that in the beautiful summertime, in the midst of beach days, family visits, and spontaneous ice cream cones, we hold some space for soul-searching, and even grief. In the Three Weeks preceding Tisha b’Av, the prevailing emotional tone is one of anguish and regret. The haftarot in these Three Weeks are known collectively as the tlat dePoranuta, the three haftarot of rebuke.

The combination of the mood of rebuke at this time of year, and this week’s teachings about vows, worked a particular spell on me, as I recalled an incident that occurred in my first few months of serving as TAA’s rabbi.

In the spring of 2024, before I even started my official job here, Rabbi Kudan, my predecessor, forwarded me an email from the staff at Camp Ramah about clergy visiting day. A good number of our students were planning to be at camp, and although I didn’t really know them yet, it seemed like a great opportunity to connect. Bright-eyed and full of ambition and desire to serve, I signed up for not one but two clergy visiting days, one for each session. After all, we had students in both sessions and I didn’t want anyone to feel left out. What if I go to one and not the other? Then the kids in session one will resent the kids in session two or vice versa. Well, I thought. No problem. I’ll do both. What could be hard about that? So it’s two hours’ drive each way on a Thursday, big deal!

But as I got used to the rhythm of the week and the challenge and time commitment of composing a Dvar Torah for every Shabbat, as I learned that my personal cadence of work involved writing on Thursday afternoons after a long walk in the sunshine, I got more and more nervous as the time for my first camp visit approached.

In the event, I ended up canceling both visits because I just couldn’t get myself organized well enough to both drive across the state and back and prepare for Shabbat in a way that felt sufficient. Not to mention being away on a Thursday meant that I wouldn’t get to learn with our Torah study group, which is often a critical component of my writing prep.

Of course, on the first day of religious school that year, one of the students, a precocious and delightful person whom I have come to love very much, came up to me and with disappointment in their eyes, said, Rav Naomi I thought you were going to come to visiting day, but you never showed up.

If you had pierced my heart with a rusty dagger, I think it would’ve caused less pain than what I felt for having tried too hard and disappointed one of our students.

It was through that lens that I read the passage in Parshat Matot-Mas’ei dealing with vows. The parsha asks us to consider earnestly what is binding about those promises, and what the consequences of broken vows can be. Chapter 30, verse 3 reads, in part:

כְּכָל־הַיֹּצֵא מִפִּיו יַעֲשֶׂה
All that a person speaks, they must do

This phrase lands as a rebuke, reminding us of times when our words and our expectations of ourselves were overly aspirational. I suspect we can all think of situations when we’ve made a promise with the best of intentions and found ourselves unable to fulfill it. Encountering this teaching in the season of reprimand—as we begin the tender communal process of looking at our deeds—carries a heavy weight.

But if you look at the structure of the season, begadol, you know that as much as our tradition invests deeply in the mourning and grief of Tisha b’Av, we don’t remain there. The three haftarot of rebuke are followed by more than twice as many (seven!) of consolation. All this grief and admonishment is part of a larger process, with an ultimate emphasis on repair rather than reproach. This long arc brings us through the psychological phases we need in order to make teshuvah.

In these Three Weeks approaching Tisha b’Av, we take on traditional practices of mourning. Some observances include no haircuts, no public celebrations, no weddings. We allow the three haftarot of rebuke to permeate the crevices of our lives as we remove the distractions that allow us to ignore our own shortcomings. The grief comes to its fulfillment with the fast day of Tisha b’Av. Then, afterward, in the seven weeks that follow through the course of the month of Elul, we take on self-reflection and return, as time moves inexorably through its cycle.

Reflective Elul takes us into the 10 days of teshuvah (return), as we work deep inside and in our relationships to mend what can be mended.

With Yom Kippur, we let it all go. We release our burdens with the faith that God will forgive us, even for the vows we were not able to keep. Four days later, we go outside and despite all the fragility that life gives us, we rejoice in community—and then, in the wisdom tradition that teaches us to be a community.

I thought of this rhythm deeply over this past week because this past Thursday, I had a chance to make things right. I made arrangements with my Torah study folks for lay leadership, and planned to give less time and energy to the Dvar Torah, so that I could devote the time to be with some of our youngest members on clergy visiting day at camp.

I am happy to share that it was great to see our children joyfully immersed in a Jewish environment without any pressure to conform to the non-Jewish world. I got to visit with our campers (including four whose B’nei Mitzvah I officiated this past year): to spend a little time with them, obviously to take some selfies, and to pass along messages from their families and small gifts from their congregation.

And most blessedly, I had the opportunity to see the student who had been so innocently disappointed in me two years ago; to look them in the eyes and to see how much it meant to them that their rabbi showed up this time.

כל היוצא מפי עשיתי
All that I said I would do, I did

May we all be blessed with such second chances, with a forgiving reception when we try to clean the slate, and with the perspective to see that the cycle of time invites us into reflection so that we can do better by the people who matter to us.

Korach for TAA

(Delivered June 20, 2026)

Shabbat shalom!

With the rising hoopla surrounding the US semiquincentennial—in other words, the 250th anniversary of the founding of this nation—I am thinking not about fireworks, nor about military parades, nor about historical re-enactments.

In the shadow of Parshat Korach, I am thinking about arguments.

This nation’s founders really knew how to argue. They had to. Although they had a shared goal and a somewhat shared vision, they were not of a single mind, and they had little precedent to go on. They probably had one solid common principle. Like Shmuel in today’s haftarah they had serious misgivings about being under the rule of a king.

But beyond knowing what they didn’t want, in order to move forward, they had to invent an alternative. And the way they did that was to talk it out. To argue.

Argument in the service of something greater than ourselves has intrinsic value, as our founders demonstrated. Had they not taken on the responsibility of thinking out loud together—sometimes peacefully and sometimes less so, but always with the goal in mind—we would not be here 250 years later to celebrate their labors. It took maturity and forbearance to work it out together, “in order to form a more perfect union.”

It was, in a sense, holy work.

