I launched this Substack newsletter in the fall of 2020, and it has been an amazing experience. I have loved writing this regular newsletter. It has changed me and how I walk through the world in many ways.
I’ve been a proponent of this platform since I launched With Torah and Love, and I believe in what we’ve been doing together.
However, the founders of this platform are too comfortable taking money from Nazis and white supremacists, and I can’t be a part of that. (You can Google it if you want to know more.) I hope they will change their mind, but until then, I’m leaving Substack. I’m not deleting it because I don’t want to lose the URL, but I won’t be writing here anymore.
To you, my reader, I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you have come on this journey with me. It is not over, and I’ll answer your questions below.
Is the With Torah and Love newsletter done?
Not remotely! In the coming weeks, I’ll transfer my writing to another platform and will get back to writing more. Getting that ready is more complicated than Substack, so getting set up will take some time.
You might have noticed I took a break in the last few months. I needed a bit of a recharge. With so much happening in the world, I needed to redirect some of my energies.
I love a good new year and the chance to start over. I have big plans for 2024. I will absolutely be writing more. I have a lot more I want to write about the Talmud and lots of Torah I want to share. I hope to offer more classes this year, among other things.
What should we, the readers, do?
At the moment, nothing!Continue being awesome. I ask that you stick around for a few weeks because if you stay signed up, everything should be transferred to the new platform.
However, if you’re so darn excited and want to sign up, I’ve set this up, and you can sign up here. Don’t feel like you have to because I’ll move everyone over soon anyway.
For those of you who have been paying subscribers: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I will be using those resources to pay for the new platforms I need to set up (which take payment in advance, unlike Substack), and I will invite you to continue your support when the time comes. I have some infrastructure stuff to figure out before that.
I have paused all billing on Substack, so no one should be charged again for a while. If you are charged or want to unsubscribe, let me know, and I’ll refund your money or yell at Substack or something. We’ll figure it out.
How can we support you?
For now, stick around.
I am working on a book that I hope will come out in the next few months, inspired by what I’ve been doing here. I will be working on building a book launch reader team, and I’ll send out more information about that when it is time.
I also have a few more ideas about building some new things to offer. If you have ideas of what you want me to offer, please comment on this post or reply to this email! I will be taking all possibilities pretty seriously.
Thank you.
I cannot tell you enough how grateful I am that you’ve been a part of the With Torah and Love community. Even when I’m not writing something here, I think about you and how to add more Talmud and Torah to our lives.
You can expect this series to explore sugiyot from Masechet Berakhot, unpacking them in, hopefully, new and interesting ways. You might have seen these texts before, or not, but hopefully, we’ll approach them in new ways.
In the background, I’ll also be working on completing my book of Talmud inspired by the Torah portions this winter. My hope is to publish it in early 2024. You can sign up for book updates here, but rest assured that you’ll hear about it on With Torah and Love.
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The first Mishnah in Berakhot begins by asking: When should one recite the evening Shema?
The Mishnah explains that there are three night-watches in the Temple, and accordingly, we get three opinions that our time to recite the Shema corresponds to each of those watches.
Actually, [Rabbi Eliezer] holds that there are three watches at night, and this comes to teach us that there are watches in heaven and watches on earth.
As was taught in a baraita: Rabbi Eliezer says, three watches are at night, and for each watch the Holy Blessed One sits and roars (yishag) like a lion, as it is said, “The Lord roars (yishag) from on high, God’s voice goes out from God’s holy residence, God roars mightily (shoeg yishag) over God’s dwelling place.” (Jeremiah 25:30)
Rabbi Eliezer reads Jeremiah, sees how God roars three times and draws two inferences: first, that God is like ua lion who roars, and second, the three uses of the word roar correspond to the three watches. He provides us the framework that God is roaring.
What is a roar, exactly? What does it do?
When I imagine a lion roaring, it expresses power and authority. God sits upon God’s throne in the Temple and roars out God’s power to the universe. But is this so?
A few lines down, skipping over a section that we’ll get back to in a second, the Talmud relays this:
Rabbi Yitzhak bar Shmuel said in the name of Rav: Three watches are at night, and for each watch the Holy Blessed One sits and roars (yishag) like a lion, and says, “Woe is me that I destroyed my house and I burned my Temple, and exiled my children to [live] amongst the peoples of the world.”
Rabbi Yitzhak bar Shmuel imagines that God sits upon the Temple, like Rabbi Eliezer, and that God is woeful and regretful about the exile of the Jewish people. A roar is not an outward expression of might but a sorrowful reflection on past deeds.
