Clergy Blog

Dear Friends,

The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, was deep in prayer one day when his disciples grew restless. They had finished their prayers hours ago, but he continued, seemingly oblivious. Eventually they left to take care of the day's demands. When they returned hours later, he was still praying. He stopped and explained: "When I pray, I climb like people building a human ladder to reach something precious high in a tree. Each person supports the others, and together we can reach heights none of us could achieve alone."

He needed their full presence, their spiritual energy joining with his. He could feel when they were there—and when they weren't. When they were there, his spirit could reach new heights.

We're three days away from Rosh Hashanah, and I've been looking forward to this for months. There's something magical about having our whole community together—seeing faces I haven't seen since last year, everyone glowing, excited to be back.

Unlike the Baal Shem Tov, our being together isn't so that I can reach spiritual heights—it's so we can all lift each other. The more we show up and bring our whole selves to the work of the Yamim Nora'im, the more we find the strength and support to become our best selves for whatever this year brings.

The work of examining our lives and figuring out where we can do better is hard to do alone. When we gather, we feel each other's energy, hear voices join with ours, and find the support we need for renewal.

In times of so much division and distance, our coming together is a salve needed for healing. Let's demonstrate, through our own actions over these holy days, what we need for this world.

We look forward to seeing you at Shabbat services over the weekend and our many holiday services beginning next week. Please take particular note: We are holding Erev Rosh Hashanah services on Monday evening at a new time, 5:30 PM, so that folks might come and then head home for a relaxed and extended holiday meal. For anyone with very young children, our Rosh Hashanah tot programming, like last year, will be at 9 AM on Tuesday in the Brody Youth Lounge.

On behalf of my family and the whole Temple B'nai Abraham team, we wish you a sweet, healthy, and peaceful New Year.

L'shana Tova and Shabbat Shalom,

Dave

For those interested, I would like to share some of the work I began over sabbatical. I've been studying Modern Jewish Thought—Jewish theology and philosophy from the Modern period onward. Some of you explored this with me in last year's Lunch and Learn series, where we examined thinkers like Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel. This year, we'll look at different theological issues: good and evil, belief in God, revelation, and Jewish practice.

I've been seeking a deeper understanding of how our people have thought about religion and belief since we began using critical thought to express our Judaism to ourselves and the world. This field is full of thinkers trying to reach Jewish conclusions through rational thought, followed by others frustrated with the limits rational thought places on religious experience.

To truly understand these thinkers, I needed to study the Western philosophers who influenced them—Descartes, Kant, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. This led me to epistemology, the study of knowledge: How do we know what we know? How can we differentiate between fact and opinion? This centuries-old question feels incredibly relevant today.

This summer I also decided to learn what I could about Artificial Intelligence. While I'm curious about its theological implications, my goals were more practical—with AI's rapid expansion, I needed to understand what this technology is, how we interact with it, and what impacts it can make. This foundation helps me keep up with major shifts that happen every few weeks.

From there, I wanted to see how we could use this technology to support our synagogue work and the rabbinate. While there are concerns about AI ethics, there's tremendous good that can be done. The Christian world is ahead of us in integrating these tools into community building and worship, but I have colleagues who are experimenting and sharing their findings.

It turns out AI can help us create educational materials to respond to individual learners' needs and curiosity, far more rapidly than before, and provide resources we might not have had the ability to produce.

Of course there are darker sides too. One major concern: we now face a digital world full of AI-created content where truth and morality are at times afterthoughts, and humanity will need to navigate this. Which, of course, brings me back to the philosophers' exploration of how we know what we know—philosophers and theologians still have much to add to our conversations.

All of this remains a work in progress, and I'm excited to share more as I continue. Please consider joining me for my monthly Lunch and Learn series, beginning Tuesday, October 28, at 11:30 AM.