Dvar Torah: Choosing which parts of the world to embrace and which to resist

I want to begin today by sharing a truly special experience. This past week, I had the honour of celebrating the wedding of a lovely Brazilian couple in Curaçao. For those who haven’t been, it is a magical island in the Caribbean with a unique status: Curaçao is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The joy of the occasion was matched only by the beauty of the setting.

But, as is often the case, the journey itself brought its own story. While I was waiting at the airport for my flight to board, on my way back to Brazil, I came across an intriguing challenge on Instagram. It invited people to ask an A.I. platform to respond to three prompts, each meant to offer insight into one’s identity:

Act as a personal insight analyst. Based on your birth date, what major historical events, global shifts, and generational patterns shaped the world you were born into? How might these influence your worldview and personality?

Use your zodiac sign, numerology, and Chinese animal year to construct an archetypal identity blueprint. What emotional strengths, blind spots, and recurring life challenges might emerge from those patterns?

Build a timeline of your life in seven-year cycles. What themes have likely marked your journey so far, and what might lie ahead?

The first prompt needed some clarification. The AI assumed I had been born and raised in the United States and shaped its answer accordingly, focusing on American events or major global trends. Once I explained that I had lived in Brazil, Israel, and the US, the results became slightly more accurate—but still not particularly insightful.

The third prompt was even less impressive. It simply regurgitated generic stages of psychological development, without tailoring them to the specific events or environments that shaped my life.

The second prompt, however—the one that asked the AI to combine my zodiac sign (Cancer), numerology, and Chinese zodiac year—produced a personality profile that felt, surprisingly, quite accurate.

Now, this brings me to a rather ambivalent relationship I have with the zodiac. Intellectually, I find it to be absolutely nonsense. And yet, quite often, when I read the descriptions for my sign, Cancer, I discover a good fit for who I am. This recent interaction with the A.I. brought that ambivalence right back to the surface, and it left me with a few questions. Is the A.I.'s description so accurate because these profiles are written in such broad and general terms that almost anyone can find themselves described within them? Or is it because, against my own rational judgment, I really do exhibit a classic "Cancer" personality? Or is it, perhaps, because I want to believe that I have the positive attributes that the A.I. or the Zodiac attributed to me, and I'm simply focusing on the parts that align with my desired self-image?

This whole exercise—this question of identity and self-perception—feels especially pointed this week. To some extent, even entertaining the zodiac puts me at odds with Parashat Shoftim. In Devarim, we read:

“When you enter the land that your God ה׳ is giving you, you shall not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. Let no one be found among you who consigns a son or daughter to the fire, or who is an augur, a soothsayer, a diviner, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, or one who consults ghosts or familiar spirits, or one who inquires of the dead. For anyone who does such things is abhorrent to יהוה...[1]

This is a strong rejection of divination, astrology, and other forms of spiritual fortune-telling. And yet, the truth is that our ancestors were not foreign to the zodiac and did not live in a bubble where other cultures had no impact on their lives. We have found synagogues as old as the 4th century with magnificent floor mosaics depicting the full circle of zodiac signs. Many practices we now consider quintessentially Jewish—like the Passover Seder, the sevivon, or even dressing in costume on Purim—were borrowed and adapted from other religious or cultural contexts.

When Judaism is at its best, this creative interplay with external influences leads not to assimilation, but to revitalisation. It renews old traditions and allows us to sanctify the new. As Rav Kook, the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, once taught:
 הישן יתחדש והחדש יתקדש — “The old will be renewed, and the new will be made holy.”

But what happens when our engagement with the dominant culture leads us away from holiness?
 What happens when we adopt not new rituals, but new values—values that stand in direct opposition to what our tradition holds sacred?

What happens when we abandon the idea of fighting all forms of idolatry and succumb to adherence without questioning? When we pursue and exercise power without limits? When we abandon the moral code our tradition insists we live by—simply because we can?

In his commentary on Parashat Shoftim, Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin writes:

“The Jews must be different from other people. This is the essential lesson behind many of the Torah’s laws—to ensure that the People of Israel will be an am kadosh, a holy people. In this context, the Israelites must reject the ritual elements of the Canaanite religion. It is interesting to note that most of those practices are connected to death—the ritual offering of children, and attempting to speak to the dead. By rejecting those practices, Judaism guaranteed that it would become a religion that celebrates life, not one that glorifies death.”[2]

This is a powerful statement—and one we often take for granted. But in a world where even the most insular Jewish communities are deeply shaped by broader cultural values—values like unchecked individualism, the pursuit of fame and power, or the accumulation of wealth without ethical boundaries—can we still honestly say that Judaism is a religion that celebrates life?

