There is a political fracas brewing this week about a rule announced by the Obama administration that requires most employers to offer free contraceptive services in their employees' health plans. What's so controversial about that? No one is required to use contraceptives under this rule. It just says that the services have to be made available. 

The problem, as you probably know, is that the Roman Catholic church opposes the use of contraceptives and Catholic institutions employ a lot of people. As the rule was announced originally, actual churches would have been exempt from the mandate, but Catholic universities, hospitals and charities would not have been exempt. Under the original rule, they would have had to pay for contraceptive services, despite their religious objections. 

American Catholic bishops were furious about this. They said that the rule went too far. They said that it violated the religious freedoms of people who are opposed to birth control. Why should they have to pay for something that they oppose?

Eventually, the Obama administration sought to minimize the damage caused by the uproar. They changed the rule so that religious organizations that object to birth control would not have to pay for contraceptives. Instead, the cost burden in such cases has been transferred to insurance companies. Employees who want birth control can get it and religious institutions that are opposed to birth control don't have to pay for it. That should solve the problem, right?

Apparently not. Some people, and not all of them Roman Catholics, want to keep the controversy going—a few for religious reasons, but most of them to score political points. (If you hadn't noticed, it's an election year.) The new claim is that no employer who objects to contraception for religious reasons should be required to offer birth control to their employees, even if they don't have to pay for it, even if their employees do not share their religious beliefs. Now who's going too far? Now who's infringing on religious freedoms?

And what on earth does any of this have to do with living a joyful Jewish life? (Which is, you know, the point of this blog).

The whole rhetoric of "religious freedom" in this country has changed dramatically in the last fifty years. It is deeply troubling to me as a religious person who values my freedom of religion. It is deeply troubling to my sense of what society owes me as a religious person, and what my obligations are to society.

We live in an era when religious freedom is equated with the idea that nobody should ever be asked to step outside the comfort zone of his or her own religious beliefs. No one should be asked to respect the beliefs of another person when those beliefs conflict with his or her own. That is not what religious freedom used to mean. 

Jews are very well acquainted with what it used to mean to be deprived of religious freedom. It meant that you were not allowed to practice, or even believe, in your religion. It meant that you were not allowed to own land or practice certain professions without renouncing your religion. It meant that the state could coerce you to abandon your own religious beliefs and practices and adopt those of the majority religion.

That is not what is happening in the contraception controversy. No one is telling anyone that they must pay a penalty for observing the strictures of their faith. The objection to the contraception rule seems to be that it deprives employers of the right to coerce their religious beliefs upon their employees. That's not right. If we are going to be one society, we must care about the needs of people who think differently than we do. 

Jewish tradition states clearly that communities have an obligation to care for the sick and to minister to each person's health. Whether you like it or not (put me in the "not" category), our society has decided to fulfill that obligation through a system of employer-based insurance plans. That means that society, primarily through employers, takes care of people's health, regardless of whether we share the same opinions, beliefs or religion. We don't put an asterisk on some healthcare services and say, in effect, "We will deny you this service because, as your employer, we can force our beliefs on you."

Freedom of religion does not convey the right to opt out of any social contract that involves something we don't endorse for ourselves. Can a Muslim employer refuse to provide lunch breaks for employees during the month of Ramadan? Can a Jewish health commissioner refuse to inspect non-kosher restaurants? Of course not. We live in a pluralistic society. It's time we stop pretending that we can ignore the needs of people with whom we disagree. We all need each other and our obligations to each other do not end at the boundaries of our own cannon law.

This is not just about Catholics or about Christians. There is no way to be a joyful member of your religion—any religion—if you use your beliefs as a weapon to deny other people the free exercise of their rights and beliefs. There is nothing joyful about coercion. (And, yes, I am also talking about those orthodox and ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel who think it is their God-given right to impose their version of Judaism on the non-orthodox). To be a joyful Jew means to enter into a partnership with all humanity. It means to recognize that our differences with others do not have to make them our enemies. 

