Annual Meeting Remarks - Surviving

[Adapted from remarks that evening]

When I said that the last third of this synagogue year was like Survivor, I was only half kidding. The metaphor holds up. The show still airs because it asks some deeply human questions: when do we act in self-interest, and when do we choose collaboration? When do we protect our own needs, and when do we take risks for the good of the larger group?

These are not just reality-TV questions. They are community questions. They are synagogue questions. Every Jewish community wrestles with them: when do we turn inward, and when do we stick our necks out? Where should resources be allocated? What stances do we take on hard topics? And perhaps most importantly, how do we continue creating spaces where people feel connected to one another in a world that so often pulls people apart?

Well, we begin with building a calendar of meaningful events that help us celebrate, mourn, and grow together. On my end, one of the year's highlights was the Yesh Tikva Challah Bake in the fall, where we filled this room with folks of all ages baking challah and opening our hearts to taboo topics that affect our lives. There was also the largest Sukkot BBQ ever on record at WCT, a testament to our community’s willingness to take the Jewish calendar up on its opportunities to bring people together.

And then there was the first-ever Women’s Retreat, which was an astounding success. We had over 65 women registered, ranging from those in their late 20’s to their 80’s. We created art, drummed, and benefitted two social action initiatives. As the day went on, I was moved by how different groups were formed and how women who had never met connected. I feel our community has been brought closer to one another as a result.

As a synagogue, we must recognize what a genuine success it is to serve as a catalyst for bringing people together in the hyper-polarized world of 2026. Think about how counter-cultural that is right now! In a world undergoing constant mitosis, we at Woodlands are in the business of bringing together broken hearts, connecting families and communities, and pursuing peace in the world.

Broadly speaking, I’d say many people — Jewish and not — feel like they’re “just surviving” everything daily life and the world are throwing at them. When I think about “survival,” the word usually evokes a haggard image: someone or something at the very end, hanging on to whatever little is left.

But that’s not really the Jewish concept of survival—whether of a person or of a community. In Jewish terms, survival is about endurance and determination. It is disciplined engagement with life as it comes.

The Talmud (Yevamot 121a) relays a story:

Rabban Gamliel said: Once I was traveling on a boat, and from a distance I saw a boat that shattered and sank. I was grieved over the apparent death of the Torah scholar who was on board. Who was it? Rabbi Akiva. But when I disembarked onto dry land, he came, and sat, and deliberated Torah with me. I asked: Who saved you from the water? He said to me: A plank from the boat came to me. As each wave came toward me, I bent my head into the wave so it would not wash me off. Eventually I reached the shore.

In another teaching, Rabbi Akiva said: Once I was traveling on a boat, and I saw a boat sinking at sea, and I was grieved over the apparent death of the Torah scholar who was on board. Who was it? My student, Rabbi Meir. But when I disembarked, Meir came, sat, and deliberated Torah with me. I said to him: My son, who saved you from the water? He said to me: One wave carried me to another, and that wave to another, until I reached the shore, and a wave cast me up onto dry land.

Jewish survival—individual and collective—is about moving with and through the waves rather than being spared from them. The wisdom that comes from learning to navigate the waves becomes the source of strength.

It is also significant that Gamliel and Akiva were contemporaries, moving through the same turbulent waters together. Meir, Akiva’s student, reflects how the story of one generation’s survival becomes the foundation—and sometimes the lifeline—for the next. We cannot promise smooth waters, but we can give the next generation the benefit of our experience.

Woodlands Community Temple is entering its 60th year. We have the privilege of reaching our 60th decade because, as a community, we have met each wave, each challenge, with discipline, determination, and care. Whether it has been social upheaval, financial pressure, antisemitism, or even our own internal politics, we have endured these 60 years. We have not survived by waiting for miracles or by closing our eyes to reality. Rather, we have faced each challenge by putting our heads down, riding the waves with hope, resolve, and compassionate hearts.

This year, our community named at least 10 babies—10 new souls who represent the ongoing life of our community and of the Jewish people. On their account, and on account of all the meaningful work we have done and will continue to do, we are able to declare: Am Yisrael Chai—the Jewish people survive! “Chai,” of course, also means life. Survival is not simply holding on; it is active, engaged living.

May Woodlands continue to be a place where Am Yisrael Chai is not only proclaimed, but embodied—where Jewish people and their loved ones live full, meaningful lives, in our own homes and as a community. May our 60th birthday celebration be a marker of our survival, a testament to vibrant Jewish life, deep community, and enduring hope. Amen.

