Tomorrow is 25 Years Since 9/11

I know what you’re thinking. Tomorrow is not September 11. But this Shabbat is 23 Elul. September 11, 2001, was also 23 Elul.

Every year on 9/11, it is appropriate to reflect back on that moment. Where were you when the first plane crashed into the North Tower at 8:46 a.m.? Where were you when the second plane crashed into the South Tower at 9:03? We remember the images, the confusion, and the fear. 9/11 changed the world as we knew it; it’s reverberations are felt to this very day. Who remembers airport security before 9/11? Exactly. There was none.

The impact of 9/11 continues to be borne by those who lost loved ones, those who survived, and those who have been afflicted with 9/11-related illnesses. Even 25 years later, victims are still being identified. Two weeks ago, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, working with researchers at the NYPD, identified a female 9/11 victim using a new technique called forensic investigative genetic genealogy, or FIGG.

A generation later, the children whose fathers were killed at the World Trade Center are becoming adults. Some of them are becoming first responders themselves. Crises, catastrophes, and tragedies change us in the moment, in the short term, and in the long term.

Rabbi Meyer Hager, spiritual leader of the Wall Street Synagogue, noted a connection between 9/11 and Tisha B’Av. They are the saddest days on the calendar. Both are tragedies with a lasting impact. Both involve horrific death, fire, and destruction. Both are days whose effects continue long after the event itself. Tisha B'Av is also a 9/11 of sorts: the ninth day of the 11^th Hebrew month.

Commemorating 9/11 is not only about what happened that day. It is what happened afterward. Rebecca Solnit, wrote a book entitled A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster. She studied the spontaneous responses to some of the worst calamities of the twentieth century, including the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina. We tend to assume that disasters bring out the worst in people. Think about images of looting, hoarding, selfishness, and panic. But very often, the opposite happens. Disasters can bring out the best in people.

9/11 was a day that revealed unimaginable evil, but it also produced an extraordinary wave of altruism, courage, and chesed. People ran toward danger. Strangers helped strangers. First responders climbed the stairs while everyone else was coming down. Ordinary people did extraordinary things. That fateful day stands as proof that we can withstand and build back stronger. 9/11 teaches us a Torah of resilience.

The last Shabbat of the year is a most appropriate yahrzeit for 9/11. We are about to enter a period focused on repentance, repair, and renewal. The High Holidays are also a time for resilience. Resilience is the ability to recover from difficulty. It is the capacity to return to shape after being stretched or challenged. We can never erase the past, but a life-altering experience need not permanently alter who we are.

Teshuvah is based on resilience. The word itself means return. We make mistakes. We experience setbacks. Sometimes we cause damage to ourselves, to others, to our relationship with God. Then, we return. Teshuvah is a gift. We have a pathway to repair our misdeeds, to atone for our sins, to begin again. Rabbinic literature and Jewish tradition go to great lengths to emphasize just how great teshuvah is. It is compared to a mikvah. It is described almost as a miracle. It is not easy, but it is a wonderful tool.

What about the lingering pain? What about the sin?

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, in On Repentance, writes that sin is not to be forgotten or simply erased. The memory of sin can release something within us and give us the power to do greater things than ever before. The sin remains sin, but we can become something greater because of it. That is resilience. We are who we are not only because of our successes, but also because of our mistakes. We are a sum total of all of our experiences including the tragedies.

Jewish history bears this out. The Midrash asks why the Jewish people have survived while so many nations and civilizations have disappeared. It explains that when suffering comes upon the nations, they become discouraged and give up. When suffering comes upon Israel, we turn to God. We pray. We hold onto faith and tradition. The Midrash connects this idea to Moshe’s words, “Atem nitzavim ha-yom kulchem - You are standing today, all of you.” This is one of the simplest and most powerful descriptions of Jewish resilience. We have been knocked down, but we stand. We have suffered, but we continue. We have been tested, but we endure.

This year’s timing of 9/11 is especially powerful. September 11 is next Friday. That night is Rosh Hashanah. We will commemorate the yahrzeit of thousands who were killed by our enemies. We will remember their lives and honor their memories. Then, as the sun sets, we will enter a new Jewish year. As we engage with the heaviness of 9/11, we embark upon a brand-new year full of promise and opportunity.

If it sounds complicated, it is. And that’s ok.

