From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

What does it mean to be blessed without knowing it, especially in a period permeated by suffering and perceived meaninglessness? Today, reading these two parashot together yields some incredible insights into how we can reframe our perspectives, cultivate gratitude, and actively build a better reality for ourselves.
About Michael Rosemberg
Michael Rosemberg is a rising senior in the Joint Program between the Columbia University School of General Studies and List College of Jewish Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Economics-Political Science at Columbia and in Jewish Ethics at JTS. His academic interests include political theory, American politics, Jewish pluralism, Jewish theology, and Jewish relations with non-Jews. At Columbia, Michael is a member of the Honor Society of the School of General Studies and the Mu Chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society. At JTS, he is a List College Fellow and will be completing an undergraduate thesis that explores the Latin American Jewish community’s response to the surge in antisemitism following October 7th. He has completed a selective fellowship for promising Jewish leaders in Columbia/Barnard Hillel’s Alexander Jewish Leadership Institute. He has also taken part in the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Jewish Teen Fellowship. Beyond his academic pursuits, Michael is deeply involved in Jewish communal life and leadership. He serves as the co-president of the Challah For Hunger student group at Columbia/Barnard Hillel, and he frequently leads services for various minyanim, most notably leading this past year’s High Holy Day Services at Temple Emanuel. Michael feels humbled and is very grateful for the opportunity to share Torah with all of you.

I need all of you to join me on a sports-nerd journey, for a second, because the Knicks just won their first championship since 1973. I’m aware this may not be the right crowd for this, but my parents are from New York, and as the famous song says, “I was born a Knicks fan, it’s genetic.” To say this championship meant a lot to New York and the Knicks would be an understatement, but what really made this championship so special was not just that the Knicks won, but how they won.

We all love closure. We would all love to know that a danger we had worried about has passed, that we can exhale. All good. All safe. Peace. Nothing to worry about anymore. Open a bottle of wine. Rejoice.
Sometimes that happens. And other times, perhaps most times, it does not.
How do we do life when the closure we wish for is not to be had? That is a question for us in our personal lives. That is certainly a question for Israel and the Jewish people now.
No Israeli commentator or thought leader that I have heard or read believes that the existential threat posed by Iran’s nuclear regime has passed. The war was begun because Iran’s nuclear ambitions and repeatedly stated desire to destroy Israel were an existential threat. The ceasefire that was announced this week does not resolve that existential threat. How do Israelis, and the Jewish people, and all who would oppose nuclear annihilation of a people, do life without closure—with the threat still unresolved?
For our last Talmud class of the year, we are going to examine the tractate Ta’anit, which deals with an existential threat to ancient Israel: drought. No rain meant no water to drink, no water to support vegetation, no produce, no food. Drought meant famine. Drought meant hunger.
How to handle this ancient existential threat to life? Ta’anit, which means fast (as in Yom Kippur) offers us two models for living when we cannot exhale, for life without closure. The threats (drought/famine and Iranian nuclear ambition) are different. But our limited options for living with them are the same.

Singing God’s Words: The Meaning and Experience of Chanting Torah
Drawing from his book, Singing God’s Words: The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism, the first in-depth study of the meaning and experience of chanting Torah among contemporary American Jews, Rabbi Summit discusses how and why a growing number of American Jews see the chanting of Torah as one of the most authentic expressions of their religious identity.
About Rabbi Jeffrey Summit
Rabbi Jeffrey A. Summit, Ph.D. holds an appointment as Research Professor in the Department of Music and Judaic Studies at Tufts University. He is the author of Singing God’s Words: The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism (Oxford University Press) and The Lord’s Song in a Strange Land: Music and Identity in Contemporary Jewish Worship (Oxford University Press). His CD Abayudaya: Music from the Jewish People of Uganda (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings) was nominated for a GRAMMY award. His CD with video Delicious Peace: Coffee, Music and Interfaith Harmony in Uganda (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings) was awarded Best World Music CD by the Independent Music Awards. His research and writing focus on music and identity, music and spiritual experience, music and advocacy, and the impact of technology on the transmission of tradition. Rabbi Summit holds emeritus appointments at Tufts as Emeritus Neubauer Executive Director of Tufts Hillel and Emeritus Jewish Chaplain.

The many aspects of the prayer Aleinu
There’s no other prayer in the entire Jewish liturgy as fascinating as the Aleinu with its rich history and meaning on one hand, and melodies and Mi Sinai tunes on the other.
This Shabbat we’ll exam a very ancient prayer that in the Middle Ages caused our people persecution and censorship for the famous line that we no longer recite.
But Aleinu is not just that. It is a prayer we recite with multiple melodies that were written in different centuries by composers with very little in common.
And then, as you know, every evening minyan whether at Shul or at a house of morning congregants join in unison for the recitation of this prayer like no other prayer.
Everyone knows the music…. Why? We’ll examine the concept of what Brain Scientists call  “earworms”.