Or is that, like the zodiac profile for Cancer, just a flattering description—more about how we wish to be seen than who we actually are?

As we journey through Elul, a time set aside for honest self-examination, we are invited to ask these difficult questions. Who are we really becoming—both as individuals and as a people? What values are shaping us? What narratives are we believing about ourselves—and are they true?

Let us resist the temptation to cling to the most comforting descriptions, whether written in the stars or in our sacred books. Instead, may we have the courage to look clearly at our lives, to hold ourselves accountable, and to recommit to the sacred task of becoming holy.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] Deuteronomy 18:9–12.

[2] Jeffrey K. Salkin The JPS B’nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary, p. 88/578 (e-book)

Does it Make Sense to Ask, “How Many Wives Is Too Many?”

(A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "Faz sentido perguntar “quantas esposas é demais”?!")

When I was a child, I must admit, I used to sing the Brazilian nursery rhyme "Atirei o Pau no Gato" without thinking much about animal welfare. The song, which translates to "I Threw the Stick at the Cat," tells the story of a person throwing a stick at a cat and the cat's cry of distress. Perhaps if the stick had been aimed at a dog, and not a cat, I would have had more empathy for the victim of the action. But, as I was never a big fan of felines, I never truly registered the violence of the act.

As a teenager, I started hearing different versions of the song that, with an educational purpose, changed the lyrics to "don't throw the stick at the cat because it's not the right thing to do, the kitten is our friend, we mustn't mistreat animals." [1] While we would sing these new lyrics mockingly, making light of the concern to change a children's song to avoid encouraging violence against animals, I realised for the first time that the original lyrics were, in fact, violent and encouraged undesirable behaviour.

When we look back at the past, it's quite common to see inappropriate behaviours that we once accepted as natural, but which are no longer considered acceptable today. In the spirit of chesbon hanefesh, the spiritual process of personal assessment in preparation for the High Holidays, we identify the areas of our lives in which we lived up to the person we want to be and those in which we fell short of that ideal. It is also an opportunity to broaden our perspective and recognise which inappropriate conducts have become normalised and must now be re-evaluated.

In this week's parashah, Shoftim, the Israelites are given permission to have a king after they enter the Promised Land. The text makes it clear that this leader would be a man, while also setting limits on the monarch's power: he must be an Israelite, he cannot accumulate excessive wealth in gold, silver, or horses, he shall not send his people back to Egypt, and he shall not have many wives. The text doesn't specify what "many" means, but there seems to be a consensus that up to eighteen wives would be acceptable; above that number, it would be considered an excess.

For a long time, the commentators on this passage (all men) debated whether the number eighteen was excessive or not, whether it could be exceeded if all the wives were "good," and whether the limit would also apply to a person who was not a king.[2] No one ever asked, however, why the wives were listed alongside the other forms of wealth that the king could accumulate, albeit with limits. Perhaps the greatest innovation that Judaism brought to the world was the idea that all human beings were created in the image of God and are, therefore, endowed with inalienable dignity. Do the instructions to the king that treat his wives as property truly reflect this profound Jewish value?

We can find similar examples in which women were not treated with due dignity in other stories from Jewish tradition (the book of Esther or the story of King Solomon and his 700 wives, for example) and from other cultures. However, the time has come to revisit the behaviours implicitly accepted in these narratives and to point out what we are no longer willing to accept. In the past decade, the #metoo movement has shone a light on how powerful men abuse their social and professional positions to commit harassment and violence, practices that many were aware of but considered to be "part of the game."

Parashat Shoftim also deals with the structuring of a judicial system that makes the pursuit of justice a central characteristic of Hebrew society. On this point, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits wrote: “To seek justice is to relieve the oppressed. But how else are the oppressed to be relieved if not by judging the oppressor and crushing the ability to oppress! (…) The toleration of injustice is the toleration of human suffering. Since the proud and the mighty who inflict the suffering do not, as a rule, yield to moral persuasion, responsibility for the sufferer demands that justice be done so that oppression be ended.” [3]

May this Shabbat allow us to seek justice for all, particularly by challenging the naturalised abuses of the powerful, and thus begin the process of transforming ourselves into the version of ourselves we wish to be.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] This vídeo includes both versions of the song: https://youtube.com/shorts/jBJQQavNjyE
[2] See, for example, the commentaries of Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Aderet Eliahu on Deut. 17:17.
[3] As cited in Harvey Fields, A Torah Commentary for Our Times, vol. 3, p. 140.

