As Purim became a holiday of tremendous festivities and lightheartedness, the Rabbis knew that the end of the Megillah in Chapter 9 has a dubious quality, that of a massacre on Haman's people.  Is this a happy ending, a desirable ending, that of massacre, that of Jews finally (and really for its time, only possible in the Jewish imagination but not in practice) having power?  So the Rabbis created a requirement that on the Shabbat morning before Purim, one must read about the Amalekites. In...

The most influential rabbi you've never heard of?  Based on an episode of the RadioLab podcast ("Relative Genius") and a biography in the Jewish Encyclopedia -- https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12611-rebenstein-aaron -- I tell you about the extraordinary Rabbi Aaron David Bernstein who likely accomplished more in his lifetime by himself than your average Ivy League university!

In the second verse of Parashat Beshalach (the flight from Egypt and the crossing of the Sea of Reeds), the Torah states that the Israelites fled fully armed.  I explore the traditional commentaries on why, and connect this to the haftarah (story of Deborah and Yael) and to the intelligence failures in Israel caused by male chauvinism. 

The focus of the American and international conversation about the Hamas attack and its aftermath has been "Ceasefire or No Ceasefire" by which people mean (since there was a ceasefire prior to Hamas's breaking it) whether Israel should cease its counter offensive due to civilian casualties. Who gets to be a spokesperson for Israel at this time in our communities and in the world? Interestingly, the Torah portions of Vaera and Bo --where we are when the war stands at 100 days-- raises the...

As a Dvar Torah for Vayigash (Joseph's revealing himself to his brothers following Judah's speech), I explore the mitzvah of redeeming our captives and the limitations on the law "for the sake of Tikkun Olam." The conversation among American Jews about Gaza centers around "Ceasefire or No Ceasefire? What kind of Jew am I if I don't support stopping the bombing?" while the conversation in Israel is "Exchange terrorists for hostages? What kind of Jew am I if I don't bring my sister/brother home...

PART TWO of this Yom Kippur 2023 sermon, in which I share the result of my personal and rabbi experiences of the last 15 years:  that the longer we live, the shorter our eulogy becomes; that life (like scripture) is a combination of halakhah (direct description of human behavior) and aggadah (our stories in which God is an invisible character); that the main point of Yom Kippur is to learn how to retell our stories so that the way God has been communicating to us through our experiences...

In this Yom Kippur 2023 sermon, I share the result of my personal and rabbi experiences of the last 15 years:  that the longer we live, the shorter our eulogy becomes; that life (like scripture) is a combination of halakhah (direct description of action) and aggadah (our stories in which God is an invisible character); that the main point of Yom Kippur is to learn how to retell our stories so that the way God has been communicating to us through our experiences becomes center stage, the...

Using the stories of Avraham, Sarah, and Hagar in Vayera, I voice what it's like to have utterly different experiences of the Gaza conflict with our coworkers, friends, and family members, some of whom seem to embody Dara Horn's prophecy that the world loves to pity the dead Jews of the past while finding the living Jews of today an inconvenience, an Other, and deserving of sanctimonious antisemitism.

In Deuteronomy, we are commanded to keep Shabbat as restfulness.  Many are unaware that this does not just involve practicing the Shabbat observances and restrictions --Biblical and Rabbinic-- but the highly unusual special-to-itself halakhic category of "Shevut," usually translated as proactively keeping "the spirit of Shabbat."  The category of observing "the spirit of Shabbat" is inherently subjective, and it can vary from person to person.  For one person, reading a newspaper on Shabbat...

Drawing on the traditional meaning of the Kol Nidrei --"All Vows"-- prayer, plus the Mishnah and Talmudic tractates on the Nidrei (Nedarim: Vows), plus the philosophy of Ritual Drama and the recent psychological studies about Future Selves, Rabbi Caine constructs a vision of what the Yom Kippur experience is supposed to be, a drama of our envisioning our future selves and playing those parts through Tefillah, Tsedakah and Teshuvah that connect to the Nidrei, our New Year's Resolutions.

My Second Day 5784/2023 Rosh Hashanah Sermon explores the New Year's resolution ("neder" as in "Kol Nidrei") in Biblical, Talmudic, and Contemporary Jewish spirituality. What is the one resolution in your life that is "If not now, when?" and what can the Talmud tell us about how to be successful at it?