Our outward expression of emotions is not always the same as our internal feelings. We commonly recognize a roar as a fearsome challenge, yet here, it is a chest-welling demonstration of pain and grief.
How often are our emotions out of alignment? When our insides and our outsides do not mirror each other? It is a part of our nature to protect our difficult feelings by hiding them or expressing their opposite.
Discerning our true emotions and how they manifest is essential to growing as human beings.
The Signs
Between the two portions of the image of the lion roaring, we learn there are signs that mark the transitions into the three watches. The Talmud says:
And [the] signs for the thing [the transitions] are: the first watch [is signified by] a donkey braying, the second [watch by] dogs barking, the third [by when a] baby nurses upon the breasts of their mother, and when people converse with their partners.
Each of these, which contains sounds like the lion’s roar, marks a moment of transition. But the Talmud is confused:
What did Rabbi Eliezer articulate? If he is considering [these] the beginning of the watches, why do I need a sign for the beginning of the first watch [which begins at twilight] need to be signified? It is evening! [The sign is obvious!]
If he is considering [these] the end of the watches, why do I need a sign for the end of the last watch? It is day! [The sign is obvious!]
Since we’re talking about transitions, the signs could be either the mark of the beginning of the watch or the end. If we’re marking the first transition, which is the beginning of the night watches, it would seem obvious when it begins: it is the evening, and it has started! And if it is the end of the last watch, it would seem obvious when it ends, it is the morning, and it is over!
What do these transition moments mean? What is their use?
Rather, he considered [these signs to be] the end of the first watch, the beginning of the last watch, and the middle of the middle watch.
[Alternatively,] if you want, you can say: He considered [these to be signs of] the end of the watches, because if you say the last one is not necessary, [it is still useful.]
Here, the Talmud protects Rabbi Eliezer’s breakdown and offers two possible understandings of the moments of transition. One is that the transitions correspond to the beginning of the beginning watch, the middle of the middle watch, and the end of the end watch.
The other is that each of them marks the end of the watches (a third into the night, two-thirds of the night, and the morning). While the last one isn’t necessary, it is still useful.
How is it useful?
What is the practical takeaway from this [final sign]? [This is useful for] the one who recites the Shema while in the dark of the house and does not know when to say the Shema. When partners speak [in the morning] and the baby nurses from the breasts of their mother, one must rise and recite [the Shema].
The rabbis were rooted in practicality and the lives of actual human beings. In the mornings, when our baby is crying, having just woken up, my wife and I whisper and discuss the plans for the morning. “Will you get up to feed her while I start breakfast?” or “I’ll hop out and get her while you sleep a bit more.”
The rabbis understand that while it is morning and it is obvious that the day has begun, it is still useful to have a marker that the day has begun. This intimate moment begins the day, and that they highlight it is significant.
This intimacy, this quiet moment, also has a spiritual component.
Our days begin with a whispered understanding that while we might have our own tasks, our own goals, and our own aspirations for the day, those take second place after our relationship with the important people in our lives.
We support our partners and loved ones, teach and raise the little ones in our lives, and invest in our relationship with the Divine. These are the things that deserve our first layer of attention.
These two stories, intertwined on the page, are here to teach us about the quiet moments of our days. The inner story happening in our hearts and the first moments of our time awake.
We might be drawn to think that it is only about what we post online, the external manifestation of our feelings, how we spend our work day, or how we show off our lives to our neighbors. No, these things are not as important as the inner work that needs to happen.
Not just for our spiritual tasks, like reciting the Shema, but for our growth as human beings and for the sake of our relationships.
So invest in these quiet and essential moments of your day, relationships, and spiritual life.
You can do this with a quiet meditation in the morning or reciting the Shema, listening to your partner and the tenor of their roar, journaling to reflect on your own emotional alignment, or even just a quiet walk through the neighborhood.
It is hard to imagine that it has been five years since the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh on October 27th, 2018. It is strange to live in a different city from the community I used to serve.
I have changed. I have grown. Five years feels like a long time and a blink of an eye.
The time serving in the acute weeks following the shooting has stayed with me, though my memories of that time bring fewer feelings of adrenaline burning in my chest and filling my mouth with bitter tastes than they used to. The lessons have been hard-won and deeply felt.
On and after our Sunday wedding on October 28th, the day after the Shooting, a powerfully joyous affair with the tragic backdrop of the shooting of the previous day, we attempted to remain in that happy mental place for as long as we could.
We told ourselves, “The community and its needs will be there when we get back. We can take time now. We can be present with our family and friends. It has to be ok to do that.”