Of course, our Sages had this model in mind, millennia before George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and the gang got into it. In Pirkei Avot, Chapter 5, Mishnah 17, we have the famous teaching:

‏כָּל מַחֲלֹקֶת שֶׁהִיא לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם סוֹפָהּ לְהִתְקַיֵּם.
וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם אֵין סוֹפָהּ לְהִתְקַיֵּם.
Every argument that is undertaken for the sake of heaven,
its result will endure.
But every argument that is not undertaken for the sake of heaven,
its result will not endure.

The Mishnah goes on to cite the ongoing halachic disagreements between the students of Hillel and those of Shammai as an example of a מַחֲלֹקֶת לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם, an argument for the sake of heaven. Hillel and Shammai’s respective schools saw just about everything differently. BUT because they shared a common purpose—to preserve and codify Jewish tradition in a time of upheaval—their arguments were courteous enough. They managed to regard each others’ viewpoints with respect, even when they disagreed vehemently. Keeping their minds on their shared intention allowed them to soften their ego-engagement in order to prioritize searching for the truth.

Meanwhile, the Mishnah’s example for מַחֲלֹקֶת שֶׁאֵינָהּ לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם is the argument that we have in our parsha this week, מַחֲלֹקֶת קֹרַח וְכָל עֲדָתוֹ—the argument of Korach and his whole group.

We are living at a time when more and more Americans are polarized beyond the willingness even to hear one another’s viewpoints, much less to examine them humbly in search of the truth. At times, it starts to seem like healthy argument is a lost art. And so, I think it’s worth looking closely at what happens in the parsha, if only to teach ourselves what not to do.

Consider, for an example, the way the infamous Moses temper is already beginning to flare just a few verses in. Korach and his fellow rebels know how to push Moses’s buttons and Moses plays his part. Rather than respond to Korach’s provocation with de-escalation, he is activated right away, throwing the rebels’ words back at them and calling for direct confrontation the next morning, with God as the arbiter.

After laying into Korach, Moses tries to settle in and make some progress with Datan and Aviram, making an overture toward a separate meeting to work things out. But Datan and Aviram nurse their grudges rather than try to have a useful conversation. Their refusal to talk pushes Moses even further into hardening his own position. His anger boils over:

וַיִּחַר לְמֹשֶׁה מְאֹד וַיֹּאמֶר אֶל-ה’ אַל־תֵּפֶן אֶל־מִנְחָתָם
Moses became very angry, and he said to God: don’t accept their offerings.

When Moses grows angry, he presses his own advantage by using his elevated position to get God to reject the insurgents.

Throughout the confrontation, Moses and the rebels alike are talking right past each other, refusing to listen, and allowing their fury to get the better of them. And in Chapter 16, Verse 21, after Moses’s anger boils over, even God gets into the fray, threatening to destroy the entire community.

Only after Moses sees God amplifying his own anger does he, Moses, begin to settle down and behave more rationally, asking God to reconsider the impulse to collective punishment. Seeing our own behavior mirrored in another person can sometimes snap us out of our worst tendencies. Is that really what I look like? we ask ourselves. Surely I’m better than that.

Even prior to the fateful clash, Korach’s mode of argument is unfair and definitely not לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם. One commentator’s reading of our Mishnah illustrates why. The Malbim, a 19th century Ukrainian rabbi, notes that in the construction of the end of the Mishnah, the argument not for the sake of heaven is that of Korach and his whole group, not of Korach and Moses. He notes that rather than take his grievances directly to the person he wants an answer from, Korach triangulates with 250 other people, gathering an army that ultimately pays a price.

Korach uses his verbal skill and attention to human nature to speak to the ego of each of those 250 people. Preying on their resentments, insecurities—their sense of outrage—he stokes in them a feeling of injustice, which he then leverages against Moses for his own aims. He creates the illusion of a shared purpose, but there was never any intent for all of the נְשִׂיאֵי עֵדָה—these pillars of the community—to assume leadership roles. It was useful to Korach for them to imagine they might. He incites them to an insurgency that they think they’ll benefit from, but in the end it’s only to further his own hopes for power.

None of this is for the sake of heaven.

By contrast, the American founders had strong disagreements on many fundamental issues: federal vs. state power; industrial vs. agrarian basis for the economy; and especially, slavery. But despite those disagreements, they worked it through to the best of their capacity, with the greater good in mind. I don’t claim that their solutions were perfect, or permanent, as we can see all too clearly today. But their method was one that sought unity even in the absence of uniformity.

There’s a recurring phrase in Parshat Korach, thrown back and forth between Korach and Moses: רַב־לָכֶם. In the parsha, it can mean: this is too much, or you’ve gone too far, or you take too much for yourselves.

And although this is clearly not the intent in context, I can’t help thinking about another meaning of the word Rav: teacher. Injecting this way-outside translation, we can read רַב־לָכֶם to mean, a teacher for you. And indeed this passage has something to teach us, a lesson we 21st-century Americans dearly need to learn. Discord without a shared purpose can be catastrophic, can swallow you whole.

As we celebrate 250 years of the search for wholesome, enduring American values, let us each consider how we might turn toward one another in friendship and community, not ignoring disagreement but acknowledging it. May we recommit ourselves to מַחֲלֹקֶת לְשֵׁם שָׁמַיִם: to seeing our neighbors’ humanity. May we defuse the assumptions that encourage us to view everyone outside our own circle of understanding as villainous and stupid. Instead, may we discern the common purpose that American ideals at their best point us toward, and be tireless in holding that purpose in mind and heart as we move forward together.

Shabbat shalom!

Behar (Bechukotai) for TAA

(Delivered May 9, 2026)

Shabbat shalom!

We find ourselves today at the end of Sefer Vayikra, the Book of Leviticus, which I must admit is almost nobody’s favorite book. The text of Leviticus בְּגָדול—overall—is full of rules and regulations, blood and guts, sacrifices, rituals, restrictions.

My teacher, Rabbi Nehemia Polen, on the other hand, loves Leviticus. Loves it, loves it, loves it.

In Nehemia’s world, Leviticus becomes almost romantic: he reads it as a tender description of acts of profound devotion: of the gifts that God asks of humanity and that humanity lovingly offers. Where the rest of us see the mind-numbing details of alienating ritual, Nehemia sees care and softness, a desire for deeper connection and partnership.

