When we first got word of the Hamas Simchat Torah massacre we were sad and brokenhearted. But we know the constant threat of terrorists with which Israelis live each day. We’ve seen our bus stops blown up, restaurants we frequented shuttered after an attack and spent time in bomb shelters due to missiles from Gaza. More than that, we carry in our bones the intergenerational trauma of the Holocaust, of pogroms, of a thousand years of anti-semitism turned violent.

When the horrific details and extent of the atrocities Hamas had committed began to emerge, we were shocked. But we know what Hamas is and we know what they are capable of. As their charter explicitly states, they exist in order to kill Jews.

When anti-Israel protests began across university campuses and in many countries we were disgusted and a bit stunned. We know that anti-Israel sentiment runs high on some college campuses but, since the Israeli response had not yet begun, those “protests” were little more than celebrations of the murder, mutilation, and brutalizing of Jewish people. Seeing people on American campuses and streets celebrating the death of Jewish children and Holocaust survivors — literally dancing in joy at the murder of Jews, even as the lives of almost two hundred hostages remain in the balance — was something we never imagined could happen in America.

What has truly surprised us however, what has gutted us, has been the silence. In the days that have followed the largest terrorist attack in the world since 9/11, one that happened to be targeted to a particular religious group, few fellow members of the clergy have reached out to us. Clergy we have stood side-by-side with at rallies in support of LGBTQ+ rights and protections, or raising our voices together to speak against racial injustice, have simply disappeared.

In some ways, this has been one of the most painful parts of this week. To feel, for the first time perhaps, that despite our activism and warm reception during times of peace, that perhaps Jewish lives don’t matter. We understand that many of our fellow clergy do not share the same commitment to Israel as we do. We understand that many have issues with Israeli policy in the West Bank and Gaza. So do many within our congregations, many of whom are activists for human rights across the Middle East including in Israel. But, at the very least, we thought our fellow clergy colleagues would reach out to check in. Instead, we have heard almost nothing.

Sadly, in conversation after conversation with rabbis and cantors across the country we are hearing the same thing — few, if any, calls or emails of support from the very people we have proudly worked with and lovingly considered  as allies in faith and community.

Over the years, we have gathered for numerous vigils at times of crisis to lift up impacted members of our community. In the absence of private expressions of support or the call from our fellow clergy to gather in public solidarity with us, however, we chose to hold joint Shabbat services last Friday night. More than 900 people in attendance, including our town mayors and other elected officials, and over 400 households participated remotely.

Some of our neighbors have wondered why we have ceded the activist vigils and solitary marches to neighboring towns, and instead put our energies into a joint Shabbat service. We now feel ready to share why: there had been near total silence from our colleagues in the days after the attack. As a result, we worried that we alone would have to organize any community gathering to show us support, and that it might not be the best, emotionally safe space for a community that was, and continues to be, in deep pain and grief.

The national anthem of Israel is called The Hope. It is in that vein that we share our disappointment publicly, with tremendous hope that perhaps seeing the hurt and isolation the silence is causing will lead to repair. Which is our way of saying: it is not too late. It is not too late to reach out in friendship and support to your Jewish neighbors to understand that they — that we — are grieving, and mourning, and scared.

We hope you will stand by our side when we are hurting. We hope to build a better world together, and to see peace in Israel, in Gaza, and here in our own communities, too.

In the meantime, we urge you to pick up the phone and check in on a Jewish friend today. Odds are, when you ask, “How are you?” they will reply, “Not okay.” They aren’t okay. We aren’t okay. But the simple act of showing you care has immense power and is one of the things the Jewish community needs now more than ever.

Rabbi Daniel Cohen, Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel
Rabbi Jesse Olizky, Congregation Beth El
Rabbi Abigail Treu, Oheb Shalom Congregation

Who remembers Norman Cousins?

Norman Cousins was a nice Jewish boy, who grew up not far from here in Union City, to become a famous journalist and author. In 1964 Norman was diagnosed with a rare and debilitating disease. His doctors gave him only a few weeks to live.

Norman did something extraordinary when he heard the news. He laughed. 