We can rejoice in taking care of our neighbors without expecting them to knuckle under our way of thinking. We should remember that, if we do, we not only subvert their ability to live a joyful life, we subvert our own.


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In this week's Torah portion, Mishpatim, there is a strange encounter between God and the elders of Israel. On the surface, the story suggests that there was a banquet at which God sat down with the Israelites: "They saw the God of Israel. Under God's feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity. Yet God did not raise a hand against the leaders of the Israelites. They beheld God, and they ate and drank" (Exodus 24:10-11). It appears to be the most intimate possible meeting with God. They saw and had a meal together with God. You can't get much nearer than that.

Interestingly, though, the story is introduced by a statement of distance. Before the gathering, God instructs Moses, "Come up to Adonai, with Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, and seventy elders of Israel, and bow low from afar. Moses alone shall come near Adonai, but the others shall not come near, nor shall the people come up with him.” (Exodus 24:1). Why should there be all of this emphasis on the elders keeping their distance when they are about to have afternoon tea at the same table as the Holy One of Blessing?

It's the whole near and far thing. One cannot exist without the other. We need to be able to think of God as being the grounding source of all reality that is far beyond our ability to fathom. No other kind of God would be equal to the awe we experience when we consider the grandeur and immensity of creation and our tiny place within it. We need to be able to think of God as being our intimate partner who cares for us and enters our lives. No other kind of God would be equal to the inner peace and equanimity we experience when we know ourselves to be touched by divinity, loved and forgiven. 

We each need to "bow low from afar," to reach deep into our selves and far beyond ourselves at the same time. We need God to be both near and far.



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This is the sermon I am delivering tonight at Temple Beit HaYam in Stuart, Florida, for the Shabbat of Evolution Weekend.

Tonight we begin Shabbat Yitro. This is the Shabbat on which we read the the story of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai—perhaps the signature moment of divine revelation in all of Western civilization. You’ve seen the movie. Moses goes up to the top of the mountain and God descends from the heavens to meet him. God speaks the words and all of Israel are witnesses. The Torah of God is revealed to Israel and to all humanity.

It is a moment we re-experience whenever we read Torah at any service. We lift the Torah scroll, and we sing,

וזאת התורה אשר שם משה לפני בני ישראל על פי יי ביד משה! 

“This is the Torah that Moses placed before the Israelites—from the mouth of Adonai, by the hand of Moses!”

Revelation is an idea at the heart of Judaism. We make the extraordinary and, perhaps, scandalous claim that we possess truths written in the Torah that are incontrovertible because our ancestors saw and heard them delivered directly from God.

It’s an idea that we struggle with, for we live in an age of science. We have learned that we gain understanding of the world around us by observation, by forming theories that explain how the world works, and by testing those theories through experimentation. 

We live in an age of science, and science has brought unmistakable marvels. We live longer, healthier lives through science. We enjoy conveniences and we do wonders through science—like creating the internet and phones that are smarter than we are. With science, we build skyscrapers, supersonic jets, and we launch probes that travel through the solar system.

On the other hand, it is easy for us to ignore that there are truths that are outside of the realm of science. No scientific investigation, for example, could inform us of the truth that caring for people in need is the right thing to do, regardless of whether we benefit from it. No scientific theory could tell us that harming innocent people without cause is fundamentally wrong, not just because of the negative impact it has on individuals and society, but because it is evil. To understand morality as something that originates beyond human choices and circumstances, to see it as part of the fabric of our reality, we need the idea of revelation. We need the idea that there are some things that we know to be true, not because of material evidence, but because we come to recognize their wisdom in an ongoing process of revelation.