The emotional drama underneath those boring details is of God and humanity reaching toward each other, repairing the sense of abandonment arising from centuries of enslavement, moving past the savagery of the Golden Calf, dwelling in sacred companionship in a holy place, that God designs and the Israelites construct. To put it another way, the Mishkan and the many elaborate religious practices that take place within it are the embodied expression of the covenant that defines the Jewish people.

Although I passed Nehemia’s class and wrote a pretty good final essay, I have some lingering skepticism for this reading.

But Parshat Behar-Bechukotai, particularly what we encounter in the first shlish—the first triennial reading—offers a wink here and there of the passion and adoration that my teacher sees in the book overall.

Consider the loving care that God commands us to have for one another and for the land. The system of שְׁמִיטָה and יוֹבֵל—of letting the land rest every seven years, and of rebalancing wealth inequities every fifty—speaks to a strong theme of generosity and good will toward one another. It also demands a level of faith in the unseen, to be able to accept the enforced no-harvest period. Between us and God, and amongst ourselves, these principles teach and demand a kind of tenderness.

The parsha’s many lessons about economic justice likewise point to an ethic of love and חֶסֶד, commanding us to uphold the dignity of the migrant or the servant with as much energy as we would do for our own kin. It would be enough that the parsha forbids taking economic advantage of someone who is struggling. But our Torah goes further, to command that if we see someone beginning to struggle, we must intervene to support and strengthen them (וְהֶחֱזַקְתָּ בּוֹ). Rashi compares this to a heavy load on an animal. If the load begins to wobble, it’s better to catch it quickly before it falls to the ground. Once it has fallen all the way, it’s that much harder to lift it up. With this teaching, the Torah is demanding that we not look away from suffering, that we see the struggles of the world as our own and labor to help. That these teachings are couched in the refrain: אֲנִי ה’ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם—I am Adonai your God—completes the circuit of love and compassion. The more empathic the human-to-human interaction, the more it aligns with God’s primary principle of עָרֵֵבוּת—of taking responsibility for one another.

But let me tell you about one particular pasuk that encapsulates the divine-human connection and love that Nehemia believes permeates Vayikra. In chapter 25, verse 23, God says:

וְהָאָרֶץ לֹא תִמָּכֵר לִצְמִתֻת כִּי־לִי הָאָרֶץ כִּי־גֵרִים וְתוֹשָׁבִים אַתֶּם עִמָּדִי׃
But the land will not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is Mine.
You are strangers and sojourners with Me.

The final word of that pasuk עִמָּדִי—with Me—opens a world of theological questions and possibilities. When the verse says we are with God, what is the quality of that with-ness? Are we wanderers being accompanied by God, our footsteps monitored from the middle distance by an all-knowing presence? Or is God also a stranger and sojourner, wandering alongside us as we go about our lives?

Surely the ambiguity is not an accident.

It is comforting enough to imagine the former: that God is watching peacefully over us, guiding our every choice. The strangeness and the sojourn never get out of hand because God is with us. Yet if God is also a stranger and sojourner, if we are walking beside God in wonder and sometimes bewilderment, how does that obligate us, to God and to one another?

This, I believe, is the sense of depth and companionship that makes Nehemia Polen so devoted to Sefer Vayikra. Ultimately, it’s the idea that God and we are sojourners together, learning from one another and holding one another steady in the whirlwind of life. As the spiritual teacher Ram Dass—born Richard Alpert—said, “We are all just walking each other home.”

We are all just walking each other home.

May our footsteps be guided by kindness.

Shmini for TAA

(Delivered April 11, 2026)

The nature of God: a lesson in three parts.

Part One.

כִּי הַיּוֹם ה’ נִרְאָה אֲלֵיכֶם
For today God will be revealed to you (Vayikra 9:4)

Could any phrase be more promising? At the opening of Parshat Shmini, we find ourselves at a moment of new beginning. The labor that has taken up the last half of Sefer Shmot—the Book of Exodus—and the beginning of Vayikra—is, at long last, complete. The Mishkan is ready, along with the vessels and utensils of the sacrificial rite. The Priestly garments are woven and sewn, with embroidered bells and pomegranates, and twisted threads of crimson and blue and eggplant purple. The Kohanim are trained. They have completed the seven day period of מִלּוּאִם—of ordination, with its isolation, reflection, and preparation. They are poised now, arrayed in their finery.

The day has arrived, and God will be revealed.

There’s nothing like a clean slate. New beginnings offer us a sense of freshness and possibility. They whisper to us, making us think that optimism is earned and that nothing will ever change or decay. In the world of new beginnings, life is perennially rosy and sweet, we are young and full of potential, easily convinced of our rightness.

It’s opening day and your team hasn’t lost a game. It’s the day of your first child’s birth and you have neither changed a single diaper nor startled awake at 3am in their teen years wondering when they are going to be home. It’s the moment of your first kiss, and you haven’t discovered your love’s actual humanity.

As the Mishkan opens for business, Aaron and the priests begin to place holy offerings on the altar: a young calf, a ram without blemish, a grain offering. Everything is as it should be.

Everything is perfect.

כִּי־יָשָׁר ה’ צוּרִי וְלֹא־עַוְלָתָה בּוֹ
For God is upright, my rock, in whom there is no wrong (Psalms 92:16)

Part Two.

כִּי הַיּוֹם ה’ נִרְאָה אֲלֵיכֶם
For today God will be revealed to you (Vayikra 9:4)

Everything is perfect. Until it isn’t.

Next, Parshat Shmini takes us into one of the most horrifying, inexplicable scenes in the Torah—a catastrophe so unthinkable that most of us can barely get the words out to talk about it. The priestly rite begins as anticipated, and then goes horribly wrong. Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, approach the altar with אֵשׁ זָרָה—with a strange fire.

Once, back in Parshat Mishpatim, they had sat at the foot of the divine, on a surface blue like sapphire.

And now, memories of eating and drinking with their father and the elders of the community in the presence of God spark them to come closer than they should, to love God more than they should, to make their own path. They break the boundaries of their roles as Kohanim, and are put to the flame. In an instant, they are gone. וַיִּדֹּם אַהֲרֹן—and Aaron did not speak. In the face of such a thing, their shellshocked father can only be silent.