In fact, he made it a point to laugh every day.

For 30 minutes. 

Until the day he died. 

26 years after the diagnosis.

I share this story not because we are all granted miracles and extra time on this earth. I’m sharing this story because of Norman’s response. Who responds to bad news with a laugh? Who decides that laughter is going to be a part of their march into an uncertain future?

Maybe we all should. 

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Weeks ago, I was all set with my sermon topic for today. I’d done my sleuthing around bookstores and blogs, and noticed just how much is being written about anger, rage, blame, our toxic culture and lack of civility. I’m collecting sources about how we all need to stop being so angry. How we need to change, to find love and forgiveness… Great. It’s writing itself. And by that, I mean that ChatGPT is writing it.  

And then, something happened. 

Actually, a lot of things happened. We packed up, moved, unpacked. We collected two kids from camp, unpacked, did 200 loads of laundry, and then packed again, this time to send our two older children to college. One year apart but both freshmen now. We packed, we drove to Boston, we unpacked, we drove home, crying a little on the way. We packed again. We drove to Saratoga. We unpacked. We drove home, crying a little on the way. We came home to an emptier house. We pulled ourselves together.  We launched our youngest at a new high school. And then my restful vacation was over.  

That I got a cold was not a surprise nor was it anything but funny when, driving the youngest to school on day two, we smelled something terrible in the car. Like, really, really awful. After some searching it turned out that – well, you know the piles of shopping bags we all keep hoarding now, and maybe some of us have bags inside of bags inside of bags shoved in the back of the car because maybe we’ll need all 400 of them the next time we go to Target? I’m saying hypothetically. Well after some searching we found the source of the odor: a wheel of brie cheese that had been sitting there for a week… in 90 degree heat… sort of a long story involving the college move-in and the bags being in the garage… but that’s not the point, the point is sometimes you have a lot going on and then you end up with a car that smells like rotten brie cheese and then because you’ve been driving in it and touching those bags your hands smell for days and you know what? It’s kind of funny. 

I wrote this sermon because I found myself doubled over laughing at the ShopRite, next to the garbage bins into which I finally did deposit the brie cheese, and 400 shopping bags. Doubled over, gasping for breath. A total release.

And suddenly I knew: I’m going to write about laughter. Because laughter is what the world needs right now. What we need. Laughter is the best medicine. Although whoever said that, as the comedian Greg Kettner said, obviously never had diarrhea. 

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Laughter, it turns out, strengthens the immune system and brain. Laughter decreases one’s chances of developing dementia, decreases stress hormones, and increases endorphins and dopamine, the same hormones that produce the runners high. Laughing helps protect the heart and lungs, and if done consistently has similar results of a light cardio workout and actually burns calories even as it strengthens your abs. Move over, Peloton.

And, neurological studies show that those who laugh more live longer.

Laughter only works when everyone joins in; when one person in a group is laughing alone, it’s not so funny. But laughing together is an effective way of improving the positive mood of individuals and a group, a way to bond and boost optimism and hope.

So if I want to stand here and preach that we are going to change the world by changing ourselves… if I’m trying to inspire us to do teshuvah, make ourselves and this world a better place… well, why be so serious? 

What if the way to fixing the world – to getting over our anger problem, and our fear, our toxic culture and stress overdrive – is as simple as… a good laugh?

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So now I’m writing a sermon on laughter. Except, I’m all serious. My first draft was a highbrow discourse on the proper modalities of laughter. The Shulchan Aruch on the halakha of laughter. I showed it to some friends and they actually fell asleep. Next idea:  I’m going to do a stand-up routine for my sermon! I’ll get us all rolling in the aisles!

But here’s the thing – I’m not very funny.

So I called my friend Ethan. Rabbi Ethan Linden did stand up comedy in college and he’s hilarious, and I said: teach me how to be funny. 

And he told me – well the key to being funny is to be yourself.

And I thought, that’s too bad.

And then he said: you have to be willing to laugh at yourself.

