On My Mind

Answering the Call

May 28, 2020

This spring, alumni from all of JTS’s schools, like countless other professional and lay leaders in America and elsewhere, are being tested as never before. I want to share the stories of four alumni whose innovative work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has especially inspired me.

Corona Diary: Week Five

Apr 23, 2020

A letter arrived for my Dad the other day. “URGENT ACCOUNT NOTICE,” the envelope declared in bold red capitals. “Don’t let your membership slip away!” And on the back, in bigger letters still, “Please do not discard!” It’s been over eleven years since my father (who never lived at our address) slipped away, taken by a pneumonia that I think he decided at some point not to fight. My thoughts upon seeing the envelope went immediately to the families who received similar letters this week, addressed to loved ones who just a short time ago would have been at home to open them, but had since fallen victim to Covid-19. Others, thanks to selfless hospital staff and access to medical equipment that is still in shockingly short supply, would yet make it home to open letters like the one staring at me on the table, and savor the gift of answering or discarding them.

A Purim Drained of Laughter

Mar 04, 2020

I’ll be celebrating Purim with a lot less enthusiasm than usual this year. The holiday will as always involve fun and laughter for kids and grownups, too: food and drink aplenty, festive meals in costume, raucous noise-making to drown out the sound of the wicked Haman’s name, and—the part I like best—satirical performances of the Purim story that make pointed reference to contemporary characters and events. It’s a remarkable holiday in many ways, not least because the book of Esther is truly funny at certain points. But the story it tells is not for me, not this year. In times as dark as these, even humor as dark as Purim’s falls flat.

Address at 2020 Rabbinical Convocation Ceremony

Feb 03, 2020

It’s a great honor for me, and a source of special pleasure, to address the rabbinical convocation ceremony one last time as Chancellor of JTS and to do so here in the physical expression of JTS’s renaissance. The architects call this atrium a “light court”—hatzer ha-or—and I want to take this opportunity to thank the extraordinary group of rabbis that JTS is honoring today for the light of Torah that you’ve carried and shared over the past 25 years and more. You have served our people and our tradition on at least five continents, by my count, and have done so in a host of different roles, united in your devotion to a cause that JTS and I personally hold very dear, almost as dear as life itself. For this we are grateful to you beyond words.

Jews at the Border

Nov 15, 2019

I joined a group of about 20 Jewish clergy on a trip to El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico last week to see firsthand how current U.S. immigration policy is affecting the individuals seeking entry to America and changing the border communities through which they pass. When people asked me why I was making the journey, the answer I wanted to give was simple: “Because I am a Jew.”

Mourning Jewish Martyrs in Pittsburgh

Nov 01, 2019

Last Sunday, watching a color guard move solemnly down the aisle of Pittsburgh’s Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall, I reflected on the significance of mourning Jewish martyrs, killed in synagogue on a Shabbat morning in these United States.

Kol Nidre 2019

Oct 10, 2019

I would like to focus my remarks this evening on a passage that stands at the very center of the Yom Kippur service—one that has been on my mind even more than usual as I approached this High Holiday season, my last as the chancellor of JTS.

When the Building Is Almost Done—and the Real Work Begins and Continues

Aug 29, 2019

As I personally prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur this year, and consider the special meaning of the 2019 High Holiday season for the extended JTS family, I cannot help but reflect on the state of the new-and-renewed campus rising just outside my office window. What does it mean to have the completion of a major project in sight, but know you have a way to go before the goal is reached? How do we reckon with the realization that when the work is finally done, other work—the real work—begins and continues?

“Fiddler” and the Fourth

Jul 01, 2019

When the Fourth of July coincided with a minor fast day of the Jewish calendar one summer in the late 19th century, a leading Reform rabbi used the occasion to pose the question of identity that still preoccupies many 21st century American Jews. Should the holiday be devoted to “wailing over Jerusalem’s sad fate,” he asked, or “given over to joy and thanksgiving?” Were Jews more closely bound to the Holy Land where the ancient Temple had once stood or to the “Holy Land of Freedom and Human Rights” in which they now lived?

I was reminded of these questions as the curtain came down one evening last week on the haunting production of the Yiddish-language Fiddler on the Roof now playing on Broadway.

The Truth—and Nothing but the Truth

May 23, 2019

Commencement Address 2019

It’s a particular pleasure for me to address our graduates this year, the 50th since my high school commencement ceremony. I confess I remember absolutely nothing of that day and am not sure that you or your families will remember very much about this ceremony, years from now. But I am quite certain you will remember the tumultuous time we are all living through: the special anxiety that attaches to being a citizen of the United States these days, or a steward of planet Earth, or—not the least cause of concern in 2019—a Jew, who must now worry about resurgent anti-Semitism and routinely has to pass through metal detectors or perhaps armed guards in order to set foot in a synagogue or other Jewish institution.

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