Although we often use these weekly letters to delve into Torah with you, this week I wanted to share about prayer instead.

This Shabbat, we (and Jewish communities everywhere) will read Parashat Noach. As it opens, the earth and its inhabitants have become so corrupt, violent, and full of lawlessness that God decides to wipe out almost all of humanity and begin again; only Noah and his family are to be preserved.

In the beginning was the word. A word that didn’t quite make grammatical sense. B’Reishit. We usually learn it as “In the beginning.” In the beginning, God created. But technically, the form of the word reishit is only used for “in the beginning of”. So scholars modern and ancient suggest the text should read, “In the beginning of God’s creating…” 

This evening, we move not only into Shabbat, but also into chag (holiday) mode, for the final time this season, as we begin Shemini Atzeret.

When God tells you to build a sukkah, you don’t ask why - you just ask how high. Or at least, that’s how the talmudic tractate Sukkah begins.

Back in May, I listened to a podcast that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. New York Times journalist Ezra Klein was in conversation with Israeli author and historian Yuval Noah Harari. Klein and Harari were trying to make sense of this moment in which we find ourselves right now in politics and society. Their conversation starts by positing that there are two very different paradigms at play in the world today: one is a strongman ideology – all about competing for strength, dominance & power; the other is a paradigm of cooperation.

This Shabbat in our Torah cycle, Jewish communities around the world read Parashat Haazinu. Most of that Torah portion -- 43 verses -- are a poetic song of both praise and warning that Moses recites to the Israelites.

It was a clear crisp September morning. I had spent the summer of 2001 in Israel, studying Hebrew in ulpan during the second intifada. Now I was back in the states – to lead High Holiday services on a college campus, actually – but meanwhile, was headed from New York to Charleston, South Carolina to visit my family first.

Tonight, we begin the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe. On the eve of Rosh HaShanah, I often think of the other bookend of these High Holidays, the concluding Ne’ilah service of Yom Kippur. Ne’ilah means “locking [of the gate]”. Perhaps this referred to the Temple gate in ancient times, closing at the end of the day. 

This week, the world lost a legend in Gloria Steinem. She was one of the driving forces behind Free to Be You and Me, the 1972 classic children's album which became the soundtrack of my childhood.

This week, I finally learned what the Y2K bug a quarter of a century ago was all about. I was only thirteen at the time, and not particularly savvy with computers, and by the time I would have understood what the problem was, it had been long-resolved. 

I learned so much about how we care for our most sacred objects when Soferet Julie Seltzer visited our community last month to do some maintenance and repair work on Kavana's two Sifrei Torah. So, it's no wonder that my ears perked up this summer when a rabbinic colleague relayed a story about how her congregation was reeling in the wake of the Torah falling to the ground at her synagogue recently, not once but twice. (One incident involved someone tripping and dropping the Torah -- it turns out maybe high heels aren't the best footwear for the Torah processional! -- and the other happened when a Sefer Torah fell forward out of an ark as its doors were opened.) She described that watching the Torah scrolls hit the ground was "traumatic" for the witnesses, who then took on a combination of fasting and Torah study commitments for a total of 40 days -- a kind of penitence for having allowed these breaches of respect to occur. Another colleague weighed in: "Can you imagine if it bothered us that much every time we saw a person lying on the ground?"

During our recent Washington state primaries, I learned that five of the state’s nine Supreme Court justice positions are up for election this year. That’s a higher number than usual, and all seats are contested. We have some influence on the judges, and therefore on justice, both spiritually and secularly.

This Shabbat, in addition to reading Parashat Re'eh, we announce the new month of Elul that begins next week. Its coming signals that we are already in the lead-up to the High Holidays! However, we cannot get there -- to our season of new beginnings -- until we take time to recover and rebuild from the hard place where we've just been.

In Deuteronomy, Moses has several tasks, but chief among them is to set in motion the alchemical Jewish magic of storytelling. Moses gives the Israelites on the banks of the Jordan many instructions, cautions, promises, and blessings. But all of these important parts are nestled in a powerful whole - a story of ancestors descending to Egypt, becoming a people, enduring hardship, and leaving liberated in order to form a new social-spiritual enterprise. 

Yesterday, Tisha B'Av, was a day for mourning and for sitting in despair. As we commemorate the destruction of the Temple, we always recall a brutal siege with starvation, countless tears, exile and alienation. Other tragic events from throughout Jewish history have been folded into the day too, from the negative report of the spies in the Torah, to more recent expulsions of Jews from England (1290) and Spain (1492). It's easy to extend the day's themes forward to the present as well. Yesterday, I found myself thinking about the brokenness of our American society (in so many dimensions: from the dismantling of the checks and balances of our democracy to financial corruption, to racism, xenophobia and antisemitism breaking through to violence); about the brokenness of modern-day Israel (the continued shadows cast by the Oct 7th attacks and the Gaza War among both Jewish Israelis and Palestinians, horrifying settler violence in the West Bank, etc.); and about global brokenness (including climate change's dire impacts on the planet). I am grateful, as always, that we are permitted a day -- but only a single day -- to wallow in such bleakness.

As Moses recaps in the book of Deuteronomy the journeys and (mis)adventures of the Israelites in the wilderness, my eye was caught by one of those seemingly uninteresting verses that hold hidden treasure. This verse is just about a prominent mountain range in the north of Israel, which the Israelites call Chermon:

This Shabbat, in addition to reading Parashat Matot-Masei and concluding the book of Numbers/Bamidbar, Jewish communities around the world will announce and bless the new month of Av, which begins next Wednesday. Those who follow the Jewish calendar closely know that this places us squarely in the midst of "the three weeks" -- that is, the period leading up to Tisha B'Av, when we commemorate the tragedy of the Temple's destruction.

Parshat Pinchas begins with the aftermath of the previous week’s story. 

“Pinchas, son of Elazar son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the Israelites by displaying among them his jealousy for Me, so that I did not wipe out the Israelite people in My jealousy.” (Bamidbar 25:11)

This week, two different events have me thinking about our Jewish rituals around death and burial. First, our community lost a beloved individual earlier this week: Jessie Towbin, the wife of long-time Kavana partner Barry Lasky, died on Sunday. Jessie touched so many lives as a teacher, and will continue to teach and inspire even after her death; you're invited to click here to read her beautiful obituary (which of course she wrote herself). Second, as you may have seen in the local news this week, fire seriously damaged a Jewish burial preparation facility here in Seattle a few days ago (it seems to have been a regular fire, not arson). The building, located on the property of BCMH synagogue in Seward Park, housed the Seattle Jewish Chapel, "a full service funeral home, which caters to all members of the greater Seattle Jewish community who want their loved ones prepared in the traditional Orthodox fashion. The Seattle Chevra Kadisha provides services such as Shmira (guarding) of the deceased and the Tahara (ritual washing)."