Our need for revealed truths is not limited to the realm of morality, either. For example, we know that science can shed light on the relationship between parents and children, and it can teach us something about successful parenting techniques. But, even science cannot displace the role of the heart in the way we love our children, help them to learn and develop, and the way we suffer when we see them grow up and leave us. Science can teach us about the chemical composition of the hormones that flow through you when you fall in love and their effects on heartbeat, respiration and appetite. But science can never really teach you what it feels like to be with the person you love, or how you feel heartbroken when you miss that person. Science teaches what a human being is. Torah teaches us what a human being is for, and how to be a human being.

וזאת התורה אשר שם משה לפני בני ישראל על פי יי ביד משה! 

“This is the Torah that Moses placed before the Israelites—from the mouth of Adonai, by the hand of Moses!”

It is ironic that this year the Shabbat on which we read the story of the revelation on Mount Sinai is also the Shabbat that falls closest to the birthday of Charles Darwin. Sunday, February 12, will be the 203rd birthday of the father of the modern theory of evolution—the guy that all of the so-called biblical literalists love to hate for his theory that all life on earth has a common origin and that through a process of competition and natural selection, the great variety of life developed into the species we see today.

The irony, for me, is not that Darwin and Sinai are incompatible with one another—just the opposite. For me, the delicious coincidence is that we have these two complementary views of the world packaged together in such a short amount of time. This is the way that Jews, traditionally, have viewed the relationship between science and faith—a partnership in which each can learn from the other.

Jewish tradition calls on us to be careful observers of the natural world and to use the power of our minds to discover its secrets. Moses Maimonides, known in Jewish tradition as the Rambam, was one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages and also a great Jewish legalist.  He wrote that since God gave human beings minds that can reason, it is our obligation to use our abilities to discover scientific truths about the natural world. The Rambam went further to say that if truths proven by science appear to contradict Torah, we have an obligation to try to understand these natural truths more deeply, or to adjust our interpretation of Torah to allow for them.

Sometimes, people who are steeped in the scientific way of looking at the world reject religion because they notice that, when taken at face value, the Torah and other sacred texts cannot be reconciled with science. How is it possible for the world to have been created in six days, they ask, when science can show that it took billions of years? Such a reading of our scriptures misses the point entirely. The Bible was never meant to be read as a scientific text book. You wouldn’t reject Shakespeare’s eighteenth sonnet—“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”—because it is impossible for a person to be “a summer’s day.” The poem, of course, speaks truth through metaphor, and that is what the Torah does, too. It instructs us with fantastic stories and poetry that open our minds to life’s challenges and pitfalls, and Torah uses law and legend to inspire us to reach for our highest aspirations.

Ironically, some religious thinkers make the same mistake as the scientific skeptics by reading sacred texts as if they contain factual information about the physical structure of the universe. They see the teaching of evolution as a threat to religion because they want to read the Bible as the only source of knowledge about how we got here. Charles Darwin himself may have felt that threat and delayed publishing his theory of evolution because he feared it would offend religious sensibilities and the pious convictions of his own wife. More than 150 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, the controversy remains. Yet, it is my belief that people who see the theories of Darwin as a threat to the words of Genesis, don’t really understand what Darwin was talking about. I’ll go further. They don’t understand what Genesis is talking about, either.

The stories of creation in the first two chapters of the Bible are not there to teach us how the world came into physical existence. They are there to teach us the meaning of our existence. Genesis teaches us that the world was created with a purpose. It teaches that, prior to our arrival on this planet, our lives were already invested with meaning and with a goal in mind. We are part of a plan, one that we did not devise ourselves, but which gives our lives direction and the possibility of nobility and fulfillment. We were created for blessing and holiness.

On this Shabbat Yitro, the Shabbat on which we once again hear the words of Torah from Sinai, and consider the truths that we receive from a source beyond our senses, we find renewal for our wonder and astonishment at the natural world. We recognize that this world it is not of our making; it is, rather, a gift we have received for a reason. Our existence is invested with the purpose of sanctifying creation by living lives of morality, meaning and purpose. We find that life is a process in which deep wisdom and truths are constantly being revealed to us. And we learn that these truths cannot be viewed through a microscope or derived from an equation. And this is the Torah that Moses placed before the Israelites—from the mouth of Adonai, by the hand of Moses.