The final Torah readings offer a roadmap to Jewish endurance: Nitzavim, Vayeilech. Ha’azinu. V’Zot Haberachah – Stand, Go, Hear, This is the Blessing. We can only proceed (go) once we’ve stood in place holding on to whatever has happened to us. As we move forward, we will succeed only if we’ve internalized (heard) the lessons of the past and their ability to shape us. If we follow this path, we will find blessings.

This guide applies to 9/11 and any past experiences. We cannot remain forever frozen in the moment. We take the memory with us, and we move forward. We listen to the lessons of our failures. We listen to what tragedy teaches us about ourselves, about one another, and about what really matters. If we listen carefully, we can arrive at the blessing.

9/11 did not have the final word. Neither do our mistakes, our setbacks, or our darkest moments. We stand. We move. We listen and learn. We will achieve blessing. That is the message of 9/11, of teshuvah, and the New Year.

May we have the courage to stand, the strength to move, the humility to listen, and the wisdom to learn. May we honor those we lost by living lives worthy of their memory. May we take the lessons of the past and turn them into the blessings of the future. May the best of the past year be the worst of the year ahead.

It's Time to Break Free

We all know an E-L-U-L acronym.

The most famous is “Ani l'dodi v'dodi li - I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.” (Shir HaShirim 6:3). The High Holidays are not simply about judgment; they are about relationships. Elul is the month to recapture our relationship with God and to remind ourselves that we are connected to each other.

Another familiar Elul acronym is “Ish l're'ehu u'matanot la'evyonim - One person gives to another and gifts to the poor.” (Esther 9:22) The verse is about Purim, but it teaches us something important about Elul. Preparing for the High Holidays cannot be only about me and God. It must also be about how I relate to other people. Teshuvah requires generosity, kindness and repairing relationships.

Then there is an Elul acronym that I suspect many people have never heard. In describing the ir miklat, the cities of refuge for those who kill accidentally, the Torah says: “If he did not act intentionally, but God caused it to happen, I will designate for you a place to which he can flee.” (Shemot 21:13) The Arizal, Rabbi Isaac Luria, noted that the words in this verse “ina l’yado v’samti lecha” begin with the letters אלול, Elul. What does a city of refuge have to do with Elul?

A city of refuge is a place to which someone runs after something has gone terribly wrong. It is a place of protection, but it is also a place of reckoning. The person cannot simply continue life as if nothing happened. He must stop, confront what happened, and commit to live differently. The city of refuge may be a place for the individual to flee, but it is also a place for him to break free. That is what Elul is. It is a refuge. It is not a refuge from reality. It is a refuge in which we can confront reality and break free to a new one.

Rabbi Norman Lamm, in a 1954 sermon on Elul, warned against settling for what he called a philosophy of simply “holding on.” Jewish life, he argued, cannot be reduced to survival, identification or maintaining what we already have. Elul demands something more. We must seek, confront, and grow. As Rabbi Lamm notes, “I’m not satisfied with not slipping. Now I’ve got to climb.”

The path of Elul is not simply staying upright. It is moving upward. We often think of teshuvah as looking backward. We review the past year, identify our mistakes, and ask forgiveness. But teshuvah is not only about the direction from which we came. It is about the direction in which we are going. Similarly, the question of Elul is not merely what did I do wrong? It is where am I going next?

There is something very human about resisting change. Psychologists have long noted that we cling to what is familiar. Change introduces uncertainty. We fear the unknown. We fear failure. Sometimes we simply do not want to expend the energy required to change. What is familiar becomes comfortable and eventually what is comfortable can begin to feel morally right.

We know this in our spiritual lives as well. I have always been this kind of Jew. I have always treated that person this way. Why change? Elul does not allow us to confuse stability with growth. We should be proud that we have maintained our religious commitments. At the same time, Elul asks more of us. Have those commitments changed us? Have I become more patient, generous, and thoughtful? Am I more connected to God? More sensitive to other people? More willing to confront the parts of myself I would rather avoid?

There is a term I find particularly helpful for understanding Elul: creative disequilibrium. Disequilibrium means that we are no longer completely comfortable where we are. Something is unsettled, off balance. That can be uncomfortable. But sometimes discomfort is exactly what makes growth possible. If everything feels perfectly comfortable, why would we change? We need enough stability to feel secure but enough discomfort to realize that we cannot stay exactly where we are. Elul creates that space. It allows us to break and free from the routine and familiar. We may be great, but can we become more? Can our Judaism be even more meaningful? Can our relationships become deeper?

