Understanding Torah: Structure Informs Spiritual Meaning fe

October 31, 2024 By Rabbi David Feder

Finding Structure in Torah and Our Lives Louis Sullivan, the American architect, famously remarked that “form follows function”. While his idiom has been applied primarily to architecture, it also opens insights into Torah and life as well. Torah forms the foundation for any discussion of Jewish practice, belief, custom, or history. How it appears, even physically, gives us an understanding of how it can and has been utilized. If we’re going to spend time discussing Torah, let’s make certain that... Read more

The Art of Questioning: Shaping Our Thoughts, Life, & Faith

October 25, 2024 By Rabbi David Feder

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Questions. Our lives are filled with them. At this season in particular we often feel inundated by them. We ask questions to political candidates: What would you do about the border? How will you bring down the price of milk? We ask questions about candidates and issues: What impact will this policy have on the economy? How will this stance impact my family? We ask questions throughout and after games: What was the coach thinking on fourth down? Were the... Read more

Rejoicing over the defeat of our enemies?

October 23, 2024 By Rabbi David Feder

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Few, if any, will mourn the passing on Yahya Sinwar, the recently killed leader of Hamas in Gaza and chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau. Sinwar murdered Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel, planned the abduction and killing of Israeli soldiers, and with Mohammed Deif, was the mastermind of the October 7 attack. And yet, there has been little public celebration of his death and the deaths of Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh, Hassan Nasrallah, and others. Yes, people have posted... Read more

From Gloom to Joy: Embracing Celebration During Sukkot

October 20, 2024 By Rabbi David Feder

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What do you do when you have to go to a party, but you’re really not in the mood? Maybe you’re feeling under the weather; perhaps you’ve just had a fight with your significant other; it could be that there’s something else you’d rather be doing. We’ve all gone to events, put on a happy face, soldiered through, and eventually served our time and been able to depart. Sometimes we’ve been warmed up by the crowd, atmosphere and occasion and... Read more

Sukkot: Shelters of Vulnerability

October 16, 2024 By Rabbi David Feder

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As we prepare to celebrate Sukkot, we feel a connection to what seems to be the most basic, primal holiday of the Jewish calendar and yet, in many ways seems to be the most contemporary. Sukkot at its core is the celebration of the fall harvest, the largest harvest of the year. Every agrarian culture has a major celebration surrounding the harvest, rejoicing that there will be enough food to get through the winter season. In that sense, as well as others,... Read more

Being the Goat: Jews, Israel, and the World on Yom Kippur

October 10, 2024 By Rabbi David Feder

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This year I feel like a goat. Not in the sense of wanting a curry or a stew for dinner or of feeling a kinship with Simone Biles, Michael Jordan, or Muhammad Ali. But, as Yom Kippur approaches and I try to draw inward for reflection, the din and distractions of the world around me disturb my attempts at achieving revery. Any perusal of social media, news, or email brings word of some new or continuing protest against Israel, or... Read more

We Remember Each One of Them: October 7 and Our Losses

October 6, 2024 By Rabbi David Feder

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The tragedy of loss has touched every single one of us. Some have been touched by the unexpected loss of a favorite celebrity or sports icon. Fans of the Boston Celtics felt the untimely loss of Len Bias two days after he was drafted and still wonder what level of greatness he would have brought to the franchise and how iconic a player he might have become. When we think about the shock of Tupac Shakur’s death at the age... Read more

You Will Become What You Eat

October 2, 2024 By Rabbi David Feder

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People have been eating symbolic foods almost as long as we’ve been cultivating plants and raising animals for food. Eating food for what it represents makes abstract concepts like fortune, security, and longevity, concrete, as well as enabling us to literally digest and internalize them. Eating is also an act of building or strengthening community. We reach out to others, share both what we have and what we hope, and build kinship and cooperation. Most symbolic foods point to either... Read more

The Sounds of Change

September 25, 2024 By Rabbi David Feder

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The capacity to transport people to a different place emotionally by expelling breath into a horn is rare, but we can recognize numerous examples: lifted up by the contagious joy in Clifford Brown’s “Daahoud”, immersed in a stream of cool in Miles Davis’ “All Blues”, or awakened by the piercing notes of a shofar. While the shofar lacks the melodic tones of a trumpet, it makes up for that in conveying a sense of urgency. The reasons given for... Read more

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read and Reflect

September 17, 2024 By Rabbi David Feder

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Spiritual insights can emerge from unexpected places. While we might expect to obtain insight from someone journeying solo through the wilderness or an expert ruminating on the lessons learned through meditation, rarely do we expect to find enlightenment in the newspaper. Can we glean awareness and understanding from sources that more typically inform us about the world of policy and politics? Can the headlines provide directions for our personal quests, especially during this month of Elul as we prepare for... Read more