Shabbat shalom.


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Yitro's Rap
(After Exodus 18)

Moshe won't release himself from the burden that is crushing him.
And Yitro says, “What you are doing is not right."
"You're going to wear yourself out, and the people along with you."
And Isn't it true that there is nothing we fight for so fiercely
As the right to hold onto the thing that is killing us?

Alcohol, cigarettes, lousy boyfriends, jobs we hate,
Needing to be right, needing to be needed, needing to be afraid.
Being in charge, being in debt, being with someone, being left alone, 
And money, money, money, money, money, money, money.

Now listen to me. I will set you straight (and You-Know-Who be with you). 
You are holy and the only one who can save you. 
You are the dispute. You are the resolution. 
Set them all free and let yourself be.


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have lost all of its significance, however, it took on different and deeper meaning in medieval Jewish mysticism. 

Under the influence of 16th century Kabbalah, Tu BiShvat became a day that marked the renewal of divine energies through the tree that embodies a link between heaven and earth. The holiday came to be celebrated with a ritual meal modeled after the Passover seder. The earliest seder for Tu BiShvat is P'ri Eitz Hadar, a 17th century mystical text. All contemporary seders for the holiday have their roots in this anonymous work.

P'ri Eitz Hadar divides all fruits and nuts into three categories, those without hard seeds or shells, those with hard seeds, and those with outer shells. The fruits of the first category are associated with the "World of Creation," a realm that is so close to the divine source of reality that it requires no protection from the corruptive forces of the material world. These fruits and nuts are called "completely good." 

The second category is associated with the "World of Formation," an intermediate realm between the divine world and the world of material reality. The hard seeds within these fruits are a token of the internal hardness required to survive in such a reality. 

The last category is of the "World of Making." P'ri Eitz Hadar explains that we eat the inside and throw away the outside of these fruits and nuts because their outer shells are the barrier between the profound mystical pleasures of the divine world and the dangers inherent in our worldly reality which is filled with harmful urges and destructive temptations.

P'ri Etz Hadar says that, "There is nothing below that does not correspond to something above." The trees of this world and their fruit are more than they appear. They are the mirror image of the supernal tree that links the worlds between the material world and the divine. The purpose of the seder, from the perspective of the Kabbalists, is for us to eat the fruits and nuts with the intention of reuniting them with their root in each realm. On this special day of the year, our ritual eating of fruits causes divine energy to flow through the tree, like sap rising in a sugar maple.

This is what Jewish mysticism refers to as a "tikkun." It is not just "repairing the world" in the secular sense. Today, "tikkun olam" is used as a Jewish catch-phrase for anything that helps  clean the environment or improve public policies. While those are worthy goals, the tikkun of Tu BiShvat is something different. We are meant to be actors in the cosmic drama of linking heaven and earth. We are meant to see our lives—complete with the personal shortcomings of our hard inner pits and our tough outer shells—as part of the drama that brings God's presence (Shechinah) into the world.

Today is a day for knowing and feeling yourself to be a deeply meaningful and necessary part of the cosmos. Your intentions and your actions help to gladden the godhead and bring divine light and energy into the world. What an awesome thing to achieve by eating some apples, dates, figs and almonds!

On this Tu BiShvat, I wish for you the blessing found in P'ri Etz Hadar:

May it be Your will Adonai our God and God of our ancestors, that through the sacred power of our eating fruit, which we are now eating and blessing, while reflecting on the secret of their supernal roots upon which they depend, that divine flowing energy, favor, blessing, and bounty be bestowed upon them. May the angels appointed over them also be filled by the powerful divine flowing energy of their glory, may it return and cause them to grow a second time, from the beginning of the year and until its end, for bounty and blessing, for good life and peace. (Translation by Miles Krassen)   

Chag Ha'ilanot Sameach!
Happy Festival of Trees!