Breaking free is the point of Elul.

The world around us may feel unsettled. Instead of waiting for life to unsettle us, Elul invites us to unsettle ourselves. To ask questions we have avoided. To challenge the assumptions we have taken for granted. To move beyond spiritual autopilot. The disequilibrium of crisis makes us feel that we have lost control. The disequilibrium of Elul reminds us that we have the power to change direction.

Rabbi Lamm describes the Elul mood as containing both “fear of the unknown” and “thrill of expectancy.” The great temptation of life is to remain where we are. We tell ourselves that we are protecting what we have, preserving our traditions, and maintaining our relationships. We are holding things together. But sometimes “holding on” becomes an excuse for not moving forward.

Elul comes to disturb us in the best possible way. During this season, we recite Tehillim 27. King David describes a path of “Et panecha Hashem avakeish – Lord, I will seek Your face.” We are on a quest. We cannot remain static. We need to move. The path may not always be clear and the next step uncomfortable, but we need to start somewhere.

Elul is a refuge for the journey. It is an opportunity to pause long enough to ask where we are going and bold enough to break free and take the first step. We cannot stay in one place forever simply because we are afraid of moving forward. The destination is still ahead, and the path begins now.

Closure After a Storm – 44 Years Later

Last night, Atlantic Beach was hit by a tornado.

You read correctly. It does not happen often. For a few frightening minutes, there was chaos and uncertainty. People watched the sky, listened to the wind and wondered what was happening. Thankfully, the storm passed without significant damage. In the morning, the sun came out.

Sometimes life is like that. We endure moments of fear and uncertainty when we don't know when the storm will end. And sometimes, even after the storm passes, its effects linger.

For the family of Yehuda Katz, the storm lasted 44 years.

Katz was an IDF soldier who went missing in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub in Lebanon in 1982. For 44 years, his family waited. For 44 years, Israel searched and did not give up. This week, his remains were finally recovered and brought home to Israel for burial.

There is something profoundly Jewish about refusing to leave a person behind even after death. The Torah says, “Kavor tikberenu - You shall surely bury him.” (Devarim 21:23) The Torah could simply have said tikberenu, “bury him.” Instead, it says kavor tikberenu. It emphasizes and accentuates the obligation. There is no negotiation or mitigation. You must surely bury him.

Jewish burial is a sacred obligation. Jewish tradition treats the deceased with extraordinary respect. The body is handled gently, privately and with reverence. Every single bone, body part, or remain must be buried.  Throughout history, Jews have taken extraordinary risks to recover and bury the dead. The IDF inherited that commitment. There is a special unit, Eitan, which stands for Itur Ne’edarim, which means collecting those that are lost. These soldiers are willing to risk their lives to bring every last fallen soldier home. Their work, rarely visible, involves years of investigation, intelligence gathering, and following seemingly insignificant leads.

In Yehuda Katz’s case, some may say he died 44 years ago. His parents are gone. We have mourned him. We have moved on. Instead, Israel said he is ours; bring him home. When he was finally found, something else happened. His family could finally begin to mourn. At the funeral, Yehuda’s brother poignantly announced that the family will now sit shiva “because until now, we had not given up hope of finding him alive. As far as we are concerned, Yehuda was killed this week, not 44 years ago.”

Rabbi David Stav, reflecting several months ago on the return of the remains of Lt. Hadar Goldin, observed that bringing the fallen home for burial is simultaneously an experience of terrible pain and the beginning of comfort and closure. For 44 years, Yehuda's family lived in a storm of uncertainty. Now, the storm is over. There is pain and grief, but there is also certainty. There is a place to mourn and a grave to visit. There is also finally a beginning to the process of healing.

Jewish burial does not only provide closure. It points forward.

There is an intriguing Hebrew word for a gravesite, tziyun. The more familiar matzeivah refers to the gravestone. A tziyun is the marker that identifies the place where the deceased is buried. The word has a clear connection with the word Tziyon, Zion, as well as metzuyan, excellent. Rabbi Asher Pollak explains a tziyun is like a road marker. It tells us where someone is and, perhaps, where we are supposed to go. A Jewish grave is more than a place where the past is remembered. It is a roadmap for the future. The graves of those who came before us ask something of those who come after them. Remember, continue, build, live lives worthy of those who came before.