As Tuesday afternoon approached and we headed to the airport for our flight, we allowed ourselves to get into “return to Pittsburgh mode.” We sat on the airport carpet, made plans, and mentally prepared ourselves. We emailed trauma experts for advice and began to outline our plans.
Hearts in our throats, we flew home. We stumbled into bed at 1 am, slept a few hours, and woke up to go to minyan at 7:30 am. I knew that for the following almost two weeks, I would be the spiritual leader of our community.
Though not my role, it became my responsibility.
While our congregation was not among the congregations who were attacked, we were the natural gathering place afterward. Our people were intertwined. We hosted our shared daily minyan, and we shared members. In that community, there was tremendous overlap. We would host the three congregations on Friday night and a shared service on Saturday morning.
As I got dressed that morning, I thought about what I would need to do.
What I knew was our people would need to see stability and assurance. They would need to see the “capital R” rabbi in front of them.
In times of crisis, we look to our leaders to provide us with a sense of security. In our case, for clergy, this is a sense of emotional and spiritual security.
This does not mean the answer is “everything is alright” or “this was God’s plan,” but a sense that we are traveling it together with a guide to help navigate the murky waters of unknowing.
When I walked into synagogue Wednesday morning, I wore a suit and tie. The formality represented spiritual security. It was the attire of a trauma tour guide that morning.
As the morning minyan came to an end, I stood before the gathered people. Fifty or so expectant faces looked at me. I felt the constriction of my toes in my dress shoes and my shoulders pressing into my suit jacket.
In that split second, before I opened my mouth, I thought to myself, what right do I have to speak? What kind of leader am I? I wasn’t even here! What could I possibly say that they would want to hear?
I took a deep breath.
I realized that leadership, especially rabbinic leadership, is about trust and relationships.
I knew these people.
It was not just the suit and tie but the hundreds of conversations I had with the people in front of me. It was not the answers I would give but the ear I would lend, my heart I would open.
The fact that I wasn’t there that weekend didn’t matter. I couldn’t control that. These were still my people.
My bones refilled with courage. I looked down at the Wednesday Psalm we had just recited and reinforced the Torah I knew to be true at that moment.
I don’t remember what I said exactly, but it was something like this:
The Psalm speaks of how the Jewish people have suffered. How we might wish for God to bring punishment and justice to the wicked. How, in the end, God will not abandon God’s people.
It can feel like we are alone, but we are not alone. We are here with each other and with the Divine. The Psalm says, “Shall the One who implants the ear not hear, the One who forms the eye not see?”
God sees our pain, our crying out. God is with us. We are with each other.
How can we be there for each other? Lend one another your ear. Be present with one another. Help each other, lean on your neighbor’s shoulder.
The Psalm says, “When I am filled with anxious thoughts, Your assurance soothes my soul.”
Let us soothe one another’s souls.
This would become my practice during those two weeks. I would draw out the lesson my people needed from the daily Psalm. The beauty of Torah is how much is tucked in it.
As the service ended, I gave hugs, shared smiles, and understanding nods.
We were not okay, but together, we would find a way.
Now, five years later, it feels like we find ourselves experiencing another communal tragedy. It is not the same, but the emotions feel resonant.
Our hearts are broken. Our community is in grief. And yet, our shoulders offered to each other for our people to cry on.
For me, as I sit at the furthest reaches of the West, far away from the immediacy of the situation, it is crucial to recognize that we do not know or understand what it feels like in Israel. We should seek to listen to the people and what they need.
Just like those outside of Pittsburgh felt impacted by the Shooting, they did not know what we experienced or how we felt. Not really. We are all present in the concentric circles of trauma. This moment, in 2023, feels like this is happening to all of us, as I imagine it felt for many outside of Pittsburgh five years ago.
What we can do is hold each other soul to soul, wherever we find ourselves.
For those in leadership, it feels as if we need to have all of the answers.
We don’t. We cannot. As our hearts sit in our chests, fearful of the days to come, there are few clear answers.
We don’t know how the community will be changed. We don’t know how each of us will react over time. We don’t know how this will alter our outlook. We don’t know how this will impact our relationships.
Things will be different. That is one of the only things we can be sure of.
If I were to advise myself five years ago with all that I know now, I would say:
Be patient and understanding with others and yourself. Stay focused on what you can do to help, and keep an eye on your own heart. Find others who understand and trust them most. Open your heart wide despite the vulnerability.
And know that it will hurt, a lot, for a long time. That people won’t truly understand, despite their words.
More than anything, understand that this moment will change the trajectory of your life and your soul. It will take time to unravel and you won’t know how it will turn out.