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Sinai

"I'm bored. There's nobody to play with. Play with me."
My sweet grumpy seven-year-old plops on my lap
Demanding attention and complaining her world 
Is imperfect, somehow, and only I can help.

But my attention is trapped in some bit of work 
That seems so important. Even her soft pouts can't 
Convince me yet to give up the mind wheel I'm stuck
In. I suggest maybe trying Mama for now.

"Mama's napping!" But I look now and see her eyes.
The boney elbows and the impossible cheeks
Look just like the ones I had forty years ago,
When the world was strange and wouldn't answer my calls.

"Come here, sweet girl." And she wraps my head in bare arms.
We stay like that in one of those quiet moments,
When hormones of equanimity take over,
Breathing slows, and I want to hold her forever.

For three thousand years, I've wanted to hear Sinai's
Voice again—a moment when the sound of every
Bird chirp and rustling breeze speaks my eternity.
And here she is, in my lap, a perfect silence.


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Since 2006, the Clergy Letter Project has sponsored an annual "Evolution Weekend" for faith communities to address the relationship between religion and science. The weekend falls each year on or near February 12, the birthday of Charles Darwin. So, it is only a matter of delicious irony that, this year, the event falls on Shabbat Yitro, the Shabbat on which we read the story of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.

It is delicious because Sinai is the quintessential moment of revelation in Jewish tradition—a moment in which knowledge comes directly from God to humanity. It is the very idea of revelation that is at the heart of the debate over evolution. What happens when theories developed by the scientific method appear to contradict the revealed word of sacred scriptures? Are devout believers obliged to refute such theories? Do scientific theories and revealed religious truths have equal standing in our society?

You can easily find people who stand on either extreme of these questions. There are secularists who say that only the testable and provable theories of science deserve to be called "truths." There are religious fundamentalists who will say that God's word is the only reliable source of truth and any deviation from that truth constitutes a false religion. For religious liberals (like me), understanding the relationship between science and divine revelation is a bit more complicated.

I begin by admitting that there are many different kinds of truth. There is no way to test statements like "murder is evil," "the stars are beautiful," or "I love my wife," in the same way that we can test the sum of two plus two. Yet, a person can be more certain of those truths in their heart and mind than anything that can be analyzed rationally. There are things that we know to be true without the need of proof.

Religion runs into difficulty, though, when it tries to read the non-rational, ethical, aesthetic and divine truths of scripture as if they were the same type of truths as those sought by science. If so-called "biblical literalists" insist that the first chapter of Genesis is a description of the world's physical origins, they eventually will earn and deserve the same reputation as those who condemned Galileo for placing the sun at the center of the solar system.

Science and religion, ultimately, are trying to answer different questions. Science seeks to describe the universe, what it is, how it works, and how it may change in the future. Religion has a different goal. Religion seeks to discover the meaning and purpose of reality—why we are here, how we are meant to live our lives, and how we understand ourselves. Looking for clues to the physical origin of species in the Bible makes about as much sense as looking for love in a test tube.

Most Jewish thinkers through the ages have been able to resolve perceived conflicts between revealed truths and scientific truths. Rambam (Maimonides), the great 12th century Jewish philosopher and legalist, wrote that since God gave humanity reason, it is our obligation to use our abilities to discover scientific truths about the natural world. Rambam went further to say that if truths proven by science appear to contradict Torah, we have an obligation to try to understand these natural truths more deeply, or to adjust our interpretation of Torah to allow for them. 

Judaism offers no obligation to refute the evidence of our senses or the reasoning ability of our minds. Reason and revelation can coexist.

What does this say about the way we think about revelation and Sinai? The Torah that was revealed at Sinai is not a history textbook or a compendium of scientific knowledge. It is a way of viewing the world. It does not offer facts, it give us something greater. The revelation of Sinai is that we live in a universe that has a purpose and a moral order. By engaging with words of Torah, we discover how to live lives that matter and lives that can discover the joy of being true to ourselves and our yearning to know God.