Yehuda Katz has come home as a reminder that we are still here and always will be. The Jewish people endured Sultan Yacoub. We have endured exile, persecution, and destruction. We endured 44 years of painful uncertainly. We are still here. Yehuda Katz’s grave points toward the future.

These events take place against the backdrop of an auspicious time of year. Elul is a transitional month. The old year with all its ups and downs is coming to an end, but the new year has not yet begun. We stand between what was and what can be. Like the morning after a storm, Elul gives us the opportunity to look at what happened, take stock of what remains, and prepare for what comes next. It is about remembering and looking backward before we move forward. It is about asking ourselves what and whom we have allowed ourselves to forget. Who have we stopped calling? What relationship have we allowed to become distant? What responsibility have we quietly convinced ourselves is no longer ours? Elul asks us to return to God, to people, to commitments and to values we may have neglected.

Kavor tikberenu has a message for the living as well as the dead. A Jewish grave is a marker but also gives direction. It’s a reminder of death, but ultimately an affirmation of life. It amplifies the message of tziyun, of Zion, and of Elul itself. Remember where you came from. Know where you are going. Keep moving toward redemption.

Last night, the sky over Atlantic Beach was stormy and frightening. This morning, the sun came out. Today, after 44 years, Yehuda Katz's family has closure. There is pain, but there is also a grave, a place to remember, and the possibility of moving forward. The storm is over. There is closure. The sun has come out.

May Yehuda’s family find comfort and strength and may the calm after the storm inaugurate a glorious new year to come.

Keep It Simple, Keep It Real

“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

The quote is often attributed to Blaise Pascal and reflects the sentiment that simplicity is hard. Anyone can make something complicated. It takes real wisdom to make something simple.

There is a story about a rabbi who delivered a forty-minute sermon. A congregant who was a TV producer loved the message and told the rabbi, “This belongs on television so more people can hear it!” The rabbi was thrilled, but there was one problem. The television program could only give him two minutes. “Can you shorten your sermon to two minutes?” the congregant asked. “Of course!” the rabbi replied enthusiastically. “So why didn’t you?” retorted the congregant.

We live in a world that prizes complexity. We admire complicated ideas, sophisticated arguments, and people who seem to know everything. Judaism, however, teaches us that sometimes the deepest truth is the simplest one.

“Tamim tihyeh im Hashem Elokecha - You shall be tamim with Hashem, your God.” (Devarim 18:13)

The word tam means simple. We recognize it from the Haggadah and the simple child who asks, “What is this?” But simple does not mean stupid, and wholehearted does not mean naïve. In fact, becoming a tam may be one of the most difficult things a sophisticated person can do.

Rashi understands tamim tihyeh in the context of the verses which prohibit various forms of divination and attempts to discover the future. Do not consult those who claim to know what tomorrow will bring. Instead, “Tamim tihyeh im Hashem Elokecha,” be wholehearted with God. Trust Him and accept that there are things we will not know. Ramban emphasizes that we should not place our faith in the predictions of others. We want certainty. We want to know what will happen next. Judaism says, “You may not know what tomorrow holds. You can, however, know Who holds tomorrow.”

There is a famous story about King Shaul. Before his final battle with the Philistines, he visited a Baalat Ov, a medium, who told him that he would lose the battle. Shaul subsequently went to war and was defeated. That does not mean the Baalat Ov was right. Perhaps Shaul had already been psychologically defeated. Once he believed that defeat was inevitable, he acted as someone who had nothing left to fight for.

Orde Wingate, the British military officer and passionate Christian Zionist who spent time in pre-state Israel training members of the Haganah, reportedly stood on Mount Gilboa one day looking down at the Jewish settlements in the valley below. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Saul was a fool!” His Jewish companion asked, “Saul who?” “King Saul,” Wingate answered. Why? Because, in Wingate's view, Saul had an opportunity to defeat the Philistines. He had a small, mobile force positioned behind the enemy. But the prediction had gotten into his head, and he allowed the prophecy to become his reality.

Sometimes the greatest danger is not what someone tells us will happen. It is when we start believing that it must happen. The lesson of tamim tihyeh is not that experts are always wrong; it is that experts are not God. Predictions are not destiny. The future belongs to God.