The sudden misfortune is impossible to explain, yet it sends us, in all our story-seeking humanity, flailing about, searching for reasons. Rabbi Yishmael suggests they were drunk. Rabbi Eliezer says they dared to render halachic rulings in the presence of Moses their Elder and Teacher. Big-hearted Ibn Ezra wonders if perhaps they thought they were doing something favorable towards God; maybe they were just misunderstood.

Something else occurred to me, a thought almost too painful to articulate. Maybe Aaron, who sinned so grievously in creating the Golden Calf, has become the embodiment of

פֹּקֵד עֲוֹן אָבֹת עַל־בָּנִים
God visits the misdeeds of the parents on the children (Shmot 20:5)

Ultimately the reasons don’t matter. The implacable situation remains. Aaron started the day with four sons and ends it with two.

The mystery of God’s decrees—who shall live and who shall die—is not for us to know or understand. The mind of God cannot be fathomed in the human realm.

Part Three.

כִּי הַיּוֹם ה’ נִרְאָה אֲלֵיכֶם
For today God will be revealed to you (Vayikra 9:4)

Immediately after the calamity come halting attempts at recovery. Moses—already known for not being a good talker—struggles to find the right words, offering explanations where none could possibly satisfy. Still, he attempts to move forward, ordering the removal of the bodies.

Moses tries to relieve Aaron and his remaining sons Elazar and Itamar of the burden of mourning but the words don’t come easily. Eventually he says what many readers probably wish he’d led with: אֲחֵיכֶם כָּל־בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל יִבְכּוּ—your brothers, the whole house of Israel weep. Moses and the community proceed to feed the bewildered survivors and to offer them a place of honor as befitting their status as Kohanim in mourning.

As the Torah unfurls, the names of Nadav and Avihu are not forgotten. The two remain threads in the fabric of the Israelite community.

This, too, is an aspect of the divine: יָתוֹם וְאַלְמָנָה יְעוֹדֵד—God gives courage to the orphan and the widow. (Psalms 146:7)

Epilogue.

Parshat Shmini takes us to the terrifying core of the human relationship with God, the mystery at the heart of our existence. It asks us to bear the unbearable, to struggle with what truths might be hidden inside this story of wild, unfathomable loss. The lesson, I think, is that God is the unifying logic underneath each and every moment in this chaotic, unfolding universe.

כִּי הַיּוֹם ה’ נִרְאָה אֲלֵיכֶם
For today God will be revealed to you (Vayikra 9:4)

Shabbat Chol haMoed Pesach for TAA

(Delivered April 4, 2026)

Shabbat shalom & moadim l’simcha!

So yesterday, in a panic to write the introductions for the aliyot, I discovered quite by accident that the Torah readings for Shabbat Chol haMoed Pesach for Shabbat Chol haMoed Sukkot are exactly the same. In Sukkot’s moment of embracing the impermanence of life and in Pesach’s moment of exulting in liberation, we scroll back to the same place, to witness God and Moses repairing their connection following the abasement of the Golden Calf. On the face of it, it seems incongruous. Insecurity and freedom take us to the same place. Why? What makes these Torah readings wink at each other from halfway across the calendar? Why might we turn to them in these two different but both liminal moments?

The connection to Sukkot is easier to grasp. Sukkot puts us in a mind of vulnerability—at Sukkot we purposely abandon our shelters and routines to subject ourselves to the elements. We read world-weary Kohelet. We enact all manner of rain-seeking ritual in order to try to influence what cannot be influenced. We make it a point to remind ourselves that we are at the mercy of forces much larger than us, and instead of cowering in a corner with this knowledge, we go outside for the week and enjoy the moonlight. This seems a perfect time to engage a Torah reading that gives us Moses at his most anxious and God saying, in so many words, I’m here. Hold on.

The connection of the exact same Torah reading to Pesach feels a little more tenuous on first glance. Why, with the taste of liberation on our lips, do we pause during the days of Moed and remind ourselves of just how quickly that liberation went wrong, of just how unprepared we actually were for freedom and how foolishly we navigated it?

At our seders, when we heard Moses say in our mind’s ear, “Let My people go!” we might or might not have thought about what he said next. The full phrase that God thunders, through Moses, is שלח את עמי ויעבדוני—let My people go and they will serve Me. The end goal of freedom wasn’t about sleeping late in the morning or heading to the beach at a moment’s notice or (my personal favorite) driving fast with the wind in your face. Rather it was about becoming fully-realized spiritual beings, about committing ourselves to God.

Let’s listen carefully to the Hebrew. In leaving Egypt we go מעבדות לחירות; and what God tells Moses to demand of Pharaoh is שלח את עמי ויעבדוני. You hear it, right? The connection between slavery עבדות and sacred obligation עבודה, are both derived from the same root letters—ayin, bet, daled.

The exodus was about exchanging the עבדות of enslavement to Pharaoh for the עבדות of serving God. I like to say we traded up!

Still, what followed after the exodus was neither easy nor simple. Our feet had barely dried after crossing Yam Suf when the complaining and the doubt and the rose-colored memories of the good old days of slavery started. Then, when Moses went up Mount Sinai to be with God, and to receive the teachings that would guide our lives for generations to come, the Israelites panicked and made a huge communal mistake. Our Torah reading picks up the story in the aftermath of this mass hysteria, and asks us to explore the question of what comes next after such a rupture.

The scene between Moses and God reads a little bit like a dialogue between lovers who have just had their first real fight: Moses pleads for more reassurance, testing over and over again to find out—have I really found grace in your eyes? Meanwhile, God offers presence and promises. Back and forth they go, trying to rebuild what has been shaken by a staggering breach of trust. Reconciliation doesn’t come all at once but rather on its own schedule, in this halting, slightly desperate exchange. On it goes until Moses asks the impossible.

וַיֹּאמַר הַרְאֵנִי נָא אֶת־כְּבֹדֶךָ׃
And he said: oh please show me Your presence.

We know—as God reiterates in verse 20—that humans cannot actually see God and live, but Moses in this moment is standing in for an entire traumatized community. He needs to be strengthened for continued leadership, and he intuits that the Israelites’ slide into idolatry was partly informed by the sheer difficulty of believing in a God they could not see. He needs to know that what he’s teaching the Israelites is going to hold them—and him—steady until they can finally reach their promised destination.

