Five Jews are sitting on a park bench.
“Oy,” says the first.
“Oy vey,” says the second.
“Oy vey iz mir,” says the third.
“Oy gevalt,” says the fourth.
The fifth says, “Can we just this once stop talking about the Iran deal?”
I’ve always wanted to be on Jeopardy.
I love everything about it – its competitive spirit, the display of lightning like intellectual and physical reflexes that recall all matters of intellectual ephemera, and the sometimes witty banter between contestants and Alex Trebek.
Several friends of mine have applied to be contestants. One, a reform rabbi in New York City, even made it on earlier this year. I’ve learned that if you completely ace the tryout questions, you will most likely not be asked to continue to the next steps of the tryout process. In other words, if you are perfect, you’re not good enough.
High School. First kiss. Graduation. College. First job. Marriage. Yesteryear. The good ole days.
Nostalgia is a booming business.
In recent years, social media has popularized what has come to be known as ‘tbt’ – throwback Thursday. On Thursdays, it takes one quick glance on Facebook to see pictures of friends with that crazy hair from high school, or a gorgeous wedding portrait from over 40 years ago. We use our present technologies to go back to the past. Apps, services and Web sites try and tap into our yearnings for yesterday.
There’s a bad joke incoming, but nostalgia is just not what it used to be.
With the war in Gaza hitting a fever pitch, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum wrote a prayer for peace. Within the prayer, she recited the names of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian children. She urged her congregation not to *harden our hearts* to suffering, wherever it occurs.
Tonight I ask, what is behind this curtain, the *parochet* that opens to reveal the insides of our holy ark?
Lawrence Kushner, the fantastic kabbalist and author, tells a story from his days as a pulpit rabbi at Congregation Beth-El located in Sudbury, Massachusetts.
If you have ever studied Roman mythology, you may recall the god, Janus. Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions. He is also known as the god of doorways and time. Our secular month of January serves as his namesake, and of course January is the month when we celebrate a different kind of new year.
Our struggle is not the absence of miracles. Our struggle is our inability to recognize the miracles that surround us. But on this day of Rosh Hashanah, we rail against this perceptual blindness. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are our religious prescription lenses by which we look out and see the world.
I was so excited to see the new Superman movie, Man of Steel. A friend and I went to the new movie theatre next to Lowe’s, found ourselves seats that weren’t too close to the screen … weren’t too far back … and perfectly placed for optimum surround sound.
Life is a pre-existing condition.
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Back in High School, I read Ovid’s great work of Greek mythology, The Illiad. I devoured the epic poem of Odysseus and his adventures with the pantheon of Greek gods. The stories are rich and complex, full of drama and magic, and ripe for metaphor.
Earlier this summer, I had the privilege of working at our regional URJ camp, Camp Coleman. For one week I networked with colleagues, taught classes, tutored bar and bat mizvah students and led services. I also cheered at lunch, played water volleyball with counselors and rhymed various camp announcements.