One of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov's most famous stories is “The Sophisticate and the Simpleton.” Two childhood friends take radically different paths through life. The Sophisticate is brilliant. He studies medicine, languages, philosophy, and every conceivable field of knowledge. He travels the world and accumulates wealth. He is impressive, but he is also miserable. He analyzes everything and questions everything. Nothing is ever good enough. He becomes trapped in his own sophistication until he loses everything.

Then there is the Simpleton, a shoemaker, who makes crooked shoes. His clothing is simple, his food is plain, yet he is happy. When people laugh at his crooked shoes, he doesn't become defensive. He finds joy in what he has. He experiences gratitude instead of comparison. Ultimately, the Simpleton becomes beloved by the king.

Rebbe Nachman is not advocating ignorance or opposing wisdom, but wisdom without simplicity can become its own form of foolishness. You can know more and understand less. You can analyze everything and appreciate nothing. You can become so sophisticated that you are incapable of being happy. Perhaps most dangerous of all, you can become cynical. The Sophisticate has a voice in his head that keeps saying, “This isn't perfect. This isn't real.”

We sometimes hear a similar voice. It is the voice that prevents us from simply enjoying a Shabbat meal or a family activity because we are comparing it to someone else's or what we see online. It is the voice that tells us that our Judaism isn't meaningful unless we have reached some imagined level of perfection. Rebbe Nachman's Simpleton teaches us something fundamental: Keep it simple. Keep it real.

Onkelos translates tamim as sh'lim, which means complete or whole. The opposite of tamim is not intelligent; it is fragmented. We live increasingly fragmented lives. We can be one person at work, at home, in shul, or online and another when no one is watching. Tamim tihyeh im Hashem Elokecha calls us toward something different. Be whole. Let our values and actions line up. Let the Judaism we profess in shul influence the way we treat our spouses at home, our neighbors in the community, and strangers we encounter on the street.

In the Megillah, Mordechai is described as in “ish Yehudi,” a Jewish man. Our Judaism should be as apparent as our humanity. Children do not need a DNA test to know who their parents are. They just know. Judaism, at its best, is not supposed to be an elaborate performance. It is supposed to become part of who we are.

Of course, Judaism demands thought, questioning, and growth. We should never be afraid of intellectual sophistication. But there is a difference between depth and complication and between doubt and cynicism. The greatest sophistication may be the ability to return to something simple. That is what tamim tihyeh ultimately asks of us. Not to know the future or be perfect. Rather, to bring our whole selves to God. Our faith and our doubts. Our learning and our simplicity. Our private selves and our public selves. All of it.

We may not know what tomorrow will bring. We do know Who holds the future, and we can choose how we live today. We can choose authenticity over pretense, wholeness over fragmentation, and simplicity over cynicism. We can stop trying so hard to impress and start trying to be real. The deepest wisdom is not discovering something complicated; it is remembering something simple: God is with us. Our task is simply to walk with Him wholeheartedly, authentically, and as ourselves. 

Keep it simple. Keep it real.

The Grandparents of the Father of Zionism Have Come Home

The Herzl family plot on Mount Herzl has been filling up for 77 years.

Theodor Herzl was reinterred there in 1949. His parents and his sister Pauline were brought there as well. The bodies of his two eldest children, Pauline and Hans, came from Bordeaux in 2006. The remains of his grandson Stephen Norman, who died by suicide in Washington in 1946, followed in 2007. Only one member of the family is still missing. Trude, Herzl’s youngest daughter, was murdered by the Nazis in Theresienstadt in 1943, and her remains were never recovered.

On Wednesday, Shimon Leib and Rivka Herzl, the grandparents of Theodor Herzl, were reinterred on Har Herzl. More than a century after their deaths, the State of Israel has fulfilled one of the last wishes contained in Herzl's will and another chapter of the family's journey has reached its destination. More accurately, it has come home.

The Torah repeatedly speaks about the central place where the Jewish people would gather, but it never identifies Jerusalem by name. Instead, it calls it, “Ha-makom asher yivchar Hashem – the place that God will choose.” (Devarim 12:5) We don’t know the exact location, but we do know, “L’shichno tidreshu u’vata shamah – Seek God’s presence and come there.”

We don’t know where we are going, but we know that we will get there.

The destination is left unnamed, because every Jew is expected to discover it. Jerusalem is not merely a city on a map. It is the place to which the Jewish soul is drawn. For nearly two thousand years, we face toward it in prayer, end the Seder and Yom Kippur with "Next Year in Jerusalem," remember it at every wedding, and mourn it on Tisha B'Av. Long before we could point to it on a map, we knew where "there" was.