There’s so much to that. That sounds like teshuvah to me. That’s a comment about humility, and how we carry ourselves in our own hearts and also with one another. If I’m willing to laugh at myself – well, maybe it will help me take life a little less seriously. Maybe it will help me get along with other people better, and not take things so personally. So Rosh Hashanah Laughter Lesson #1: be willing to laugh at yourself a little more this coming year.

Rosh Hashanah Laughter Lesson #2: Laugh at the unexpected, and share that laugh with others. Laughter, it turns out is a theme of the Torah readings today.

The root “laugh” occurs seven times in the story, that magical number seven that signals to us to pay attention.

• In the opening verses of today’s Torah reading, Abraham names his son Isaac, Yitzhak – it means “he will laugh.”
• Sarah explains, when they name him: “God has brought me laughter; everyone who hears will laugh with me” – kol hashomeah yitzhak li.  This is a completely unexpected turn of events, and they are laughing. 
• They are laughing together, Sarah and Abraham, parents in their old age. They are laughing because they are joyful, and they want to share this feeling with others. This is exuberant laughter, the kind that is contagious, communal. Everyone who hears will laugh with us: isn’t this what the best kind of laughter is? When you get the giggles, and it infects the whole class
  • Laughter, it turns out, is communal. We are 30 times as likely to laugh with others as we are alone. In fact part of what’s making our culture so toxic is the watching from home phenomenon; Hollywood isn’t making big-budget comedies anymore because when we watch alone we don’t enjoy the joke as much.
  • So God finally gave them a child after telling Abraham his whole life that he’d be the father of a multitude of nations and Sarah’s menopausal? That’s pretty funny.
  • One midrash (Breishit Rabbah 53:8) captures this contagious laugh of joy: The rabbis imagined that when Sarah laughed this laugh, others who also hadn’t had been able to have children before gave birth; that when she laughed the deaf gained their hearing and the blind were able to see. The laugh itself caused this, caused joy and healing in other people’s lives. This is what a laugh can do.
• You know who else laughs in today’s reading? Yishmael. Sarah sees Ishmael m’tzahek. Unclear what that is, actually, but we can assume that like most older brothers he found a few things to laugh it when it came to his younger sibling. This laugh is different, maybe. We don’t really know. But it feels different, because bad things happen afterwards, sad and hard things; Sarah sees Yishmael laughing and becomes jealous or angry or something, that’s what triggers her to call on Abraham to send Yishmael and Hagar away. A laugh. 
• Which brings us to the other laugh of Genesis, one that happened before the curtain rose on our story today. A few chapters ago, messengers came to tell Abraham that Sarah will have a child and she hears this and says, I’m 90 years old, that’s absurd, and – she laughs. Like Yishmael, she is laughing alone – vatizhak, in the singular. Was she cynical? Nervous? Scornful? Snarky? God overhears – turns out she’s not really alone, as the ark behind me says, “know before whom you stand” – and God does not join in the laughter. God asks her a question: “Why are you laughing?” And instead of answering, she denies it.  “I didn’t laugh.” “Yes, you did,” God says. And then grants her a child whom she names Laughter. Sarah kept her reasons private.
• I wonder if that’s why she kicked Yishmael out. As someone who laughed alone, perhaps she recognized something in him that she knew well and didn’t like.  Watching him laugh alone, m’tzahek in the singular, was the kind of laughter she didn’t want in her house. Maybe she read the study I did, about teenage boys at risk for psychopathy, ones with major behavior problems, how they tend not to laugh when other people around them laugh. Sociologists teach that we use laughter to show belonging to a group, and also to convey that we understand that someone else wants us to laugh and that we want what they want. 
• Perhaps the Torah is suggesting: notice when you’re laughing alone too much. It’s a sign that something is off. God made us to laugh together. Not at one another, not by ourselves. But together, passing our giggles around the room like candy.

So lesson #1: laugh at yourself.

Lesson #2: laugh at the unexpected, and share that laugh with others. 

So Abraham laughs, Sarah laughs, Yishmael laughs.

And one child, named Laughter. 

Laughter, Yitzhak, is the answer to Abraham and Sarah’s prayers. Yitzhak, Laughter, is Redemption. Redemption is brought into this world by a child named Laughter. 