Dvar Torah: Seeing with Care in an Age of Certainty

This week we read Parashat Re’eh. As it begins, Moshe, speaking to the people on the plains of Moab, about to enter the Promised Land, lays out a choice of cosmic significance. He says:

רְאֵה אָנֹכִי נֹתֵן לִפְנֵיכֶם הַיּוֹם בְּרָכָה וּקְלָלָה

“See, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse.” (Deuteronomy 11:26)

He continues, making the terms perfectly clear: the blessing comes if you listen to the commandments of God, and the curse comes if you do not.

It all seems so straightforward, so binary. On one side, there is light, blessing, and obedience. On the other, darkness, curse, and rebellion. It’s a structure that feels intuitive; it appeals to our desire for moral clarity, for a world where the rules are clear and the consequences are direct. Do good, and you will be rewarded. Stray from the path, and you will suffer.

It is a worldview of sharp lines and distinct categories, and for a generation poised to conquer a new land, filled with new challenges and temptations, perhaps this clarity was essential. You are either with God, or you are not. You are either on the path of blessing, or on the path of curse.

But as we sit here today, in our complex, messy, and often confusing world, we must ask ourselves: is life truly that simple? Do our experiences really fit into such neat and tidy boxes?

We have all lived long enough to know that sometimes, the most difficult and painful moments of our lives, what we might have called a ‘curse’ at the time, can lead to unexpected growth, wisdom, and transformation. We have a name for this phenomenon: a ‘blessing in disguise’. It’s the recognition that the neat division between blessing and curse can be porous, that light can emerge from darkness, that a painful ending can be the necessary prelude to a beautiful new beginning.

Our own tradition, in its deepest wisdom, understands this. While Deuteronomy presents this stark choice, the prophet Isaiah offers a far more complex and challenging theology. In a powerful declaration of God’s ultimate unity and power, the prophet says in God’s name:

יוֹצֵר אוֹר וּבוֹרֵא חֹשֶׁךְ, עֹשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם וּבוֹרֵא רָע. Yotzer or u’voreh choshech, oseh shalom u’voreh ra. “I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil.” (Isaiah 45:7)

This is a staggering verse. It collapses the simple binary. It tells us that the source of all existence is one, and that this one source encompasses everything we perceive as good and everything we perceive as evil, the light and the darkness. Reality, Isaiah teaches, is not a simple battle between two opposing forces. It is a complex, unified whole. This verse challenges us to move beyond simplistic labels and to grapple with a more profound and unsettling truth: that life cannot be easily sorted into ‘blessing’ and ‘curse’. Everything, it seems, can be seen from multiple perspectives.

This ancient tension between the simple binary of Deuteronomy and the complex unity of Isaiah has taken on a powerful new urgency in our time. We live in the age of the algorithm, an age of social media, where the currency is not wisdom, but attention. The platforms that shape our discourse are designed for speed, not depth. They demand that every complex issue be distilled into a video of two minutes or less, every nuanced thought summarised in 280 characters.

In this digital ecosystem, complexity is a bug, not a feature. Nuance is boring. Thoughtful, analytical rigour is dismissed as elitist or out of touch. What gets rewarded? What goes viral? It is the simple, the radical, the absolute. It is the digital equivalent of “berachah u’klalah”, blessing and curse. You are either with us or against us. Right or wrong. Good or evil. The middle ground has vanished, and the loudest, most extreme voices dominate the conversation, attracting the views and the clicks upon which the whole system is built.

To make matters worse, we are caught in a relentless war of narratives. With the rise of sophisticated technologies like deepfakes, we can no longer be certain that what we are seeing is real. A video can be manipulated, a voice can be cloned, and a photograph can be manufactured to show something that never happened. The very foundations of our perception, seeing and hearing, are becoming unstable. How can we know who to trust? How can we discern what is true when our own senses can be so easily deceived?

It is precisely here, in this moment of profound epistemic crisis, that our parashah, Re’eh, returns to offer us its most subtle and urgent guidance.

The parashah's name and its very first word is Re’eh, meaning "See!" It is a command to open our eyes, to perceive, to witness what is being set before us. Yet in a world of deepfakes, this command becomes a challenge. It is no longer a simple instruction to look, but a demand to look critically, to see with discernment.

Then there is the word Sh’ma (שׁמע), to listen or to hear. Its variations appear six times in our parashah. We are told to listen to the commandments, to listen to the voice of God. But in an age of infinite information, of podcasts and pundits and screaming headlines, what does it mean to truly listen? It means filtering the noise, discerning the motive, and listening not just to the words being said, but for the truth, or the falsehood, that lies beneath them.

The acts of seeing and listening, the two primary ways we receive information about our world, are at the core of our parashah, and they are the very faculties under assault today.