U'vata shamah - you will come there. This week, Herzl's grandparents finally did. It is not merely a family matter. Their reinterment is a statement of Jewish mission and a commentary on continuity.

Many recall Herzl as the assimilated Viennese journalist and intellectual. A man of tremendous vision who declared “Im tirtzu ein zo agadah – If you really want it, it is no dream,” and who accurately predicted the birth of the Jewish State. He was a man whose children drifted from Judaism, two of whom were baptized, whose family line ended in heartbreaking tragedy. But that is not the whole story. Herzl did not invent Zionism from thin air.

Shimon Leib Herzl was born in Zemun, Serbia in 1805, the son of a rabbi. He served as gabbai in the Sephardic synagogue of Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai, one of the religious pioneers of modern Zionism. Decades before political Zionism existed, Rabbi Alkalai was preaching that Jewish redemption would begin when Jews returned to their ancestral homeland. Those ideas were discussed around the Herzl family table, and some contemporary scholars conclude that Herzl's own implementation of modern Zionism was influenced by these ideas.

President Isaac Herzog spoke at the reinterment ceremony about inheritance. He said, “Dreams are not bequeathed in writing. They pass at the Shabbat table, they pass in the living room, they pass in the story a grandfather tells his grandson.” Herzl may have strayed from the religious life of his ancestors, yet something remained alive within him – an inheritance deeper than memory, an inheritance stronger than assimilation. That may be why this reinterment feels so profoundly moving. The grandparents who helped plant the dream have now been gathered into the reality their grandson helped create.

There is another lesson here.

The Torah does not simply say, “U’vata shamah - You shall come there.” It first says, “leshichno tidreshu – Seek God’s presence.” Coming home is not merely about arriving at a destination. It is about seeking a Presence. The return to Zion was never intended to culminate with passports, parliaments, or even sovereignty. Those are extraordinary achievements, but they are not the destination. They create the possibility for something greater: a society shaped by Judaism, families that transmit Jewish values, and a nation striving to make God's Presence felt in the world.

Herzl built the road home; we must decide what kind of home we will build.

That challenge feels especially urgent today. Oded Feuer, who directs the World Zionist Organization’s Herzl Center, noted, “Zionism is again being attacked from all sides. And the first answer to those attacks is within ourselves. Strengthening our Jewish identity will help us give answers, though not everyone who attacks is willing to get an answer.”

Since October 7, we have been under attack, and we have also pushed back. Jews who had felt distant have begun asking deeper questions. People have put on tefillin or lit Shabbat candles for the first time. Others have discovered Hebrew or a renewed connection to Israel and the Jewish people. Around the world, countless Jews have realized that Jewish identity is not simply an ancestry to remember when it is threatened. It is a life to be lived every day. That is u'vata shamah.

Coming home is not only boarding a plane to Ben Gurion Airport. It is returning to Jewish purpose. The Herzl family journey reminds us that Jewish continuity is rarely linear. One generation may drift while another returns. Children may disappoint while grandchildren rediscover. Seeds planted quietly can blossom decades later in ways no one could have imagined.

The Jewish story has always been one of seeking and returning - to God, to Judaism, to the people, to Israel. The grandparents of the father of Zionism have finally come home. For us, the seeking and returning continues.

Eat, Be Satisfied, Create Blessing

We all know the tune.

Whether in school, at camp, or around the Shabbat table, the opening paragraph of birkat hamazon (bentching) is sung to the same familiar melody. (Now, you’re singing it in your head, too…) Have you ever wondered where that tune comes from?

Around 1942, cantor and educator Moshe Nathanson composed the melody while serving as music director at Camp Achvah, one of America's first Hebrew-speaking summer camps. According to camp lore, after hearing campers enthusiastically sing the closing of birkat hamazon to a lively tune borrowed from the Hansel and Gretel operetta, Nathanson decided the opening deserved its own spirited melody. The campers loved it. The tune quickly spread to Orthodox schools, yeshivot, camps, and eventually Jewish tables across the world. Already in the 1950s, Rabbi David Eliach of the Yeshivah of Flatbush remarked, "They were singing it in all the yeshivas."