I am not the same person I was before that day five years ago. The trajectory of my life was altered that day. My relationships with people, places, God, and Torah are different.
This moment is trajectory-changing, too, for all of us.
We will not be the same, and it will take time to uncover how we will change.
A small note with a prayer on it that I placed in the Western Wall in Jan 2020.
Every time I write something, it feels incomplete, unable to describe the immensity of this moment and all that needs to be said.
The feelings of heartbreak, rage, and sorrow are overwhelming. When I close my eyes tight, feeling the pressure in my eyelids, I desperately seek flickers of hope in my heart.
I am not an Israeli, and I’m not there on the ground. I cannot truly understand what it feels like. I am a Jew, and we are deeply connected as a people. My feelings stem from standing together at Sinai, shoulder to shoulder. I am not a Palestinian, but I am a human being who cares for others made in the image of God.
All of this and my experience as a rabbi in Pittsburgh, serving the community after the shooting, inform my heart and my responses.
I learned how trauma impacts all of us, even those who didn’t experience it first-hand, and that it stays with us. Forever.
From days that feel like blurred moments to the bitter taste of adrenaline in your mouth. From failing to remember how to do something you’ve done a million times to lashing out at the smallest things.
When it comes to trauma, we each own our truth of it.
How it feels, the kind of support we need, how we externalize it. All of it matters, it’s real, and it requires care and love.
In the wake of my wedding and the shooting, I served as the primary pastoral presence for my people for the first two weeks. Followed months and years of shared support. We hosted the three congregations and gathered thousands in prayer. I sat with congregants wrestling with theology, safety, and the real impact of violence in our community.
A lot has changed in the past, almost, five years, but these remain fundamental:
1. It is hard to hate people you know.
I focused my time on building relationships with people from different races, ethnicities, and religions than me. My improved understanding of them, and them of me were the building blocks of a better shared future.
2. People don’t really get it.
I used to get very frustrated when people would talk about my neighborhood as if they knew what we were going through. They would claim to speak for us and our experiences. But they didn’t know. They didn’t experience it.
That’s true today, too. I don’t know what it’s like in Israel or Gaza right now. I can only imagine. I can have feelings. I can reflect on my experiences, but that is not the same as living it right now.
3. Compassion, love, care, and peace are the goal.
The path we are on, individually, communally, and societally, must end in a place of peace and caring. That is our shared goal. There are many pathways there, and they are not always direct, but keeping that as our guide matters.
As I reflect on all of this, five years later, I think of my role as rabbi, teacher, and leader.
I often reflect on what my responsibility is at any given moment. What am I to do right now in this situation? It is a part of human nature to want to try and fix things. To solve these kinds of crises with a sense of immediacy.
For most of us, that is not possible.
Certainly, there is only so much we can do at this moment.
We’re too far away, or don’t have authority, or don’t know exactly what to do to help. We sit and scream into the void, hoping that perhaps it will improve the situation.
There is a text on Shabbat 54b that I think about a lot.
Anyone who had the capability to effectively protest the sinful conduct of the members of their household and did not protest, they are apprehended for the sins of the members of their household and punished. If they are in a position to protest the sinful conduct of the people of their town, and they fail to do so, they are apprehended for the sins of the people of their town. If they are in a position to protest the sinful conduct of the whole world, and they fail to do so, they are apprehended for the sins of the whole world.
Though it is in the framing of sin and being apprehended, I have always understood it to be a broader framework.
Wherever we have the authority and power to enact change, we are responsible for doing so.
Do you have power in your household? Focus on that. Your town? Focus on that. City? State? Country? The whole world? Use your power for good wherever you can.
I have also understood this text to recognize where we do not have power.
I am not an elected official. I am not a military strategist or security expert. I am not a diplomat or peace negotiator. I am not an international policy expert.
I do not have the power or the expertise to impact Israeli or US policy, whether it’s military, international, or domestic policy.
I use my vote and my voice, the best that I can. I speak to those I have relationships with and send my desires to my elected officials and other leaders.
And, I can talk to you, dear reader.
I can share my thoughts with you, and you will do with them what you please with whatever authority or power that you have. That is what I can do.
So, what authority or power do I have?
My experiences, as a person, and as a rabbi, my power comes from being a student of Torah and the trust you give me by reading and subscribing to this newsletter.
And when I think about that power and authority, I turn to our Tradition for guidance. What does the Torah say? What do our sages say? What wisdom calls out to me? What Torah do I need to hear at this moment?