The best that God can offer, though, is a compromise: that Moses can come close, nestle into a crevice of the rock, and then get a glimpse from behind as God passes by. God says, essentially, Look, there’s a place near Me. Come stand in this crag,

וְשַׂכֹּתִי כַפִּי עָלֶיךָ עַד־עָבְרִי׃
And I will shelter you with My hand until I have passed by.

This is a gesture of surpassing tenderness. It says: You need something I can’t give. Let’s find another way; let me take care of you in the ways I can, and hope that it’s enough. You may not see me where I am, but you will see where I’ve been.

In fact this seems just the thought to call back to mind in moments of insecurity or transition, in the literal Chol haMoeds of Sukkot or Pesach as much as in the figurative Chol haMoeds of life. These moments when we have lost our way are exactly the moments when it’s comforting to remember our ancestors coped with doubt and trouble as well, and that despite everything, they found a way back to the presence of the divine.

To think of this reconciliation during Sukkot is to reassure ourselves that the unpredictability we experience in our flimsy shelters is countered by a force far greater than ourselves, something we can return to at any moment to knit ourselves back into the fabric of certainty. And reflecting on this reconciliation in the middle of Pesach helps to remind us that there’s more to the God Whose power can bring about a series of plagues—each one more horrific than the last—and lead the Israelites from degradation to exaltation. The mighty hand that pulled the Israelites from the trap of hopelessness and enslavement, and the tender hand that sheltered a shellshocked and grieving Moses are one and the same.

Tzav for TAA

(Delivered March 28, 2026)

Shabbat shalom!

At the risk of annoying my Torah study folks, I have to say it again. You might even want to say it with me: The Torah is always right on time.

This week our reading, from Parshat Tzav, is teaching us about offerings, about fire and purification and even chametz. As the taxonomy of different offerings takes shape, Aaron and the Kohanim are downloading instruction for how to make different kinds of offerings, how to take on the mantle of Priesthood: what to offer, what to keep and what to take elsewhere.

Meanwhile the calendar is teaching us that it’s time to clean out our kitchens to prepare for Pesach. We are engaged in sorting and switching and cooking and planning and consulting a taxonomy of what’s allowed and what’s not. Like the ancient Priests, we, too, are downloading instruction. Like the ancient Priests, we, too, find ourselves discerning what to offer, what to keep, and what to take elsewhere.

The fact that the word chametz comes up in the parsha; the fact that there is an aliyah which seems so clearly to be about matzah brei in this parsha that always occurs around this time of year, can certainly start to make you wonder. What’s the link? Other than the literal קָרְבַּן פֶּסַח—one of the three essential elements of the seder, according to Rabban Gamliel—what does the ancient system of offerings have to do with Pesach? Why does our tradition throw them together?

This question came up in Torah study the other day, but I didn’t quite know how to address it. Of course there are the obvious links, but why are they there? The Torah is generally not for the obvious, not for the easy answers. The conversation Thursday moved on unconcluded, but I couldn’t shake the subtle question from my mind.

Why are the offerings and the holiday of Pesach so entangled?

As it says in the הַגָּדָה, we begin to answer.

The link I’m starting to make out, as if through fog, comes through the Kabbalistic teaching that chametz can be interpreted metaphorically, as an excess of ego. Just as leavening causes breads to rise and puff up, so too our own egos can cause us to get puffed-up, to become arrogant and full of ourselves. When we invest too much in shallow or self-serving ideas and actions, we tend to lose sight of what’s important. Preparing for Pesach is a way to take stock of the excesses in our lives, in the kitchen, and in our very selves. It’s like a tune-up for the work of teshuvah that we do in the sweep from Elul into the fall holidays.

In the springtime, as we seek out the chametz in our kitchens, we also examine our own attitudes and temptations: Where am I sliding into self-regard? Where am I turning my compass toward praise and ego-gratification, rather than integrity and service?

And then, when we’ve sought out all those places of puffery and hubris, when we’ve gathered them together, we sweep them out. What we do in our physical homes, we do for our spiritual selves.

The tradition of Biur Chametz (burning chametz) calls us, on the morning of the day of the first Seder, to collect, disavow, and burn any remaining chametz in our kitchens. After we’ve gathered all the crumbs, we place them on a pan, light a fire, and turn them into smoke, enacting a kind of mini קָרְבַּן of all that we must avoid during Pesach. As with our crumbs, so too with our own failings. If chametz represents our vanity, burning our chametz represents trimming our egos back down to size.

Biur Chametz recalls the burnt offerings of the parsha, and indeed when we look at the practice outlined in the first aliyah, of תְּרוּמָת הַדֶּשֶׁן—raising up the ashes—we can begin to flesh out the analogy. The act of תְּרוּמָת הַדֶּשֶׁן involves the Kohen, dressed in his priestly finery, beginning each morning by sweeping up the ashes of the previous day’s offerings. The work of תְּרוּמָת הַדֶּשֶׁן is unglamorous; it’s simply what needs to be done. In the same way that the world is created anew each morning, the Kohen wiping the slate clean of ashes around the altar makes it possible to start afresh ritually each morning. The picture of such an exalted figure as a Kohen basically relegated to cleanup duty is a powerful call to examine our relationship with status. The medieval Jewish scholar, Bahya Ibn Pekuda describes the spiritual valence of תְּרוּמָת הַדֶּשֶׁן as, “forsaking greatness and honor by serving God.” And after lifting up the ashes, the Kohen changes into the Priestly equivalent of his dungarees and does the even less exalted part, of taking the ashes outside the camp to a place of purity for disposal. That the primary religious leaders of the time were implicated in this mundane and messy task tells us a lot about how our tradition wants us to deal with our egos.

Elsewhere in the parsha we encounter the description of the butchery of the guilt offering: what to do with the various animal parts like the blood and the fat and the kidneys. Tucked into this alienatingly exacting—and graphic— passage is the phrase הַיֹּתֶרֶת עַל־הַכָּבֵד—the protuberance on the liver. Playing with the language, we can wander into the realm of allegory to discover yet another wink at controlling our own egos. If we repoint the vowels, it reads הַיֹּתֶרֶת עַל־הַכָּבֹד—the excess of glory. This excess of glory, like the fat and the kidneys, is ultimately burned up, as an offering to something larger than the self.