Think about it. Jews disagree about almost everything - pronunciation, politics, and even which kugel is best. Yet for generations, Jews from every background have pounded the table and joyfully sung the very same melody after a meal. Why? Because birkat hamazon is far more than a blessing. Bentching provide us with an opportunity to elevate one of the most important things in Judaism: food.

V’achalta v’savata u’veirachta - You shall eat, be satisfied, and bless. (Devarim 8:10)

This verse technically teaches us the obligation to recite birkat hamazon. But perhaps it teaches something much deeper. Notice the progression. The pasuk is not only relevant to one’s particular meal. It provides a powerful perspective on Jewish food. When we eat, we should enjoy, and create blessing.

The Torah doesn't envision food as an end in itself. Eating culminates in blessing. Not only blessing God, but creating blessing into our homes, our relationships, and our communities. That may be one of Judaism's greatest contributions to civilization. Many religions have viewed the physical world as something to escape. Judaism embraces it. We eat. We celebrate. We enjoy the world Hashem created, but we refuse to leave the physical merely physical. Food is never just food.

Kashrut is one aspect of the holiness of food. We can only eat certain foods. We need to keep meat and milk separate, and we check for the Orthodox Union (or other) label. Our tables also afford us an opportunity to elevate food. The Shabbat meal is transformed by Kiddush, challah, zemirot, family, and guests. Holiday meals become expressions of simchat Yom Tov, joyous Judaism.

Even classic Jewish foods carry religious significance. Gefilte fish wasn't merely a culinary invention that may have had economic benefits in using the whole fish. Preparing it by removing the bones helped avoid the halakhic issue of boreir, the prohibition of separating the bad from the good on Shabbat. Cholent tells an even richer story. During the Middle Ages, the Karaites rejected the Oral Torah and interpreted the prohibition against fire on Shabbat literally, refusing to eat hot food. Rabbinic Jews answered not only with sources and arguments but with steaming pots of cholent. Every hot Shabbat lunch became a declaration of faith in the oral tradition. Only Jews could turn a stew into theology.

Jews don’t merely mark holy occasions; we taste them. It’s a mitzvah to eat at a brit and the wedding feast. Capping off Torah study with a siyum creates a mitzvah meal that even allows for eating meat during the Nine Days. Even our moments of grief are accompanied by food. Shiva and bagels, anyone? The real rule is that the first meal for mourners returning from the cemetery is called the seudat havra'ah, the meal of consolation. Long before psychologists coined the phrase "comfort food," Judaism understood that a warm meal prepared by caring friends nourishes not only the body but also the soul.

Food elevates, food celebrates, food comforts, and sometimes food builds communities.

Rabbi Efrem Goldberg shared an extraordinary story about an Orthodox shul that came about because of a chicken. A man named Azriel had an elderly neighbor named Janet, who told him she prepared for Shabbat by driving several miles to buy kosher challah and, while at the same shopping center, also bought a (non-kosher) rotisserie chicken. Azriel was perplexed by why she cared enough to shlep for the challah but wasn’t also buying a kosher chicken. Seeing an opportunity to help, he began purchasing a kosher rotisserie chicken for her each Friday.

Janet happened to play mahjong each week with Charlotte, the president of a once-thriving Conservative synagogue whose membership had dwindled dramatically and was considering closing. Charlotte mentioned that she wished she knew someone in the growing Orthodox community who might be interested in sharing or preserving the building. Janet smiled and said, “I know exactly who you should call. The man who brings me a kosher chicken every Friday.”

That introduction led to a conversation that eventually led to the Orthodox community assuming responsibility for the synagogue campus, preserving decades of Jewish history while filling the building once again with vibrant Jewish life. A rotisserie chicken became a shul.

V’achalta v’savata u’veirachta. We eat, we enjoy, and we bless.

The blessing is not limited to the words we recite after a meal. Genuine blessing is what our meals produce. Jewish food should nourish more than our bodies. It should strengthen marriages, welcome guests, teach children, comfort mourners, celebrate milestones, deepen faith, and build friendships. Jewish food can even build a shul.

Maybe birkat hamazon resonates so deeply and is sung so energetically because the success of a meal is not measured by how full we are when we get up from the table but by how much blessing leaves the table with us.

Eat. Be satisfied. Create blessing.

The Most Important Words in Judaism

                                                                                                                               Art by Sefira Lightstone

How loudly do you recite Shema?