But the parashah does not leave us there. It offers us a third, crucial verb, a tool for navigating this treacherous landscape. The word is Shamor (שמור), meaning to keep, to guard, or to be careful. This root word appears an astonishing seven times in Parashat Re’eh. We are commanded to be careful to perform the statutes, to guard the commandments.

Here, I believe, lies the parashah’s hidden wisdom for our time. The text opens with the stark, simple binary of blessing and curse, a framing perfectly suited for the social media age. But it then repeatedly, insistently, whispers a different instruction: Shamor. Be careful. Guard yourself.

Be careful with what you see. Do not accept images at face value. Interrogate their source. Question their intent. See with a critical, guarded eye.

Be careful with what you hear. Do not be seduced by the easy certainties of the zealot or the comforting rage of the demagogue. Listen for the nuance, for the voices that have been silenced, for the complexity that the algorithm seeks to erase.

Be careful with the simple narratives of blessing and curse. The world is rarely so clear cut. The person you have labelled as your enemy is a complex human being with their own story. The political solution that promises a simple utopia is almost certainly hiding a dark compromise. Shamor. Be careful of the seductive pull of absolute certainty.

Parashat Re’eh, then, is not a simple instruction manual with a clear choice. It is a sophisticated lesson in perception. It presents us with the binary worldview that is so appealing, and then gives us the intellectual and spiritual tools to dismantle it. The true blessing, it suggests, is not found in blindly choosing one path. The true blessing is the wisdom to be careful, the strength to embrace complexity, and the courage to inhabit the difficult, uncertain, and profoundly human space between the extremes.

In a world that demands we react in an instant, our tradition calls on us to pause and reflect. In a world that rewards radical simplicity, our Torah urges us to be careful and to appreciate nuance. And in a world where we are told to trust our eyes and ears, our parashah says: Re’eh, see, Sh’ma, listen, but above all, Shamor, be careful. For it is in that careful guarding of our minds and our hearts that we will truly find the path to blessing.

Shabbat Shalom.

Elul: The Steady Work of Turning

As we enter the month of Elul on Sunday evening, I find my attention turning inward. This is the final month of the Jewish year, a period our tradition sets aside as a dedicated runway to the High Holy Days. It marks the formal start of Cheshbon haNefesh (חֶשְׁבּוֹן הַנֶּפֶשׁ), the “accounting of the soul” that prepares us for Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur. Each morning in Elul (except on Shabbat), it is traditional to sound a single, piercing blast of the shofar, a spiritual wake-up call for the soul.

Despite being an economist by training, I find that the phrase “accounting of the soul” can sound intimidating, like a stern audit. I prefer to think of it as a gentle, but honest, “visit of the soul.” It’s a time to ask: Where have my actions aligned with my values this past year? Where have I missed the mark? In what areas of my life do I yearn for growth, forgiveness, or change?

While our Progressive tradition encourages this kind of mindful self-assessment all year long, Elul provides a powerful, communal framework for this sacred work. It gives us permission to dedicate focused time to the task. Just as we might prepare our homes for an important guest, Elul gives us 29 days to prepare our hearts and minds for the awesome spiritual potential of Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur. It is a gift from our tradition, an annual chance to recalibrate our internal compass and set our intentions for the year to come.

But what does this “visit” actually look like in practice? It starts with creating small moments for reflection. This can be as simple as setting a daily phone reminder to pause, take a deep breath, and ask, “What can I begin to repair today?” For those who appreciate more guidance, I highly recommend the daily prompts from Rabbi Jordan Braunig and the Jewish Studio Project, which offer a creative doorway into this work. You can sign up for them here: http://bit.ly/4mwXoYG

From there, we can turn to our relationships. This might mean making a simple list of connections that need mending and identifying one small first step towards repair. This applies to our digital lives, too, reviewing our online conduct and curating our feeds to nurture compassion rather than anxiety. Finally, we can align our outer resources with our inner values, perhaps by reviewing our plan for tzedakah for the year ahead, and dedicating time to t'filah (prayer), whether through formal liturgy, a quiet moment, or humming a wordless melody (a niggun) to centre the spirit.

Elul in South Africa, as in Brazil, coincides with the turn towards spring, a fitting reminder that renewal in our tradition is not naïve optimism but the fruit of steady, honest work. May this month bring courage for truth-telling, tenderness for ourselves and others, and the joy that comes from making things right, one step at a time.

Shabbat Shalom!

Dvar Torah: Walking from Fracture to Wholeness in the Season of Teshuvah

Shabbat Shalom,

Last week, in the AdKan newsletter, I wrote about this unique and powerful season we find ourselves in, the ten-week journey that Rabbi Alan Lew describes as taking us from the destruction of Tisha B’Av to the rebuilding and joy of Sukkot. This is the season of t’shuvah, of turning and returning, and its central metaphor can be found in the story of the two sets of tablets.