But – do we ever see him laugh?

In all of Torah and rabbinic literature – the answer is: no.

And this, my friends, is Rosh Hashanah Laughter Lesson #3 –no matter how tough it gets, no matter how bad the diagnosis, no matter how rotten the cheese, keep laughing.

Isaac has a tough life. He has a pretty traumatic childhood, born into a rather weird family dynamic with a step brother and his mother living with them, super elderly parents who probably needed the car keys taken away before they were ready; there’s the trauma of tomorrow’s Torah reading, the whole we’re-going-on-a-trip-son-actually-I-might-kill-you-wait-never mind episode; his mom dies, his dad remarries, starts a big new family. Isaac grows up, can’t have kids, then has twins but they are constantly bickering and finally he goes blind and his wife and one of the kids conspire to lie and cheat him and then one of the sons runs away…I mean this is not an easy life. For a kid named He will laugh. 

And yet – and here is where I need you all to lean in a little, listen up: Isaac is the one patriarch whose name does not change. Abraham started life as Avram; Jacob ends up being named Israel. Isaac stays Isaac. He will laugh. Even when his life is not so funny. He will laugh. 

And so must we.

Life is hard. For Isaac, and for all of us. Life is full of unexpected twists, traumas, loss. One natural response is anger and outrage, fear and stress; but another natural, God-given response is: to laugh. Yitzhak never changes his name – God never changes Isaac’s name – to teach us: no matter what comes our way, keep laughing. 

We don’t get to choose a whole lot about how this year unfolds. But God has given us the thing we need most to handle whatever comes our way: a sense of humor.

Let our Rosh Hashanah resolution be to laugh more this year. 

At ourselves, and with one another. 

May we learn from Abraham and Sarah and Yishmael and Yitzhak to laugh no matter what happens. To laugh at ourselves, to laugh with one another, to heal ourselves and this world by spreading smiles that turn to laughs that turn to joy.

Shana tova u’metuka. May this year be full of laughter for us all.

In our family, it is the matzah balls that win the nostalgia award. The brisket, too, but sometimes that is swapped out for turkey or chicken, the price of kosher meat being what it is; and anyway, there are the vegetarians to consider. The charoset? Well, yes, of course. In some years it has also been the star feature; in particular that final year of my uncle’s too-short life, when he decided to make six different recipes from Jewish communities around the world even though the chemotherapy made it hard for him to stand in the kitchen for very long. Every one of the six was deliciously bittersweet.

Charoset: nominated for best lead or supporting role? To look at the Haggadah, it would seem the latter. It doesn’t get its own named step in the seder, or even its own blessing. In fact, it is unclear if it is its own mitzvah (commandment) or just a part of the maror (bitter herbs) and korech (Hillel sandwich) ones. The charoset is just sort of slipped in there, in the instructions for how to eat the maror, right before the meal is served. Like, that spot where no one wants to take extra time to consider another question. It’s just there, part of the meal, something you do as part of the maror and korech steps but not actually part of the narrative arc of the Haggadah-script at all.

In fact, unlike matzah and maror, charoset is not found anywhere in the Torah.

It is, however, alluded to in the earliest rabbinic works of the Mishnah, a collection of early rabbinic teachings that was completed around 200 CE:

“They brought before [the seder leader] matzah and lettuce [hazeret] and charoset, and at least two cooked dishes, although eating charoset is not a commandment (mitzvah). Rabbi Eliezer ben Tzadok says: it is a commandment (mitzvah).” (Mishna, Pesachim 10:3)

Already nearly 2,000 years ago our ancestors were eating something they called charoset as part of the seder meal. It’s never defined, and there seems to be disagreement about whether it was a mitzvah or not.

The rabbis living in the following centuries took up the question, and some of their conversations are recorded in the Talmud. “And if it is not a mitzvah,” Rabbi Ami asks  (Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 116a) “why does one serve it?” A few answers are offered:

Idea #1: “It is brought due to the poison in the bitter herbs, which is neutralized by the charoset.” Is this a culinary suggestion or a spiritual one?