I can tell you that as I held my child yesterday, all I wanted to do was keep her safe, to teach her love, compassion, and good works. To stand for what is right. To teach her the sanctity of human life, and to love those who are different from her. To not be afraid and to feel pride in who she is.
In the sorrow and rage that I feel, I need to be reminded of peace and mercy, to be an example to her, to teach her to lean into the best of who we can be.
That is the Torah that I sought. Not just for her, or for you, dear reader, but also for me. To be the best I can be amidst the heartbreak, while we hear stories of suffering and evil, as we hold innocent lives in our hearts.
My starting place is here:
דְּרָכֶ֥יהָ דַרְכֵי־נֹ֑עַם וְֽכׇל־נְתִ֖יבוֹתֶ֣יהָ שָׁלֽוֹם׃ [Torah’s] ways are ways of pleasantness, and all of her paths are of peace. (Proverbs 3:17)
We sing these words four times weekly, every time we return the Torah to the ark. We physically and metaphorically carry our Torah into safety, we centralize peace. We pray for peace, we hunger for peace. We use our waking moments hoping for peace.
The language here is also that of pathways, of a choice to walk down those roads.
Peace does not just happen. It is something we intend and must put into action.
Pray for the well-being of Jerusalem; “May those who love you be at peace. May there be peace within your ramparts, quiet in your citadels.” For the sake of my kin and friends, I pray for your peace.
The bolded line also appears in our liturgy. It shows up on Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur. It appears on Rosh Hodesh and on all the holidays.
Over the course of this week, when I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, I’ve hummed these words, using them as a salve.
It feels resonant to me at this moment, as we stand on the brink of more violence, that the Psalmist uses the language of militaries while talking about peace. The locations we use for war should be quiet and calm.
And, because this is not just for places but for people. We focus on those “who love you” and our siblings and friends.
This is a peace for all of us.
The sages have comments on peace, our role in it. They also share guidance on war. But when I think about the Torah I need to hear right now, it isn’t that. Many are already calling for war. That voice doesn’t have to be mine. That can be found already.
I need to hear voices of peace. We all will, eventually.
The future will be made of peace, and we will have to take on the task. It will have to be an identity we take on. That of peace seeker.
Hillel used to say: be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving humans and drawing them close to the Torah.
One of the greatest sages to exist reminds us to be one who rodef shalom, one who chases after peace. Along the pathways Torah guides us on, we should run down them, search and seeking peace along its winding roads.
Along with that, we are reminded to love humanity, habriyot.
Love humanity.
Our fellow holy vessels of the Divine. Each of which is unique and of unceasing value. We are meant to love them.
And to love our fellow humans, we must also retain our humanity.
In a place where there are no humanity, strive to be a human.
The stories we hear right now are gruesome and awful. We know that more will be coming, which, God-forbid, could be worse. Grounding ourselves in our shared humanity is essential.
To lose that, to cease seeing each other as human, is a curse none of us want.
It doesn’t mean we cannot be angry. I know that moments of red-hot rage have overtaken me in recent days. But to remain there is dangerous and harmful.
In the Talmud, Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha describes this powerful moment of encountering the Divine, as a Godly manifestation sitting upon a throne. God asks Rabbi Yishmael to bless God. He says on Berakhot 7a:
I said to God the prayer that God prays:
“May it be Your will that Your compassion overcome Your anger, and may Your mercy prevail over Your other attributes, and may You act toward Your children with the attribute of compassion, and may You enter before them beyond the letter of the law.”
God accepts this blessing with a nod with the explicit lesson that we should not discount the regular person’s power to bless. We are each a regular person in this world.
But the blessing itself is the key. A reminder that our anger can be real, justified, and reasonable, but that God, Godself, wishes to have mercy override that anger.
If we are to be like God, this reminds us that our compassion should guide our actions more than our anger. This does not negate our anger but instead provides us a pathway, a direction for it. To let it transform, and thus change us, into compassion, into care, and into love.
The truth is that no one has all of the answers.
This is a moment in history that will be remembered.
The tight knot that has sat in my chest for days will probably remain there. I will probably keep stopping in my tracks, choking a sob, praying this wasn’t happening. You might be feeling the same.
We are grieving, not just human lives, but the path we are now on.
All we can do is make the best decisions we can.
To our siblings in the Holy Land, we hold you in our hearts, praying for safety, good choices, and that peace should come speedily in our days.
How can you help?
For those of us in the diaspora, much of what we can do to help share our resources with those who need it.
You can donate via your local Jewish Federation, or check with your local community for specific projects they might be raising funds for. In addition, you can check this out, which lists highly-rated charities serving the communities impacted at this time.