Cursing God

I have to be honest with you: I swear like a sailor. I think, if I’m going to psychoanalyze myself for a minute, that because I generally process through speaking, cursing is a way that my body lets go of anger.

These untoward utterances are not usually at a person, but at a situation. I certainly do not find myself cursing God. The curse words of everyday language are one thing. They’re just words - their meaning changes over time. Intent and tone has everything to do with how they are flung and received.

But cursing God’s name is something else completely. That, by Jewish standards, is particularly problematic. The book of Deuteronomy lays it out straight: God actually gives us the choice between blessing and curse - with blessing leading to life-affirming action and cursing leading to destruction, the unravelling of God’s creation. To invoke “God’s name” means to act in service of that Name, a responsibility we must take seriously.

This week’s Torah portion is Emor - which means “Speak.” The parsha shows the ways in which our words matter - whether in prayer or in the ways we relate to one another.

Early in the parsha, we read:

וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם֙ מִצְוֺתַ֔י וַעֲשִׂיתֶ֖ם אֹתָ֑ם אֲנִ֖י יְהֹוָֽה׃ 

You shall faithfully observe My commandments: I am GOD.

וְלֹ֤א תְחַלְּלוּ֙ אֶת־שֵׁ֣ם קׇדְשִׁ֔י וְנִ֨קְדַּשְׁתִּ֔י בְּת֖וֹךְ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל אֲנִ֥י יְהֹוָ֖ה מְקַדִּשְׁכֶֽם׃ 

You shall not profane My holy name, that I may be sanctified in the midst of the Israelite people—I, GOD, who sanctify you,

When God’s name is profaned, holiness is diminished in the world. Communities fall apart. The universe begins to unwind.

Humans are placed on earth to be planters and tenders of God’s creation. We evolved to our intellectual and physical strength in order to build holy communities that reflect the holiness of the Divine essence that created it all. If we curse God’s name, we act against God’s purpose for us and, with our very words, suck the water out of the ground, spread weeds and chip away at the world’s beauty. We negate its very existence!

Hillul HaShem, profaning the Divine name, is not just about uttering a curse or casually using God’s name derogatorily. It’s not even just about God’s name itself. As a religious concept, hillul HaShem occurs any time a Jew acts immorally in the presence of others. Unethical behavior, in and of itself, is an affront to God’s good name. It rejects our Divinely-given task as God’s agents.

Which leads us to the digression in this week’s Torah portion. Leviticus 24 reads: The son of an Israelite woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the Israelites; and the Israelite woman’s son and an Israelite man fought in the camp. The Israelite woman’s son pronounced the Name [of God] and cursed; and they brought him to Moshe. His mother’s name was Shlomit, daughter of Divri, of the tribe of Dan.… God spoke to Moshe, saying, “Take the blasphemer outside the camp; and let all who were within hearing lean their hands upon his head, and let the whole community stone him.”

This man, “the blasphemer,” is part of the Israelite community. His mother is from the tribe of Dan. His father, however, is an Egyptian. The first thing that should jump out at us is that intermarriage is hardly a modern phenomenon. Torah is FULL of people who draw lineage from different religions and ethnicities.

As ancient as that phenomenon, though, is the social anxiety surrounding such an arrangement. It is the ancient concern of who is in and who is out and sometimes this anxiety results in disastrous consequences, like in this story.

Rabbi Avital Hochstein of the Hadar Institute dips into the midrash, the rabbinic imagination, in order to mine deeper understanding from the passage. The Midrash helps us to see how the blasphemer doesn’t curse God’s name because of his parentage. Rather, the blasphemer curses out of frustration for how society has treated him and how the community has failed to help him integrate:

“R. Hiyya taught: …[Shlomit’s son] came to pitch his tent in the camp of Dan, but they said to him, “What right do you have to pitch your tent in the camp of Dan?” He replied, “I am descended from the daughters of Dan.” They told him, “It is written (in the book of Numbers), ‘The Israelites shall camp each [household] with its standard, under the banners of their father’s house’ —and not their mother’s house.” He entered the court of Moshe and emerged with an unfavorable ruling; then he stood up and blasphemed.”