So with respect to our original question about what’s underneath the subtle alignment of Torah reading and calendar, I suspect it has to do with inviting us to open the metaphor of Pesach preparation and allow it to work on our souls as much as on our kitchens. Turning a process that could be just a panicked scramble into something rich with meaning is one way for us to fulfill the principle that comes to us from the Mishnah by way of the Haggadah:

בְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת עַצְמוֹ כְאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם
In each and every generation, a person is obligated to see themselves as if they personally went out from Egypt.

Preparing our homes, burning our chametz: these are a way of making an offering to God, of connecting with our ancient practices and investing them with modern, personal meaning.

Bechol dor vador indeed.

Shabbat shalom!

Ki Tissa for TAA

(Delivered March 7, 2026)

Years ago, in my singing phase, I was enamored of a short song by the Austrian composer Hugo Wolf, called Auch kleine Dinge. With poetry by Paul Heyse, this little gem from the Italienisches Liederbuch sang the praises of small things. Maybe it’s because I am small myself, maybe it’s because I’m a middle child: Ever since I turned my attention to Torah, I have always been drawn to the small details that might otherwise be overlooked. I can linger over a phrase or a word. I can outright obsess over a passage that, if I were a quicker reader, I might just breeze through.

Parshat Ki Tissa, this week’s portion, is chock full of iconic passages; it’s… eventful. It’s mostly known for עֵגֶל הַזָהָב—the golden calf, and for Moses’s deep encounter with God at the cleft of the rock. Yet what spoke to me in this eventful week was six psukim that focus not on events or actions but on their absence. I’m referring, of course, to the parsha’s brief, stark, mildly confusing passage about Shabbat.

In chapter 31 verses 12 and 13 we read:

וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר׃
וְאַתָּה דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר אַךְ אֶת־שַׁבְּתֹתַי תִּשְׁמֹרוּ
כִּי אוֹת הִוא בֵּינִי וּבֵינֵיכֶם לְדֹרֹתֵיכֶם לָדַעַת כִּי אֲנִי ה’ מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם׃
God said to Moses, “You speak to the Israelites, to say:
‘Indeed you will keep My Shabbatot, for it is a sign between Me and you for the generations,
to know that I, Adonai, make you holy.’”

This couplet sparks many questions in my mind. The way pasuk thirteen is phrased is quirky enough to raise the commentators’ curiosities as well. For example, why does it say וְאַתָּה? Typically when God speaks to Moses, there’s a formula: וַיֹּאמֶר ה’ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר—and God spoke to Moses to say, and then it just launches with the verb: דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל—speak to the Israelites. Here, it specifies וְאַתָּה. Why? Inserting the vav prefix before a pronoun is a way of drawing attention—think וַאֲנִי תְפִילָתִי. Why might that emphasis be needed here? The Mechilte de Rabbi Shimon proposes that the emphasis is to show that Moses specifically should speak to the Israelite people, not a messenger, not an angel. Moses himself. The Emek Davar sharpens this point: it’s Moses and only Moses who is responsible for sitting down with each and every person working on the Mishkan, to make sure they understand they have to pause for Shabbat. Despite all that took place in Parshat Yitro, with Moses carefully establishing a system of delegation, teaching about Shabbat is important enough that it can’t be outsourced. Some things you simply have to do yourself. The vav and the pronoun here are meant to slow us down and get our attention.

Then there’s the question of that אַךְ. Another untranslatable particle, אַךְ can mean indeed, or nevertheless. There’s a world of difference, though, between, “Indeed you will keep my Shabbatot,” and, “Nevertheless, you will keep my Shabbatot.” The first represents continuity, assuming and reinforcing that we’ll keep the commandment; the second represents a rupture. The second presupposes there’s a reason not to. The ambiguity of the vocabulary points to an underlying tension in the whole notion of Shabbat, with “indeed” representing what we should do, and “nevertheless” representing the temptation not to. In case you think your personal flavor of resistance to Shabbat practice is unprecedented, the Torah is here to remind us all that, as Fern said at Torah study this week, spirituality is difficult.

It’s tempting to wonder why bother.

The continuation of the pasuk attempts an answer, but, again, it’s not simple. Shabbat is a sign throughout the generations between God and the Israelites לָדַעַת כִּי אֲנִי ה’ מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם—to know that I, Adonai, make you holy. It seems perfectly obvious till you think about it. What does this actually mean? How exactly does Shabbat help people to know that God makes us holy? What are the mechanics of that knowing? For Rashbam, the knowing is in the doing. He says the Israelites keep Shabbat in imitation of God, and this is how we know we belong to God. The Rashbam doesn’t allow for an intellectual understanding of Shabbat that might infuse us with knowing that God has made us holy. We have to experience it. It’s in the doing—or, more accurately, in the not doing— that Shabbat has its way with us. This is how we come to know the ways in which God has made us holy. Elsewhere, the Midrash Aggadah teaches that when a person observes Shabbat, it’s as if they themselves have invented it.

The passage in our parsha goes on to say that those who desecrate the sabbath by working will be put to death, will be cut off from their kinfolk. Although our ancestors may have lived in a world in which that was taken literally, we have the privilege and perspective to read this metaphorically. In fact, I’d say we have an obligation to read it as metaphor, rather than simply dismissing it as impossibly draconian and therefore irrelevant. The warning is not that our physical lives will end if we don’t keep every teaching about Shabbat. Rather, that if we continue our labors without pause, if we work as if work is the only thing that matters, we suffer a kind of spiritual death. In this way we are definitionally cut off from our kinfolk, for we lose our sense of connection to others when we focus only on our own pursuits.

Of course the Torah offers another vision. In verse 17, we read וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי שָׁבַת וַיִּנָּפַשׁ—on the seventh day, God paused וַיִּנָּפַשׁ. This word וַיִּנָּפַשׁ dances around meanings of: soul, mind, breath, life, desire, self. In other words, in resting, the very breath of God was restored. In resting, God’s self returned.

