 | | Hello everyone! I want to applaud everyone involved in making the Sisterhood Shabbat services happen last Friday night. In particular, thank you to Marla and Reggie, who gave an awesome dvar torah. I also want to express how much fun I had getting to daven with the Temple on Saturday morning. Stay tuned, on Oct 30-31 and Nov 6-7, the Center will take Friday and the Temple will take Saturday. When I think of Parashat Lech Lecha, I often come back to the midrash of Abraham, then just Abram, smashing the idols in his father’s idol shop. I have always been amused by the sort of impishness that our patriarch displays in this story. His father, Terach, suspects Abram is to blame and Abram plays dumb. He puts the murder weapon (so to speak) in the hands of the biggest idol of them all and blames him for destroying his lesser rivals. This midrash appears both in Christian and Muslim sources. This midrash is so well known that many people assume it is in the Torah! I personally connect a lot with the smart aleck Abram, that impulsive risk taker, that immigrant. I think that I connect more with young Abram (what a good rapper name) than even with older Abraham, our father, the faithful servant of Hashem who is willing to sacrifice his own son. I want to be brave like Abram, to act according to my principles, no matter the consequences. But I am not so bold. I am afraid of the consequences. I just logged off a lovely call with some of the folks from my rabbinical school cohort. All of us, to a certain extent, were and still are wrestling with this, how to be authentic without isolating and casting judgment. On NPR, a caller was reporting that as a Jew, they are so afraid to even be honest about their preferred candidate for Michigan senate in their synagogue without being ostracized. I want to encourage us to be bold, to say what matters to us. I also want us to practice doing so in a way that creates space for disagreement and encourages conversation. This is certainly something I want to work on and I invite to join me in this project.
-Rabbi David Magazine Malamud
email: rabbidavidmm@gmail.com
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