Rabbi Bruce's Reflections on Life

 Dear Friends, As we approach Chanukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa I want to share some thoughts about religious freedom. In this week's Torah reading (scriptural reading which begins with Genesis Chapter 37) , we are reading about the beginning of the Joseph narrative.  When Joseph is sent out to find his brothers he encounters someone who in Hebrew is called "Ha ish," the person.  That person asks him "for what are you looking "mah t'vakeish?" The person is not identified and could be anyone.  It is a reminder that any of us have the potential to impact someone's life.  If the person doesn't tell Joseph the best way to look for his brothers and he finds them too soon, they might kill him instead of throwing him in a pit. Ultimately Joseph is taken to Egypt where he interprets Pharaoh's dream and saves humanity from the famine.  (please read Genesis 37 and the next several chapters which through the end of Genesis tell the saga of Joseph and hi...

 Happy Thanksgiving, In Jewish tradition, one fulfills one's obligation for prayer when one says amen to the prayers of whoever is leading the worship experience....WITH ONE EXCEPTION. When one is giving thanks, although one can say amen to the prayers of others, each person must find something for which to give thanks.  On this Thanksgiving, as all of us acknowledge we are living in challenging times and facing various hurdles in different aspects of our lives, I hope that Thanksgiving gives us the opportunity to search for the blessings in our lives and acknowledge them. I am teaching a course in the Holocaust this semester at George Mason University and have taught about Viktor Frankl's book, "Man's Search for Meaning." and the power of hope. Two of my favorite quotes from Viktor Frankl, are the following:(see below) Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cann...

 Dear Friends and Family, I have been privileged to be able to lead a number of sessions recently about the election, Krystallnacht, which occurred Nov. 9 and 10, 1938 (the night of broken glass that many feel is the event that began the Holocaust), recent events in Amsterdam, and Veterans Day. I quoted the following poem which I hope inspires you in the way it inspires me.  I thought it was an anonymous poem but recently found the name of the author in this version.  (See below) As we think about the strong feelings that people have about the recent election, the recent violence in Amsterdam, recall the horrors of those nights in Germany 86 years ago, and remember and honor all those who serve in the military, this poem speaks to something we all can do. We live in a world with deep division and much tension.  A friend recently illustrated this with a grammatical joke. What do you call it when the past and present walk into a bar? Tense We live with tension and coul...

 Dear Friends, Sorry to disappoint you but there will be no song lyrics in this blog:-) I want to talk about masks.   Recently, I  was giving a presentation at a local retirement facility about the masks we wear and how we celebrate a day on which we wear masks and go trick or treating.   I talked about the day on which Jewish people wear masks, which is our holiday of Purim.  Please do a search and learn more about this holiday in the Jewish calendar. We had a discussion about the reference to Yom Kippur as Yom Kippurim, a day like Purim where we also wear masks including wearing the mask of being a pious person who sincerely wants to be forgiven  How many of us are sincere in our desire to be forgiven and how many of us are only wearing a mask? Our discussion included asking the residents to talk about the masks they wear.  One of the residents emotionally described how she wore a "polite" mask and never told people how she felt.  As she describ...

  Dear Friends, As we prepare to complete our Fall Holidays, I encourage you to search for Shemini Atzaeret and Simchat Torah on the My Jewish Learning.com site. Shemini Atzeret gives us a time to remember our loved ones as we complete our intense schedule of the High Holidays and Sukkot.  This is a day when we gather together to reflect on the meaning of the Holiday and Festival season in what is referred to as the Day of Solemn Assembly. Simchat Torah is the day on which we complete the reading of the Torah and begin the cycle of reading it again.  This was the day in 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel and the world changed forever.  It will be a complicated celebration this year because we all have had to reflect on what the attack and subsequent war mean for the future of Israel, Jewish values, and our hopes for peace.  As a rabbi I pray for peace and the safe return of the hostages.  As a professor, I teach about building bridges and hopes for d...

 Dear Friends, There are certain days that one will always remember.  Yesterday was one of them. Celebrating Yom Kippur a year after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7.2023, in the midst of a presidential election, and surrounded by many personal and societal challenges was quite intense. I want to share a few reflections with you.   Elie Wiesel raises the following question which I saw in a quote on a website from Temple B'nai Israel in Panama City , Florida. “The Gaon of Vilna said that   ve-samachta be-chagekha   (You shall rejoice in your festival; Deuteronomy 16:14) is the most difficult commandment in the Torah. I could never understand this puzzling remark. Only during the war did I understand. Those Jews who, in the course of their journey to the end of hope, managed to dance on Simhat Torah, those Jews who studied Talmud by heart while carrying stones on their back, those Jews who went on whispering   Zemirot shel Shabbat   (Hymns of Sabbath) while p...