The common – and recommended – practice is to recite the first verse of Shema out loud. (Shulchan Aruch 0c 61:4) While many of us are more reticent when it comes to davening loudly, we shouldn’t hold back when it comes to “Shem Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad.”

These six fundamental words accompany a Jew through every stage of life. They are whispered into the ears of newborn babies. Parents teach them to children before bedtime. They are recited every morning and every evening. They conclude Yom Kippur. They have been spoken by Jews marching to their deaths and by Israeli soldiers running toward danger.

The Shema is the closest thing Judaism has to a national anthem, a mission statement, and a declaration of faith all rolled into one.

I vividly remember the Shema recited by the Kaliver Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Taub (1923-2019), when he visited my Yeshiva in Israel more than 30 years ago. Born in Transylvania, the Rebbe was deported to Auschwitz three days before Shavuot 1944, where his entire family was murdered. He was a victim of chemical burning experiments carried out on his skin by the notorious Dr. Joseph Mengele that led to his noticeable lack of a beard. For over 70 years, the Rebbe traveled around the world addressing audiences about the power of Shema and would lead the assembled in saying it in unison out loud, often with a tune. He explained that he made this commitment in Auschwitz:

“The Nazis were literally throwing Jews into fires. I heard Shema Yisrael being sung by a young boy and I turned to God and said, ‘Let me live, and I will say Shema Yisrael with the living.’”

Recently, especially since October 7, various initiatives have started aiming to have as many Jews as possible all over the word recite the first verse of Shema at the same time each day. The idea is to unify Jews around the most powerful expression we have to add holiness to the world while bringing people together. (You can join one such effort HERE.)

What gives these six words such extraordinary power?

We usually think of the Shema as Judaism's declaration of faith. The Talmud describes it as Kabbalat Ol Malchut Shamayim, our acceptance of God's sovereignty. We are careful about its laws: saying it before the proper time expires, avoiding interruptions, covering our eyes, and concentrating on every word. But perhaps we sometimes become so focused on how to say the Shema that we forget what it is asking of us.

The key lies in the very first word: Shema.

We often translate Shema as “Hear, O Israel,” but that hardly captures the richness of the Hebrew. Rabbi Doron Perez points out that Shema may be one of the most complex words in the Torah. It means to hear physically, to listen attentively, to understand intellectually, to internalize emotionally, to empathize deeply, and ultimately to accept and act upon what has been heard. That’s a lot packed into three letters.

Judaism's defining declaration does not begin with the word “believe.” It begins with the word “listen.” That is no accident. At Sinai, the Jewish people did not see God. They heard God's voice. Revelation entered the world through listening. The Radziner Rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Leiner, observed that sight reveals only the exterior of things, while hearing penetrates beneath the surface. Seeing tells us what something looks like; listening allows us to discover what it means. Faith begins not with certainty but with attentiveness.

That is why Shema is far more than the opening word of Judaism's creed. It is Judaism's first and most enduring life lesson. Listening is at the heart of our relationship with God. Before we can respond, question, or even believe, we must first learn to listen.

Listening is equally at the heart of what it means to be a mensch. Stephen Covey famously wrote, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood." It is remarkable how closely that echoes the Torah's message. Too often we listen only long enough to formulate our response, offer advice, or defend our position. Genuine listening requires setting aside our own perspective long enough to understand someone else's.

Every meaningful relationship depends on Shema. Healthy marriages, strong friendships, parents and children, teachers and students, Rabbis and congregants. One of the greatest gifts we can give another person is the feeling that they have been genuinely heard.

Shema is Judaism's defining prayer because it teaches us that listening is not merely a communication skill; it is a spiritual discipline. This message may be more urgent today than ever before. We live in an age overflowing with information but starved for attention. Social media, podcasts, videos, and endless notifications compete for every waking moment. Everyone has something to say; few people truly listen.

The Shema offers a quiet but profound counterbalance to the cacophony around us. Close your eyes. Block out the noise. Listen for God's voice. Listen to the people you love. Listen to those with whom you disagree. Listen to the quiet voice of your own soul. And say Shema out loud!

Let’s try to hear ourselves recite the words and internalize the message. The Shema is certainly Judaism's declaration of faith. It is our credo and our affirmation that God is One. The words are also an invitation to deeply engage in the sacred activity of listening to advance a world of more spiritual, religious, and emotional engagement. Perhaps the first and most fundamental obligation of every Jew is contained in that very first word.

Shema…