Rabbi Hochstein explains: “This midrash offers a jarring explanation for the blasphemer’s “going out”: it was an act of expulsion. The blasphemer is a man caught in a housing-identity crisis. He seeks to belong to the tribe of Dan, his mother’s tribe, yet the law dictates that tribal identity is determined solely by the father. As the son of an Egyptian man, he is left without an inheritance, without a banner, and without a place to call home. In his distress, he turns to the legal system—to Moshe himself—but the answer he receives is devastating: he “emerged liable.” He is told that he does not belong and has no place, camp, or tribe. The midrashic narrative portrays his outburst as the direct result of this judicial rejection: “He stood up and blasphemed. This midrash invites us to view the blasphemer not as someone who is simply malicious, but as an individual pushed to the brink by structural injustice. His curse is not merely a religious provocation; it is the desperate cry of someone the community has cast out. This midrash forces us to confront difficult questions: Are there situations where strict adherence to the law produces a rejection of certain people? Are we, as a society, responsible for the curses uttered by those who have no place to pitch their tents? Ultimately, the midrash highlights a grave danger: when a religious community acts in a way that fosters injustice, the inevitable result is the profanation of God’s Name (hillul Hashem).”

Hochstein, my opinion, is not defending the blasphemer’s actions. What he did was still beyond the pale. One should never curse the Divine Name for all the reasons I stated before. She is inviting us, however, to think about what conditions led him down such a dark and dangerous path. When do people feel so desperate that they may be tempted to give up completely and curse the Divine name as an act of surrendering to that desperation? Again, cursing God’s name is an act of unravelling, and this time, it is within a person.

The rabbis understand, as we do, that this Divinely given life is not all sunshine and roses, and there can be circumstances within the organized chaos of creation that push us to the brink; to have us question if it is all worth it and if we really do want to do the hard work of fulfilling the mitzvot and tending to the garden God has placed us in.

Tradition acknowledges this, and it implores us, commands us, to hold on.

This is in fact the theological basis for the Mourner’s Kaddish. Famously, the Mourner’s Kaddish never mentions death. Instead, the prayer highlights God’s greatness and lifts up the Divine Name again and again: 

יִתְגַּדַּל וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא

Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name throughout the world

יְהֵא שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא

May God’s great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

It makes sense that a mourner would be obligated to utter words that assert “God’s great name.” A person in the pit of mourning would probably be most at risk to curse God, to profane the Divine Name. It would make sense to be angry at the Creator of Life and Death, and be tempted to curse the source of one’s pain. And yet our tradition lifts up the Divine name in an effort to lift the spirit of the person reciting the prayer:

“May God’s great name be blessed forever and to all eternity. Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One.”

Higher and higher we lift God’s name, restoring its glory in the heart of the person saying it, restoring one’s trust in the Divine design of which we have little power but lots of influence.

Which brings me back to a reading we shared earlier this evening. It is on page 24 of our siddur:

“Praise Me, says God, and I will know that you love Me. Curse Me, says God, and I will know that you love Me. Praise Me or curse Me, and I will know that you love Me. Sing out My graces, says God. Raise your fist against Me and revile, says God. Sing out graces or revile – reviling is also a kind of praise, says God.

But if you sit fenced off in your apathy, says God ... if you sit entrenched in, “I don’t care,” says God ... if you look at the stars and yawn, if you see suffering and don’t cry out, if you don’t praise and you don’t revile ...then I created you in vain, says God.”

These are the words of Aaron Zeitlin, a Jewish writer of the early 20th century. This is a different take on “cursing God.” Zeitlin is picking up on the fact that God does in fact allow us our outbursts, and God very much allows us to question God’s Divine design and plans. The Bible is full of direct protest and question of God - from Abraham to Job to the ancient Psalmist.

With this insight, perhaps we see “blasphemy” differently. Afterall, we don’t know God’s actual name, which makes it very hard to curse it. Blasphemy, in this perspective, is apathy, or worse, disregard and detachment from reality. It is lack of purpose.

Jewish tradition maintains that the real danger is not the person who cries out in pain or even in anger. The real danger is the person who loses all sense of purpose. A person who stops caring - about themselves and others.

A holy community is a community that refuses to let anyone be pushed so far to the margins that their only language left is a curse of defeat. It is a community that understands that words have power—not only to wound, but to heal, to include, and to restore dignity; not just to a human soul, but to God’s creation writ large. May we be that sort of community, and in doing so, bless the Divine Name. Amen.