This week, in Parashat Ekev, Moses retells that very story. It’s as if the Torah wants us to linger on this image, to understand its lessons more deeply as we stand on the precipice of Elul. Because this story speaks directly to this moment, to our moment. Let’s be honest: many of us feel shattered. The ground beneath us feels unsteady. At both the personal and collective levels, we are living through profoundly difficult times. We feel threatened, attacked, and at times, lost. The constant barrage of frightening news, the deep divisions that turn conversations into minefields, the sense that the world we knew is fracturing, it all takes a toll. People we thought were friends may have turned their backs on us, leaving us feeling isolated and questioning our own judgment.

And this collective anxiety seeps into our private lives, making our personal struggles feel heavier. In our quietest moments of introspection, we look back on our own actions and wish we had acted differently. It’s a quiet, internal ache, the memory of a word spoken in anger, an action not taken, a moment of weakness we wish we could reclaim. This, too, is a kind of brokenness, carrying the heavy weight of our own imperfections.

What do we do with all this brokenness? What is the place of our failures, our fears, and our regrets in a life we are trying to build?

The story of the tablets doesn't end with a simple replacement. The Talmud, in tractate Bava Batra, teaches something truly astonishing. It tells us that inside the Ark of the Covenant, the holiest object, the centerpiece of our sacred space, were placed both the new, whole tablets, and the fragments of the first, broken ones. This is a radical act. Most cultures build monuments to their victories, their perfection, their unblemished heroes. We build a sacred container and declare that what is broken is just as holy as what is whole. We are told to carry our history, not just the triumphant parts, but the painful, shameful parts as well.

Our tradition is telling us that our brokenness is not something to be discarded or hidden in shame. Our broken pieces are holy. Wholeness, then, is not perfection; it is the courage to integrate all of our experiences, our triumphs and our failures, into the story of who we are. It means we stop telling a version of our life story that conveniently leaves out the embarrassing chapters. Instead, we acknowledge that those chapters are precisely what gave our story its depth, its character, its humanity. Carrying our failures as a sacred reminder means they are not a source of shame, but a wellspring of empathy. Having known brokenness, we become gentler with the brokenness of others. Our own scars teach us how to tend to the wounds of the world.

The late poet Chana Bloch, in her poem The Joins, captures this idea perfectly. She writes that what is precious is fragile, like a clay cup that “shatters easily.” When it does, she says, “Repair / becomes the task.” She describes the Japanese art of kintsugi, where a potter repairs a broken cup not by hiding the cracks, but by tracing them with gold-dusted glue. The break is not concealed; it is illuminated. The repair itself becomes a beautiful, visible part of the object’s history, a testament to its journey. Bloch concludes with a breathtaking thought: “Sometimes the joins / are so exquisite / they say the potter / may have broken the cup / just so he could mend it.”

This is the very essence of t’shuvah. It is not about pretending the Golden Calf never happened, or that our world isn't fractured, or that we don't carry regrets. T’shuvah is the art of holy repair. This is not a quick fix. It is the slow, patient, and sometimes painful work of looking at the damage without flinching. It is holy because it is an act of profound self-creation, a refusal to be defined by our worst moments. It is about looking at the shattered pieces of our promises and our ideals, and instead of leaving them on the ground in despair, having the courage to pick them up and trace the edges with gold. It is about understanding that the cup, our lives, our community, is precious to us precisely because we saved it. The process of mending imbues it with a new, deeper value.

The journey from Tisha B’Av to Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur and Sukkot is the journey from seeing only the shattered fragments on the ground to building an ark large enough to carry them with us, to learning the art of mending with gold. The work is ours, we must cut the stone from the mines of our own lives. That mine is deep within us; it is the place of our deepest truths and most vulnerable memories. To descend into it requires courage. The tools we use are honesty, humility, and a stubborn refusal to give up on ourselves. But we are not alone. The promise of our tradition is that if we do the hard work of carving and mending, God will be there to help us fill the cracks with light.

May we, on this Shabbat, find the quiet courage needed for this work of introspection. May we learn not just to live with our shattered fragments, but to see them as holy, to build from them, and to find, in the joins, the exquisite, golden beauty of a life repaired.

Shabbat Shalom.

[1] https://www.versedaily.org/2015/thejoins.shtml

Change must come from everyone!

(A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "A mudança tem que vir de todos!")