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Look at it this way, if you knew that there was something you could do, that would cost you nothing, that could save another person's life, you would do it. Right? No question about it. 

I'm saying this to you because I hear, over and over again, that there are still Jews who believe that being an organ donor is contrary to Jewish law. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jewish law requires us to act to save a life, and that is what we do when we donate the organs we're not using any more.

The real resistance, I fear, to Jewish organ donation has nothing to do with Jewish law. It has to do with death. Of course we fear death. We don't want to think about it and we don't want to think about what happens to our bodies after we die. I can sympathize with that. It doesn't fill me with warm fuzzies, either. But, we don't really have any choice when it comes to making a decision that could save a life. We have to do what we can do.

The card pictured above is my card. It was issued to me be the Halachic Organ Donor Society. It is an organization founded and run by orthodox Jews on a mission to overcome the resistance to organ donation in the Jewish community. Please believe me when I tell you that these people have not compromised one bit of their Jewish values or their commitment to Jewish law in encouraging people to make their useable organs available for life-saving transplants after they die.

There are complicated Jewish legal issues related to organ donation. Most have to do with the definition of when death occurs. I don't need to go into any of that here. All I want to do is just convince you that nothing should stand in the way—not your health, not your age, and not your fears—of making the choice to save a life.

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of this blog. I started it with the idea that I would try blogging for a year. So, it is time to decide if I want to keep going.

At first, the blog was an experiment. I wanted to see if it would help me stay in touch with the members of my former congregation while introducing myself to a new congregation. As a rabbi who prefers to serve smaller congregations, I wanted to see if a blog could give me a broader audience. I wanted to see if I could maintain a commitment to writing regularly about the weekly Torah portion and about invigorating Jewish spirituality. I wanted to see if I could expand my own joy by exploring the place of joy in Jewish thought.

Writing this blog has been a wonderful experience for me, both for the reasons I had hoped, and for reasons I never expected. If it's okay with you, I'm just going to keep on writing it.

What have I found out after writing this blog for a year? Here are five thoughts:

1) The search for joyful living is the essence of the Torah. It just constantly astonishes me that nobody ever told me this when I was a kid in religious school. It would have completely changed the way I thought about Judaism as a child. It has been easy for me to find reflections on joy in every one of the Torah's fifty-four parshiyot. (Well, I've only written about forty-nine of them so far, but I'm pretty sure I'll find joy in the other four). The quest to live a life that is deeply satisfying, fulfilling and joyful is right at the center of what it means to be a Jew.

2) It feels good to have a broader audience. After more than 30,000 page views, I have to admit that I like being able to share my thoughts about Torah with people near and far. I love serving and being part of a smaller Jewish community where it is possible for everyone to know each other, care for each other, and celebrate with each other. On the other hand, smaller congregations can feel a bit limiting—like hiding your light under a bushel, as someone once said. I now enjoy writing for regular readers in Florida, Massachusetts, New York, California, Ohio, Great Britain, Canada, Israel, and the Bailiwick of Jersey. (I didn't even know where that last one was when I started this.) You, the blog reader, have become a beloved part of my extended community.

3) The internet has changed the way people communicate. (Okay, you've heard this one before). I have found that this blog is the primary way that members of my own congregation stay in touch with Judaism. A rabbi friend of mine recently was asked in a job interview if he would spend a lot of time writing blogs, posting on Facebook, and doing Torah teachings on YouTube. The questioner wanted to know if he would be wasting his time with all that newfangled computer stuff. To my friend's credit, he said that teaching Torah through the internet is a great deal more than a fad; it is a critical way for contemporary rabbis to bring Torah into the lives of today's Jews. He was right. (P.S., he got the job.)

