Rabbi Jacobs Sermons
RH2 5770 - Forgiving Ourselves First
RH 2 5770: Forgiving Ourselves FirstBack in July, Jeff and I spent an incredible two weeks in Hawaii, exploring the islands, appreciating both the breathtaking natural beauty and the kindness of the locals. On our last day there, before (sadly) heading to the airport, we spent a couple of hours at a local craft marketplace. We hoped to find souvenirs for family and friends. While we found some great gifts there, the best thing about the craft fair was the company of the artisans and shop owners.
Erev RH 5770 - To the Moon and Back
To the Moon and Back – Erev Rosh Hashanah 5770This past summer, both our country and the world celebrated an important milestone: the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, the mission that took us to the moon. I will confess that I was not yet born when Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins took that momentous journey, so I had no memories of the event to reminisce over as we reached the anniversary. However, between July 16th and July 24th this year—the dates of the journey, including the launch, the trip, the landing, and the return, it was difficult to turn on a television, go online, or open a newspaper without there being some mention of the anniversary. Everywhere I turned, it seemed, I saw images from the moon landing, heard recordings of the back and forth between Houston and the Command Module, or read of events commemorating and celebrating the anniversary of this incredible accomplishment. Over the course of those nine days, as I watched, listened, and read about Apollo 11, I came to feel more connected to the events of July 1969. After my week of unintended immersion in the story of the moon landing, I now knew the excitement of watching the Saturn 5 rocket lift off with a fiery explosion. I was newly amazed at our capacity for scientific advancement, as mission control spoke to the astronauts who were two hundred thousand miles away as though they were on the phone next door. I felt invigorated by how our sense of discovery and adventure drove the space race and pushed us to explore what had originally seemed like an unattainable frontier. And I felt the poignancy of succeeding in a mission imagined by a visionary president whose untimely demise prevented him from seeing its realization. By participating in the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, not only did I feel a little like I had been there, but I felt more American.
VaEra 5769 - Telling the Story
Drasha VaEra 5769—Telling the StoryWe are in the midst of reviewing, if you’ll forgive the idiom, the greatest story ever told. This story is in the bedrock of our souls—it is the foundation of who we are as a people and as a community. It ties us to our history and prefigures our future. It is the story of the exodus from Egypt—יציאת מצרים—y’tzi’at mitzrayim.
RH2 5769 - The Mind/Body Connection
RH2 5769 - The Mind/Body ConnectionAbout a month ago, I experienced a momentous transition in my life when Jeff and I got engaged. To be honest, as excited as I was to make this transition, I didn’t expect the change to be such a momentous one. For months leading up to our engagement, Jeff and I talked candidly about marriage, discussing when and where our wedding would be. Before “making it official,” our relationship was already a loving and committed one. What’s more, engagement is less of a complete transition than a symbolic one. In our tradition, the betrothal ceremony formerly took place a year before the wedding. Due to the binding nature of erusin, betrothal, and the difficulty of undoing it in the event, God forbid, that the couple did not marry, this “waiting period” has been eclipsed, and erusin takes place under the ḥuppah, alongside the marriage ceremony. In the eyes of Jewish and civil law, we have no binding relationship to each other, no matter how emotionally connected we feel.
Shofetim 5768—Justice from both sides
Drasha Parashat Shofetim 5768—Justice from both sidesI began my illustrious political career in the fourth grade, by running for office—in the Solomon Schechter Day School Student Council. It was a short-lived career, by all accounts, lasting just long enough for me to lose the election to a rival classmate. While I have thankfully recovered from the devastation of that day, I learned from the process something invaluable. When I was preparing my campaign speech, my father taught me how every speech should go: “Tell them what you’re going to tell them; then tell them; then tell them what you’ve told them,” he said. While I never ran for student council again, those instructions stayed with me.
Kedoshim 5768 — Do not stand idly by
Kedoshim 5768—Do not stand idly byThis past week, I read a remarkable article in the New York Times. It told the story of a sefer Torah, a Torah scroll, rescued from the squalid remnants of Auschwitz, which was to be rededicated for use as a part of the Holocaust memorial service at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue. Facing the impending onslaught of the Germans, the sexton of the synagogue in the town that would later become Auschwitz buried the Torah to protect it from certain destruction.
Metzora 5768 — Coming back into the camp
Metzora 5768—Coming back into the campAs the days between now and Pesaḥ grow fewer and fewer, I find myself thinking more and more about what I consider “meta-level” concerns. Perhaps it’s just my rabbi’s way of avoiding cleaning my kitchen, but whatever the reason, I’ve been spending a lot of time considering the countless ways we can interpret and enrich our understanding of the Haggadah, the seder, and even the story of the Exodus itself. There are many powerful and meaningful spiritual places these ideas can take us, most of which are quite lofty. Fortunately, just in case the prospect of cleaning out our ḥametz isn’t quite enough, we have this week’s parashah to bring us back down to earth.
Bo 5768 — Shifting Paradigms
Bo 5768 — Shifting ParadigmsFor my entire sophomore year of college, I took an Astronomy course. While this was certainly an introductory class, it wasn’t the celestial equivalent of “Rocks for Jocks,” or “Physics for Poets.” It was essentially an intro level astrophysics class. And I loved it. My astronomy class taught me that I really did understand physics. In our lab meetings, I learned how to use a telescope, and a Geiger counter. I found myself looking up at the sky far more frequently than I had in the past, trying to see constellations and planets amid the ubiquitous airplanes constantly flying around New York City. What I loved most about this class, however, was how learning about the makeup and origins of the universe helped me find meaning in seeking out my own place in it. One of the more perplexing things we learned in Astronomy was that neutrinos, these strange particles that could be found in the solar wind, had no mass. They existed, but the only way to access them was in a supercollider. And even then, you’d be lucky to catch one whizzing by—having no mass makes something hard to catch. Imagine my surprise that summer when I read in the paper that neutrinos had been discovered actually to have mass. Even more surprising was the title of the article that revealed this in the New York Times: “Elusive Galactic Particle Found to Have Mass: Universe May Never Be the Same.” My immediate response to this headline was to look at it cross-eyed and say, “What?! The universe has always been the same—we just know different stuff about it now.” What the headline was really trying to convey was that our perception of the universe—whether based on a year of introductory Astronomy or decades of high-level research—had changed. We had experienced a paradigm shift.
Toledot 5768 — Family Resemblances
Toledot 5768 — Family ResemblancesEvery so often, I’ll wear my hair a certain way, catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and do a double take. Or, I’ll do something quirky, like leave the refrigerator door open while I go back and forth grabbing items for dinner. Or, even worse, I’ll say something a little too familiar. After each of these occurrences, I’ll think, “Oh my God, I have become my mother.” This is not a happy realization. Now, let me be clear: I love, admire, and respect my mother a lot. There are, as she might say, worse things in the world than being like someone who has been such an important part of my life. But still, I don’t greet this realization with excitement or pleasure.