As I discussed in last week’s drashah, the Sh’ma is perhaps the most well-known phrase in Jewish liturgy. According to tradition, it is recited upon waking and also before going to bed; it is among the first phrases in Hebrew that Jewish children learn and, very often, the last one uttered. In addition to its opening sentence, “Hear, O Israel, ADONAI is our God, ADONAI is One”, many of us also commit to memory the first paragraph in both Hebrew and English: “And you shall love ADONAI your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might…”. These two passages come from the Torah and formed part of last week’s parashah[1]. Not everyone realises, however, that the two subsequent paragraphs are found, not in the sequence of the text, but in other passages of the Torah. The third paragraph[2], which speaks of the tallit and the tsitsit as instruments which remind us to fulfil the mitzvot, is in the book of BaMidbar, and the second paragraph, which speaks of punishments and rewards for those who follow Divine instructions, is in this week’s parashah[3].

For those who pay attention to the translations of these passages and compare the content of the first and second paragraphs, there seems to be a certain redundancy in the openings of the two texts: “Love ADONAI your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” begins the text of the first paragraph; “If you indeed listen to My commandments which I command you this day, to love ADONAI your God, and to serve [God] with all your heart and with all your soul” is the opening of the second. Commentators did not let this similarity between the texts go unnoticed. Rashi notes that, while the command in the first paragraph is formulated in the singular, that of the second paragraph is addressed to the whole community. Considering that the focus of the second paragraph is on the way God responds when humanity listens (or does not listen) to the Divine words, Ramban explains that Divine responses do not come as a reaction to our individual actions, but only to those of the society as a whole.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow wrote an interpretation of the second paragraph of the Sh’ma[4], in which he associates our behaviour towards nature, our interpersonal relationships, and our own ambition and greed with the way the planet, life, and God treat us. In his words, if we continue “chop[ing] the world into parts and choos[ing] parts to worship — gods of race or of nation, gods of wealth and of power, gods of greed and addiction,” then we will continue facing increasingly severe climate crises and a climate of hatred that will ultimately consume our existence.

As Ramban pointed out, these negative consequences result from our collective behaviour, [5] and the solutions must also be understood in broad terms. Certainly, each one of us needs to be mindful in how we relate to the environment and to other people, but we must also develop social mechanisms to ensure that these efforts are not only the work of a few well-intentioned people, but become our new way of life.

Who knows – perhaps the next time we hear the Sh’ma and its three paragraphs, we will begin to glimpse how to bring about such a profound social change?

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] Deuteronomy 6:4–9.
[2] Numbers 15:37–41.
[3] Deuteronomy 11:13–21.
[4] https://bit.ly/3Aw6T4z
[5] See Ramban’s commentary on Deut.11:13

Dvar Torah: The Many Colours of the Sh'mah Israel

(A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "Dvar Torá: As muitas cores do Sh´má Israel")

Shabbat Shalom,

During my rabbinic training, I studied at two different institutions. I began at Hebrew Union College — the academic institution of the Reform Movement — on its Los Angeles campus, and completed my studies at Hebrew College, a pluralistic rabbinic seminary near Boston.

While I was still in Los Angeles, I took a class with Rabbi Stephen Passamaneck. In addition to teaching rabbinical students, “Dr P,” as we affectionately called him, was also a chaplain for the Los Angeles Police Department — and he often brought his firearm to class, placing it on the desk for all of us to look at and be scared by it. Many students left his classroom in tears after some particularly harsh comment, and he took pride in causing that reaction. But eccentricities aside, what stayed with me most from the two semesters I studied with Dr P was a single statement of his: “The Torah means what the Rabbis say it means.” Here, he did not mean the future rabbis he had in front of him, but the Rabbis with capital “R”. He was talking about Hillel, Shammai, Rabi Yohanan, Rashi, Maimonides….

In other words: we could, as an intellectual exercise, go through the text, turn it over and over, and try to discover the original meaning of each phrase — even each letter — of the biblical text. But when it comes to the implications of Torah for contemporary Jewish life, what matters are the interpretations given by the rabbis of the Mishnah, the Talmud, the midrashim, and the early codes of Jewish law — people who lived at least eight hundred years ago.

Dr P was certainly right when it comes to matters of Jewish law and practice. It’s no use debating the original intention of the Torah when it says three times, “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.” The rabbinic interpretation — that this verse prohibits mixing (not just cooking) meat and milk (not just the kid in its mother’s milk) — became so deeply ingrained in Jewish communal life that I often struggle to show students that this is not necessarily the literal meaning of the text.

When the topic leans more toward theology, however, the door opens wider for later generations to revisit meanings ascribed by earlier sages. One of the most famous theological declarations in all of Torah appears in this week’s parashah:

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל, ה׳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ, ה׳ אֶחָד

Sh’ma Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad

Hear, O Israel: ה׳ is our God, ה׳ is One.

