Torah Geek

“ No Regrets ” Sermon for Kol Nidrei 5777 Rabbi Shawna Brynjegard-Bialik Temple Ahavat Shalom – Northridge, California The Maggid of Dubnow was once passing through a town and came upon an old, abandoned barn. On the side of this barn were 100 targets. And in the center of each target, was an arrow.  100 targets, 100 bullseyes. He was amazed. Immediately he went to the town square  and asked the villagers who was the marksman that had such amazing skill. They pointed to a boy,  sitting off to the side with a bow and quiver next to him. “Young man,” he asked him,  “how is that you are so skilled to have accomplished this incredible feat with your bow and arrow?” “It’s really easy,” the boy replied, “I shoot the arrows first, and then I paint the targets around them.” If you draw the bullseyes after you shoot the arrows, you never regret a single shot. American culture celebrates this “No Regrets” attitude. We hear it all the time, as if living lif...

How many of you are here tonight because someone you love asked you to be here? Or because someone you love told you to be here? How many of you are here to connect with the Jewish community? To connect with Jewish culture and history? To feel connected to your family, whether they are sitting next to you or are across the country? How many of you are here because this is just what Jewish people do? How many of you are here to make amends with God? Tonight we are starting a journey. We will spend the next ten days climbing a mountain together, on a journey to the top. And when we get to the top, we’ll have more than a view of the path we took to get there; we’ll have a panorama of of the past year spread out beneath us. We will look back on our past, and out toward our future as well. Every year at this time we revisit the story of the akedah — the story of the binding of Isaac. God tells Abraham to take his son, his only son, the one he loves best, to the...

This morning I read that Michelle Bachmann is blaming the recent earthquake and hurricane on God . While this is not the only ridiculous thing she said recently, I take particular issue with her suggestion that she knows how God works. God does not control the weather. I have written before about how hurricanes and earthquakes happen because they are part of nature—not to punish us. Even if I did believe that God uses nature to punish humanity, how would Senator Bachmann know what we are supposedly being punished for? She seems certain that God is sending a message to politician s. The antidote to Michelle Bachmann is this article by Rabbi Edward Bernstein . God does not use the weather to punish us, and certainly I can't believe in a God who would kill 35 people in a hurricane to prove a political point. I do believe that there are consequences for our actions. Although God does not control the weather to reward and punish humanity, we certainly punish ourselves when we...

  Hiking with Rishonim and Rabbi Paul Kipnes at Camp Newman Number three: Prayer is about you, not about God This summer at camp I was with a group of eighth and ninth graders who were spending a month exploring Jewish experiences in nature. Every other day Rabbi Paul Kipnes and I would get a new group of 14 kids to take hiking. At the beginning of each hike we started with tefilat haderech—the travelers’ prayer. We talked with the kids about why, historically, we needed a travelers’ prayer and what kinds of things we would pray for today as we started our short journey up the hills of Napa. The kids went around the circle listing things they wanted protection from—like poison oak, bees and sunburn—and what blessings they hoped to find, like connecting with friends and having fun. We turned all these hopes and fears into a prayer, our own customized tefilat haderech. I could stop here and tell you about the beauty of writing our own prayer—and it was beautiful—but that was the po...