That’s a strong message for a mere six verses. And yet, leveling up to view the verses in context, the message becomes even more vivid. The sequencing of this passage, the smichut parshiot, is a teaching in itself. Our six verses about Shabbat are tucked in, as if into the cleft of a rock, between the מִשְׁכָּן (the tabernacle) and the עֵגֶל (the Golden Calf). Between labor and disaster.

You might think that the exhaustion of a full week’s work would force our hand, would inspire us to rest. But the Torah knows us better than we know ourselves. It knows that the momentum of work is a powerful force. It knows that work offers us a shiny distraction from the sometimes much more difficult life of the spirit. It knows that, much as we need that holy pause that revives the soul, there will always be a part of us that resists it. After all, even with the warning that Shabbat should be observed on pain of death, we still struggle with it.

The nineteenth-century Zionist thinker Achad haAm is famously quoted as saying, “More than the Jewish people have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jewish people.” Despite having drifted away from his Orthodox upbringing, he got the message about Shabbat and why it’s important. If labor continues without pause, it leads to spiritual disaster. Desecrating Shabbat—that is to say, removing its holiness—cuts us off from what makes us whole, cuts us off from our very selves.

And so I say, as a prayer and a wish, for today and for every Shabbat to come:

Shabbat shalom!

Tetzaveh for TAA

(Delivered February 28, 2026)

“Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me!”

I turn around. It’s a warm spring day, and the Trader Joe’s parking lot is bustling. What does this stranger want from me?

“Do you always wear … [gesturing at my kippah]?” Aged perhaps in his mid to late 60s, friendly but not smiling, he speaks with an Israeli accent.

“I do. I mean, not while I’m sleeping, but yeah. I wear it regularly.”

“Can you tell me why?”

[…]

Although I didn’t grow up wearing a kippah or even knowing any women who did, early in rabbinical school I started experimenting with כִּסוּי רֹאשׁ—covering the head. At first, I wore a kippah only in synagogue, to remind myself of this teaching from the Talmud: שְׁכִינָה לְמַעְלָה מֵרֹאשִׁי—the Divine Presence is above my head. As I got deeper and deeper into my studies, I came to see that the same holiness that felt so near to me in shul was present in other places as well. When I was learning with my havruta or preparing a dvar Torah, that, too, was holy work. Like an ink spot that soaks into the paper beneath it, the sense of holiness gradually seeped into more and more aspects of my daily life.

As I came to find out, the man in the Trader Joe’s parking lot had grown up in an Orthodox family in Israel but had fallen away from that intensive mode of observance. His head was bare, and for him, seeing a woman in a kippah was a shock, if not a provocation. As our conversation unfurled, he told me how when his mother visited from Israel, he took her to the Conservative synagogue he occasionally attended, wanting her to see what his life was like now. After seeing men and women seated together, and everybody wearing kippah and tallit, she didn’t talk to him for a week.

But his misgivings about my choice went deeper than the unfamiliar: For him, what I was doing was potentially dangerous. He imagined me being harassed by antisemites or, for that matter, by ultra-Orthodox Jews.

We spoke for some time, interrogating what it means to be “Jewish enough,” and who actually owns our sacred symbols. Which Jews belong in kippot? Who gets to be a rabbi?

Who’s in and who’s out?

The memory of this incident returned to me as I reflected on this week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh, with its painstaking description of the elaborate ritual clothing that the Israelites create for Aaron and his sons. Each detail of the priestly garments—from material to color to pattern—is carefully articulated. How much detail is embedded in these passages: the hem of the robe decorated with golden bells and embroidered pomegranates, the tunic engraved with the names of the tribes, the apron decorated with gold and twelve types of gemstone!

These divinely commanded garments were powerful symbols of the singularity of the role of כֹּהֵן גַדֹל—High Priest—and of the priesthood in general. Only Aaron, his sons, and their eventual descendants wore these clothes, and only when serving in their ritual capacity. The מְעִיל (tunic) and the אֵפוֹד (apron) the מִצְנֶפֶת (headpiece) and the אַבְנֵט (sash) served to delineate a particular mode of being, a sense of access to the divine that was exclusive. And yet, when Aaron was fully uniformed to enter the Holy of Holies, he carried his entire people with him. The חֹשֶׁן מִשְׁפָּט, untranslatable but often called the breastplate of judgment, was adorned with twelve stones representing Jacob’s twelve sons, or more broadly, the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Thinking about this apparent paradox this week has shaken me to my core. The reason for my upset is that legislation was put forth in Israel this week to grant full control over the Kotel—also known as the Wailing Wall—to the Rabbanut, the ultra-Orthodox Chief Rabbinate. If successful, this move would criminalize religious services at the Kotel that are not ultra-Orthodox. This would effectively dismantle the Egalitarian Kotel. Conservative and Reform, Reconstructionist and Renewal expressions of Judaism would no longer be welcome, indeed would no longer be permitted. Should this legislation pass, millions of Diaspora and Israeli Jews would lose meaningful access to worship at Judaism’s holiest site.

If you’ve ever paid a visit and tucked a note of prayer between those sacred bricks or rested your forehead against the cool stone to sense the presence of your ancestors, you know what a loss this would be.

Just a few weeks before I started my position here, I visited Israel, for the first time in decades. Without question, the most meaningful moment for me was finally being in the presence of the Kotel. As I approached, I felt the weight of the history of that holy space, the longings of generations and generations of Jews.

Who owns that pile of golden stones, the last surviving wall of our people’s ancient place? Who gets to say who prays there?

It’s heartbreaking to think that the flowering of Jewish tradition, a flowering which has given us so much richness and meaning, may soon be cut off, not from outside our community but from within it. The maftir aliyah we read for Shabbat Zachor—the Shabbat of Remembrance—reminds us never to forget the damage caused by Amalek’s sneak attack on the Israelites as they were leaving Egypt. And yet here, the Amalek is no Amalek but our own kin; the sneak attack is one of spiritual violence, designed to humiliate, control, and exclude.

Thinking back on that long-ago conversation in the Trader Joe’s parking lot, I wonder what that Israeli, formerly Orthodox man—someone curious and open-minded enough to engage a stranger from a totally different world in respectful conversation—would say about this. I would hope he, and many others, would join me in speaking out about this potentially devastating decision, a decision that stands to move Israel further in the direction of religious extremism. I would hope that he has signed the petitions and contacted government officials, perhaps recalling what he learned that spring day.