If I were to survey you on what these six words mean, I imagine most would say you understand them — that they are the foundational declaration of Jewish monotheism. In the end, many people understand the Sh’ma as the Jewish way of saying there is only one God.

But is that really what the text is saying? Today I’d like to explore a few interpretations beyond the conventional one and invite each of you to reconsider what this verse might be teaching us.

Rashi, the 11th-century French commentator — whose interlinear glosses in the Talmud are indispensable to our understanding of that work — believed the Sh’ma required a similar kind of interpretative expansion. For him, the verse should be understood as: “Hear, O Israel: ה׳, who is our God now, will one day be recognised as the One and Only God throughout the world.” He concludes his comment by quoting a line we know from the Aleinu:

בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִהְיֶה ה׳ אֶחָד וּשְׁמוֹ אֶחָד

Ba-yom ha-hu yihyeh Adonai echad u-sh’mo echad —

“On that day, ה׳ shall be One and God’s name shall be One.” [1]

Rabbi Avraham Samuel Benjamin Sofer, who lived in 19th-century Hungary, asked why God’s name appears twice in the Sh’ma. Wouldn’t it be simpler, he wondered, for the verse to say, “Hear, O Israel: Adonai is our God and is One”? According to him, Moses’s aim in repeating God’s name was to underscore that everything in our lives comes from God — our successes and our failures, the times when we are lucky and those when everything goes wrong. Even though all things may come from God, the Torah instructs us clearly to distinguish between good and evil, between that which leads to life and that which leads to death — and to choose what is good and life-giving. [2]

Rabbi Art Green seems to agree, but he goes even further:

Hear, O Israel. The core of our service is not a prayer but a call — a call to our fellow Jews and fellow human beings. In it, we declare that God is One — which means that humanity is one, that life is one, that joy and suffering are one — for God is the force that unites all of it.

There is nothing obvious about this truth, because life as we live it seems infinitely fragmented. Human beings appear isolated from one another, divided by the fears and hatreds that make up human history. Even within a single life, one moment feels disconnected from the next. Memories of joy and wholeness offer little comfort when we are depressed or alone.

To affirm that all is One in God is our supreme act of faith. [3]

Feminist theologian Judith Plaskow takes this exploration even further. She writes:

On the simplest level, the Sh’ma can be understood as a passionate rejection of polytheism. (…)

This understanding of the Sh’ma, however, does not address the issue of God’s oneness. It defines “one” in opposition to “many, ” but it never really specifies what it means to say that God/Adonai/the One who is and will be is one. Is God’s oneness mere numerical singularity? Does it signify simply that rather than many forces ruling the universe, there is only one? (…)

There is another way to understand oneness, however, and that is as inclusiveness. In Marcia Falk’s words, “The authentic expression of an authentic monotheism is not a singularity of image but an embracing unity of a multiplicity of images.” Rather than being the chief deity in the pantheon, God includes the qualities and characteristics of the whole pantheon, with nothing remaining outside. God is all in all. This is the God who “forms light and createsdarkness, who makes peace and creates everything,” because there can be no power other than or in opposition to God who could possibly be responsible for evil. This is the God who is male and female, both and neither, because there is no genderedness outside of God that is not made in God’s image. On this understanding of oneness, extending the range of images we use for God challenges us to find God in ever-new aspects of creation. Monotheism is about the capacity to glimpse the One in and through the changing forms of the many, to see the whole in and through its infinite images.

“Hear O Israel”: despite the fractured, scattered, and conflicted nature of our experience, there is a unity that embraces and contains our diversity and that connects all things to each other. [4]

Marcia Falk, the poet-theologian who had the immense chutzpah to rewrite the entire siddur, including its biblical passages, usually wrote texts in Hebrew and in English that are not direct translations of each other. She reframed the Sh’ma as follows:

שְׁמַע, יִשְׂרָאֵל: לָאֱלֹהוּת אַלְפַי פָּנִים, מְלֹא עוֹלָם שׁכִינָתָה, רִיבּוּי פָּנֶיהָ אֶחָד

Sh’ma Yisrael: La-Elohut alfei panim, m’lo olam sh’chinatah, ribui panehah echad.

which translates to:

“Hear, O Israel: The Divine has many faces, whose presence fills the world —

the multiplicity of these faces is One.”

or in its version in English:

“Hear, O Israel — The divine abounds everywhere and dwells in everything;
the many are One” [5]

It is Marcia Falk’s vision that comes to mind when I recite the Sh’ma. In her words, we recognise the connection we share through God, while also embracing the vast diversity within God. As Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik — the leading voice of Modern Orthodoxy in North America — expressed it, “The white light of divinity is always refracted through reality’s dome of many colored glass.”