4) Writing is the best way to develop ideas to write about. I was a professional writer for years before I ever applied to rabbinic school, so I've had a lot of practice at it. Still, it often surprises me to see how the process of writing is my best tool for discovering new ideas and insights. I find that, as I begin to write, I dig more deeply into the text and find new connections. I strongly recommend writing about Torah to anyone who wants to study Torah. Just a few minutes a day of putting your thoughts on paper (or computer) opens up new worlds of understanding.

5) Torah is best when it is personal. I know that the internet sometimes seems like an obnoxious flow of self-congratulation, ego and narcissism. I am a fairly private person by nature and self-revelation is not my preferred way of teaching. Still, I have seen repeatedly how much more readers are drawn to Torah when it is expressed in personal terms. That is as it should be. Torah is about our lives, not just the lives of people who lived two or three thousand years ago. Torah is about the choices that we make every day. By sharing a bit of my life with you on this blog, I hope that I have done more than just stroke my ego; I hope that I have helped bring more Torah and more joy into your life.


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In fact, almost everything about funerals seems odd to me. I am struck by the vocabulary of funerals. When a person is changed into the "deceased," his or her family and friends become "loved ones." Funeral directors still occasionally are called "morticians," but no longer ever called "undertakers." I try to say "earth," not "dirt," for the material we place on top of the casket (not "coffin"). The cloth we place over the casket is called a "pall." The body is "the remains." Judaism's contribution to the strange nomenclature of death is a Hebrew euphemism for cemeteries: beit hachayim, "the house of life." Odd.

On funeral days, I come to the synagogue in the morning wearing a suit. That does not happen too often, otherwise. A few weeks ago, on one of those days, a member of the staff greeted me at the door and said, "Rabbi, you look well dressed today." I accepted the compliment and said, with a bit of gallows humor, "I guess somebody must have died." I regretted my flip comment as soon as I saw the expression on my friend's face—an expression that showed sorrow for the death and, perhaps, also for the job I had to do.

No, there is nothing funny about death. Yet, I do not want people to think that officiating at funerals is a sad or unpleasant part of my job. Strange as it sounds, officiating at funerals is a deeply fulfilling experience. Funerals are perhaps the best opportunity I have as a rabbi to enter deeply into people's lives and truly to be of help to them. All it requires is the ability to listen. 

I arrive at the home of the mourners and just allow them to tell me the story of a person's life. More often than not, it is a story that is filled with drama, conflict, redemption, beauty and meaning. I think of this experience as a gift, a blessing, to be privileged to hear such stories. I ask a few questions. I take a few notes to help me remember details for the eulogy. I do very little talking, apart from going over the schedule of the service. For the most part, I do not try to offer what many people might consider "words of comfort."

I do not say, "He's in a better place now." I do not say, "Her memory will live on within you."  In general, I have found that such comments usually backfire before the funeral. People do not find comfort in Hallmark card sentiments. Besides, Jewish tradition teaches that one should not try to offer comfort to the bereaved "while their dead are still in front of them" (M. Avot 4:18). I think that is good advice. 

Instead, I just listen. Much more than explanations and soothing words, mourners just need a chance to tell the story. 

My friends and congregants sometimes ask me if it is difficult to officiate at a funeral for a person I did not know. I tell them that it is just the opposite. The hardest funerals are for the people I did know; and the better I knew them, the harder it is. I officiated at my grandmothers' funerals and at funerals for a few dear friends. I found those experiences to be excruciating. I wanted to be a mourner, not an officiant. 

I am glad that I have had those experiences, though. Often, when I officiate at a funeral, I remember those times, the feelings I felt, and it helps me to empathize with the bereaved family and their pain. Those memories, I think, make me a better rabbi.

For me, officiating at the funeral of a stranger is the truest act of chesed (lovingkindness). It is a gift that I can give to people in need with no expectation that my own difficult feelings of loss will get in the way. Officiating at the funeral of a stranger feels like an act of redemption. It brings me into the lives of strangers in a moment of loss, and makes us all feel that even death is no barrier to truly and deeply caring for one another.


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