The traditional priestly garments we read about at length in today’s parsha are made of varied threads of many colors, of a mix of fibers; the חֹשֶׁן מִשְׁפָּט itself is bedecked with precious stones representing all twelve of the tribes, without differentiation or favoritism. What lay over Aaron’s very heart in the presence of the divine should teach us: that each of us is a part of that holy fabric and must enjoy freedom of religious expression everywhere, including at our most sacred place.

Terumah for TAA

(Delivered February 21, 2026)

We live in a noisy world. Having just spent a few days in New York this week, I can attest to the near-constant cacophony of voices that permeates the streets there. Voices wooing, voices arguing, voices philosophizing, so many voices preparing for auditions. Our media environment, social and otherwise, offers more of the same. The sheer number of issues about which people are raising their voices is staggering.

Is the new mayor of New York a dangerous antisemite? Is the former Prince Andrew guilty as charged? What, as a society, should we be doing with respect to revelations of rampant sexual abuse and trafficking? What are the merits of the Board of Peace? Can we even give credence to a Board of Peace while simultaneously executing a military buildup in the Middle East? Can the founding of a country be canceled because its origin story is one-sided? Because we don’t like its current policy? Was the late Jesse Jackson a visionary for equality or an unrepentant antisemite?

Just how many servings of vegetables are required per day? Is wine good for you or bad for you? Were the American ice dancers robbed of a gold medal by nationalistic favoritism from the French judge?

You probably have opinions about many, if not most, of these things. So do I. In the cacophony of voices that comprises our world today, it feels increasingly difficult to discern where the truth is. With so much shouting and fist-shaking, with bumper-sticker slogans replacing nuanced discourse, how do we begin to bring order to the cacophony? Which is the voice of ultimate truth, and how do we know it when we hear it?

Our parsha this week, Terumah, is inviting us to think about what that might look like, and offers a fantastical image that could shed some light.

Beginning at chapter 25, verse 17, we read:

וְעָשִׂיתָ כַפֹּרֶת זָהָב טָהוֹר אַמָּתַיִם וָחֵצִי אָרְכָּהּ וְאַמָּה וָחֵצִי רָחְבָּהּ:
וְעָשִׂיתָ שְׁנַיִם כְּרֻבִים זָהָב מִקְשָׁה תַּעֲשֶׂה אֹתָם מִשְּׁנֵי קְצוֹת הַכַּפֹּרֶת׃
Make a covering of pure gold, 2 ½ cubits long and a cubit and a half wide
And make two כְּרֻבִים of hammered gold at the two ends of the covering.

The passage continues with more specifics about the כְּרֻבִים or cherubs: they should be fashioned of a single piece of gold, one כְּרֻב facing the other, with their wings spread out to form a canopy over them and over the covering. This covering will be set over the Aron after the tablets containing the commandments are placed inside it.

And God says:

וְנוֹעַדְתִּי לְךָ שָׁם וְדִבַּרְתִּי אִתְּךָ מֵעַל הַכַּפֹּרֶת מִבֵּין שְׁנֵי הַכְּרֻבִים
And I will meet you there, and I will speak to you from the covering,
from between the two כְּרֻבִים

Digging into this image as metaphor, we can begin to discern a teaching about listening.

Firstly, the two angels face one another. Their posture is one of focus and attention. Neither one is looking at a screen or otherwise distracted by the surroundings; rather each of them is locked in on the other. They have their wings raised above themselves, to create a mutual shelter. These two כְּרֻבִים are tuning out the cacophony to invest in hearing one another. They are not interested in 500 cable channels or what this or that pundit said on X. They model the choice of real listening. Everything about their physical position suggests care, trust, and respect. The Kitzur Ba’al haTurim writes:

וּפְנֵיהֶם אִיש אֶל אַחִיו כְּמוֹ שְׁנֵי חַבֵרִים שֶׁנוֹשְׂאִין וְנוֹתְנִין בְּדִבְרֵי תּוֹרָה
And their faces, each toward his brother,
are like two friends exchanging words of Torah

The voice of the divine is embodied in this image of two equals engaged in speaking about holy things.

Additionally, verse 19 teaches that the two כְּרֻבִים are to be made from the same piece of gold. Taken metaphorically, this is a reminder to us that the deepest truths contain internal contradictions. That a single piece of gold could hold space for opposites squaring off in dialogue should give us a sense of the possibility of finding something of value across a continuum of opinion.

Verse 19 is also phrased in a way that scrupulously avoids taking sides:

וַעֲשֵׂה כְּרוּב אֶחָד מִקָּצָה מִזֶּה וּכְרוּב־אֶחָד מִקָּצָה מִזֶּה
Make one כְּרֻב at one end, and one כְּרֻב at one end

The language is important. It’s not one and the other; there is no other. Each כְּרֻב is its own thing and is offered at least the validity of a hearing. This may be hard for us to translate into our current-day environment, when polarization is the name of the game and admitting to any ambivalence is seen as a sign of weakness. Yet the Torah does not speak in pithy slogans. It isn’t interested in easy answers, nor in black and white. This model of the one and the one is telling us that there can be something worthy of consideration in a wide range of positions. Even someone with whom we deeply disagree deserves a hearing.

I want to be clear that I’m not saying this means everybody is right, or that every opinion is of equal validity. What I am saying is that everybody’s viewpoint is real to them. What I am saying is that if someone has come by an opinion through genuine reflection and humble consideration, we may learn from hearing what they’ve discerned. What I am saying is that there is little to be learned in shouting someone down, or in flattening their viewpoint into something easily swept away, or in dismissing the possibility that the world looks different depending on where we’re standing, that there could be something we’ve missed.

Parshat Terumah, in its description of how we can hear God’s voice, demands courage and tenderness in equal part. It asks us to imagine that God’s voice comes through the middle, the ultimate in balance and in-between-ness. The כְּרֻבִים are one and one—each with its own internal integrity. And by facing one another and sheltering themselves and one another, they form an amplifying shell around the One.

Shabbat shalom!