On this Tu b’Av, the Jewish festival of love, we celebrate all colours, all shapes, and all expressions of love — recognising that the Divine dwells within them all.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] Rashi’s commentary on Deut. 6:4
[2] A Torah Commentary for Our Times, vol. 3, pp. 110–111.
[3] Ma’ayan Niguer (manuscript), p. 12.
[4] My People’s Prayer Book, vol. 1, pp. 87–99.
[5] Marcia Falk, The Book of Blessings, pp. 170–173.

Relationships that Transform and Prepare Us for the Season

Since last Sunday, we have entered a particularly meaningful period in the Jewish calendar. According to Rabbi Alan Lew, during the ten weeks from Tishah b’Av to the end of Sukkot, we move from deep mourning over the destruction of the central home of Jewish tradition (the Temples in Jerusalem) to the joy of dismantling other homes, the temporary booths we construct for Sukkot. Over the course of this period (which represents a fifth of the year!), we journey from destruction to rebirth to joy. We deconstruct ourselves, ask difficult questions, evaluate who we are, and begin to rebuild on foundations we hope will be more solid, enabling us to come closer to who we truly aspire to be.

T’shuvah – the process of self-reflection, repentance, and redirection – is central to the experience of these ten weeks. Rabbi Sharon Brous speaks of a Jewish dialectic that, on the one hand, emphasises justice and the rigour of honestly confronting our failings and, on the other, holds an infinite optimism in our ability to return to the best version of ourselves. On this Shabbat – known in our tradition as Shabbat Nachamu – we begin to rediscover the possibility of allowing the past to inform our conduct without defining it; of recognising our errors without letting them dictate our future; of seeking redemption despite, or because of, the path that brought us here.

This week’s haftarah (the prophetic reading) speaks to the potential for this reconstruction and opens with these words:

“Comfort, comfort My people (Nachamu nachamu ami), says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and declare to her that her term of service is over, that her iniquity has been expiated.” (Isaiah 40:1–2)

At the other end of the t’shuvah process is our ability to accept apologies and to truly forgive. How often do we go through life holding on to grudges, unable to free ourselves, bound to the pain of what has been? T’shuvah and forgiveness are complex and difficult, especially when we feel lonely or vulnerable. Those who feel abandoned may find it harder to recognise their own faults or to forgive others, as if clinging to one’s own righteousness might somehow compensate for the pain of feeling isolated.

This Shabbat, which is not only Shabbat Nachamu but also Tu b’Av – the Jewish day that celebrates love – offers an opportunity to draw strength from love as we prepare for the introspective and evaluative processes the coming months will invite. These are also moments to reflect on how we love and how we are loved. Do we truly give ourselves, with all our energy, in the loving relationships we cultivate, whether with parents, siblings, friends, romantic partners, or even with ourselves? What does it mean to love in this way? Is it something we wish to strive for? And if not, what other expressions of love might we want to embrace?

This week’s parashah offers two paradigmatic examples of love. First, it recalls the giving of the Decalogue, the Ten Utterances that God spoke at Mount Sinai. Many rabbinic commentaries understand this moment as a mystical marriage between God and the Jewish people, offering insight into how love can manifest. The first Tablets, symbols of this sacred union (akin to rings), were quickly shattered following the episode of the Golden Calf. According to Rabbi Art Green, this outcome was inevitable: the Tablets, carved and inscribed by God alone, contained no human element. It was a union in which there was space for only one voice, a relationship in which the individuality of the people of Israel was not yet acknowledged.

According to one tradition, Yom Kippur marks the day when Moses descended from Mount Sinai a second time, carrying a new set of Tablets, this time carved by Moses and inscribed by God. These Tablets, the result of a partnership between the human and the Divine, endured as a symbol of a covenant in which both sides were seen, heard, and validated. And you – do your loving relationships honour who you truly are?

The second paradigmatic example of love in this week’s parashah is the Sh’ma Yisrael, perhaps the best-known verse in the entire Torah. Its first paragraph teaches: “You shall love ADONAI your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deut. 6:5) Commenting on this verse, Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin writes: “Love doesn’t mean affection. It means a deep, powerful connection that binds Jews to God through the mitzvot.” Does the love you feel for others also move beyond emotion and take the form of concrete, real action in the world? Do you feel that others care for you not only in what they say, but in how they behave?

Mutuality in relationships enables us to feel safe enough to acknowledge our vulnerabilities and to engage in authentic processes of t’shuvah and forgiveness. May we, on this Shabbat, find strength in loving and being loved, with respect and recognition, with listening and validation, so that we might open ourselves to the possibility of being transformed within and through the relationships we build.

Shabbat Shalom