Idea #2: “Rabbi Levi says: It is in remembrance of the apple.” Huh? What apple?

Idea #3: “Rabbi Yohanan says: It is in remembrance of the clay.” This sounds familiar. The charoset, we learn as children and most haggadot tell us, is to remember the mortar used with the bricks in the building of the pyramids. In fact, a Haggadah printed in Spanish in 17^th century offers a recipe for charoset that includes the following: “Then mix in a bit of brick dust, in memory of the bricks which our fathers made in Egypt.” A haggadah printed in Salonika in 1740 reports that “in Salonika the elders testified that they used to put chopped calermini stone in the charoset.” I’ve read that during the American Civil War, soldiers at the front, unable to find the ingredients for charoset, put an actual brick on their makeshift seder plate. Rabbi Yohanan’s idea seems to have stuck and become mainstream. But as we see, his is not the only idea about this mysterious dish. In fact, the Talmud seems to want to compromise, which brings us to…

Idea #4: “Abaye said: Therefore, to fulfill both opinions [the idea of the apple and the idea of the clay], one must prepare the charoset tart and thick. Tart in remembrance of the apple, and thick in remembrance of the clay.” Again, what’s with the apple? Why not just go with the clay idea and move on?

That apple comment becomes important, as most – though not all – charoset recipes feature apples as a key ingredient. So what is the apple? Is it perhaps an allusion to the fruit of the Garden of Eden? Perhaps. And also, perhaps to a midrash (rabbinic story) about love, as Rashi suggests in his 11^th century commentary to the Talmud. He reminds us of the story: Disheartened by their ongoing oppression and in particular by Pharoah’s decree that all Jewish boys should be killed at birth, the Israelite men gave up being intimate with their wives. The wives however refused to accept their husbands’ sense of defeat, and went out among the apple trees and seduced their husbands. Later on, they went out to those same apple trees and gave birth to their children nearby. This midrash (rabbinic tale) is included in the Haggadah, actually just a few pages before we eat the charoset.

So what is the apple of the charoset recipe? The apple is about Jewish continuity, resilience and most importantly and uniquely at the seder: love.

The ingredients of charoset are actually all mentioned in the Biblical love story-poem Song of Songs, which is read on the Shabbat of Passover at synagogue and also included in some haggadot:  “Come, my beloved, let us go in the open – under the apple tree I roused you… I went down to the nut grove…the pomegranites were in bloom…the figs…the almonds…the dates…all choice fruits” (Song of Songs, 7:12-14, 5:11).

Perhaps, then, eating charoset is ingesting this love song. The love song of the Jewish people and God, and also two human beings. Aryeh ben David has written:

“The face of someone who has fallen in love shines with hope. Often, with the passing of years, the early spark felt when first falling in love fades. But when we look at old pictures and read the letters written in early romance, we can often rekindle the flames of our passion. The Seder, with its four cups of wine, recling posture, charoset, and lengthy discussion of the Jewish People’s “first date” with God, evokes and rekindles this love. And as with all love stories, hope is renewed.”

Abaye’s Idea #4 is right. The charoset is a mixture that is full of the love of the apple, and also thick like the mud of slavery. Because isn’t that what life is? A thick mixture of hope and despair, of sweet moments of love and tenderness and also sticky-thick moments of pain and trauma that are hard to let go?

“From darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, from winter to spring, and now from bitterness to sweetness. But with the light, there is still darkness in the world. With our freedom, there are still those who are enslaved…Even within our own lives, we live within the tapestry of these contradictions. It is dark, and it is light; we are trapped, and we are liberated; we are cold, and we are warm; we experience pain and joy, just as we have eaten the maror with the charoset, taking the bitter with the sweet. Through this act, we acknowledge the fulness of life, shaded by the gradations of experience…a reflection of the full range of possibilities.” (Rabbi Joy Levitt)As we head to the seder table tonight and tomorrow, may the charoset bring us all to the messy, sticky-tart-sweet taste of life in all its fulness, the taste of liberation and love.