My Rosh Hashanah 5784/2023 (first day) sermon examines the understanding of God's image as multiple genders in Jewish theology, mysticism, and Rabbinic midrash. What are the implications for transgender, nonbinary, and queer identifications? And equally, what are the implications for the self-understandings of everyday cisgender folk? Using the work of Joy Ladin, Charlotte Fonrobert, and Elliot Wolfson, in addition to classical and mystical Rabbinic sources, Rabbi Caine lays out the urgency...

As we begin the journey to High Holidays, I look at Matot the end of the Book of Numbers, where God is fastidiously concerned that we get right our relationship with the God of Judaism and, even deeper, the true God of the Universe.  When these fall short, we are asked through the Biblical spirituality of vows, do we even care about our own word and how we show up in this world?  This is a teaching for approaching the journey of weeks to the High Holidays.

Parashat Beha'alotkha begins with a memo to all the Israelites that doubles down on the top down hierarchy of Aharon and Moshe at the top, and then it continues with a series of amplified grumblings, complaints, and a continuation of the deterioration of the communal project and institution --now one year in-- that Exodus and Leviticus championed.  The crux is that the top down structure operates through directives, orders, and job descriptions, and with each person now operating out of their...

The longest parashah of the Torah's is Numbers' Naso, which begins with the theme of the tabernacle of roving ritual performance, like a traveling theater group, and then describes four ritual dramas that take publicly:  the financial penitent, the jealous husband, the addict, and the arrogant prince.  What do these have in common?  Rather than seeing ritual function to impose comformity and social roles, I examine this through the theory of Victor Turner, who posited that rituals actually...

The Rabbis are understandably preoccupied with why the Torah was given bemidbar Sinai, in the wilderness of Sinai, rather than in the Land of Israel.  Entire commentary collections are devoted to this one profound fact.  In fact, the fourth book of the Bible, Bemidbar, even means "In the wilderness" and often occurs just before the holiday of Shavuot, where we collectively re-experience the gift of Torah happening in the wilderness.  A teaching developed that the meaning of the Torah being "a...

In this teaching, I note how there are two sorts of social legislation that emerge out of the Holiness Code of Leviticus (as well as other places):  the kind that is aspirational --invitations to become a holy people through holiness of giving, holiness of speech, holiness of conduct, holiness of caring-- and the kind that is deeply uncomfortable structural change -- i.e. so aspirational that you really want to just leave it "in heaven" as an unreachable ideal.  An excellent example of the...

In honor of Lag B'Omer, I succinctly recount the Jewish mystical practice of embodying God's attributes during the period of Counting the Omer.  Specifically, in the transition to the week of Lag B'Omer, we transition from practicing in our lives the form of leadership that involves pushing people, and yourself, to get through tasks, the kind of action in which you feel you're carrying people to the finish line so the team gets there, to a different mode of leadership from God's attributes,...

Hope you're not having an Ecclesiastes month....

Drawing on many articles, from the New Republic to Thomas Friedman, I use Nachmanides' commentary on a verse from the Golden Calf account, the verse that recounts Moshe's reaction to witnessing the events unfolding, with unflinching criticism of Aaron's (supposed) leadership, and using a rare Hebrew word to describe the scene, that sounds like the Nation is becoming Pharaoh.  How apt. Text of some of the sermon is available here.

Using Rabbi Jane Kanarek's 2019 CJLS (Conservative Movement) halakhic responsum, I explain the complex development of Jewish head covering for both men and for women.  Though my conclusions from the sources are a bit different from Rabbi Kanarek's --who does not address issues of relative cultural gender standards-- I, like her, agree that the vast majority of Jews are uneducated to the halakhah of head coverings in awareness of God's presence and in representing the community before God -- a...

I've always wondered why we repeatedly pray to God to be willing to grant us Shabbat, etc.  What does it mean to be willing, or to be capable of exercising one's will?  Free will and the exercise of will always comes up when trying to understand Pharoah's will and heart-hardening in Shemot, and so I use sources there to answer the question.  The conclusion touches on how our relationship to God is different from our relationship to Torah.  God, like Moshe, may not always be speaking or...

There are virtually no references to grandparenting in the Torah, until, by sharp contrast, we are told in Genesis 50:23 that Joseph got not only to grandparent but great-grandparent as well.  I reflect upon this startling exception using two articles from the New York Times, including a recent one that describes the recent increase of adult children in their 20's becoming roommates with their grandparents.

Using the interpretations of the Rabbis (including Nachmanides and Sefer HaYashar) to understand Joseph's assimilation (in name, dress, etc.), I compare him to an American hero very recently in the news!  I can't say more without ruining the suspense...