From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

There was once a long-time member of Temple Emanuel who was a very accomplished litigator. He did trial and appellate work at the highest level. In court he was a fierce adversary. In life, he was gentle, humble, reflective, soulful. Heonce shared an observation about what it was like to go to the 50th reunion of his Harvard Law School class.

He shared that going to his 50th reunion was a totally different experience from his earlier reunions. The earlier unions were a comparison trap. Classmates would see one another again and size each other up. There was edge in the air. Anxiety. How big is yourfirm? How big is your practice? What important cases or deals are you workingon? Earlier reunions were a bragfest. But at the 50th, all that edge, all that anxiety, all that bragging, was gone. Fifty years had humbled everybody. Everybody had been knocked around by life. Fifty years latereverybody had their own medical stuff, their own worries, their own losses, their own disappointments. Fifty years later it was about compassion not comparison.

And that raises a question: Do we have towait until our 50-year reunion to discover what matters most in life?

Benjamin Robinson, I have known you sincethe day you were born. I have had the blessing of getting to work with yourmother virtually seven days a week ever since you came into this world. As youmay know, your mother literally never takes a vacation. Even when she is allegedly on vacation, she is always working. Our offices are next to one another. As a consequence of that, I have literally seen you grow up before my very eyes. You have been sitting there with your family through the years. I have a photo gallery in my head of you from baby to child to young man, sitting next to your Dad, and to Maya, Noa and Eli.

Benjamin, you are at the beginning of youradulthood. What really matters in life? What is worth pursuing? And what are false gods, the glittering things that look valuable in the moment but ultimately are not?

What story most claims us?: the Jewish story or the human story? To whom do we owe our first loyalty?: the Jewish people or all people? The answer of course is yes. From the very first page of our sacred canon, there is an ongoing, unresolved, and unresolvable tension between universalism and particularism. The Torah embodies this dialectic. Bereishit and Noach begin with the human story. Lech Lecha, our reading this week, the third parshah in our Torah, finally gets to the Jewish story.

The rubber on this dialectic has hit the road in the form of a federal tax issue that has stoked enormous positive energy in the American Jewish community. One night I was getting a ride home from a community event with beloved friends Michael and Joyce Bohnen. I was in the back seat, but without seeing his face, I could hear Michael’s energy and enthusiasm for this $1,700 federal tax issue. When he dropped me off at home, he had not finished discussing it. He said I want to meet with you in person. Rabbis need to know about it. That night, at 11:30, he emailed me: when can we meet to discuss this federal tax issue. Rabbis need to know about it. Two days later we met in my study. This issue of federal taxation embodies a deep spiritual tension about whether our first loyalty is to the Jewish people or to all people.

Please read these sources (Michael Bohnen and Co Pilot) about the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit. As Michael puts it:

Beginning in 2027 every taxpayer can receive a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit of up to $1,700 per person ($3,400 per couple) for donations to Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGPs). The taxpayer can designate their contribution to go to any K-12 public or private school to be used for scholarships for income eligible students.

This is much better than a tax deduction. A $1,700 contribution reduces the donor’s tax liability by $1,700, so it effectively costs the donor nothing!...

If just 5% of the Jewish adults in Greater Boston participate in the first year, we could generate millions of dollars of scholarship aid for our schools, potentially providing financially eligible students with average scholarships of $5,000. Our goal in future years is to increase that amount. (emphasis in the original)

This sounds wonderful. It feels like a win win. A legal way to reduce our federal tax bill & providing potentially millions of dollars to Jewish day schools in Greater Boston to provide a day school education to families who might be interested in a day school education but are put off from doing so by affordability concerns. As Michael observes: “The annual cost [of Jewish day school] can exceed $40,000 per student, and even with the scholarships that the schools provide, the average family pays $25,000.” See also Co Pilot on the affordability challenge of Jewish day schools in Greater Boston.

Decrease our federal tax bill. Increase aid for families seeking a day school education. What’s the issue?

The issue is: what does not get funded because of all the dollars that go to the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit? If this credit did not exist (it is up to our Governor to decide if the Commonwealth will participate in the program), what good could the millions of dollars of tax revenue do for society as a whole?

Help Jewish families who want a day school education for their children. Or devote those resources to the common good. The rubber hits the road on universalism vs. particularism.

But it is more emotional than that. We live in a time of rising antisemitism. Rising antizionism. Rising animus against Israel. Rising hostility against the right of the State of Israel—78 years old—to even exist. The Massachusetts Teachers Association, especially since October 7, has been openly hostile towards Israel and Zionism. That is not even remotely debatable. If we want our children to grow up loving Judaism, Zionism & Israel, how do these practical realities affect the weighing of universalism & particularism?

Drawing on her experience surviving October 7th and her ongoing journey of healing and advocacy, Millet explores what resilience truly means. Through personal stories and practical reflections, she shares how letting go of what we cannot control can help us rediscover our strength, accept support, and find meaning in community.

The talk invites us to embrace vulnerability, adapt to uncertainty, and focus our energy where we can make a difference in our everyday lives.

About Millet Ben Shabat

Millet Ben Shabat, 30, is married to Yakir and a psychotherapist in training. On October 7th, she survived the Nova music festival massacre. Since then, she has been active in international advocacy, supported the efforts to bring the hostages home (BH all home now), combating antisemitism, and helping her community through its ongoing healing and recovery. Committed to share truth, light and love.

Every once in a while you read a story in the newspaper that feels like it should have been published in The Onion.

The other night, I couldn't wait to read this story to Solomon. Apparently, Dartmouth is investigating its provost, Dr. Santiago Schnell, after a Semafor investigation, and subsequent investigation by the student newspaper, The Dartmouth, revealed that much of his academic writing and recent op-eds, including a recent Washington Post op-ed about the problem of AI cheating in a university setting, were written largely by AI. 

Here is a direct quote from the article in The New York Times that made me laugh: "Dr. Schnell told The Dartmouth in a statement that he used A.I. 'for language refinement, copyediting, improving clarity and organization and making writing processes more efficient.' The newspaper then ran Dr. Schnell’s statement on his AI use through an AI detector, which flagged the statement itself as apparently written by AI Dr. Schnell did not respond to a request for comment."

When I brought this story to Solomon, he did not laugh the way I had. Instead, he raised important questions. If all of the ideas in the article were Dr. Schnell's, and AI makes it easier for him to share those ideas with others, what's the problem with using AI? And even though this technology is purported to be completely accurate, are we sure that it can it effectively determine whether someone has used AI to write or whether they have only used AI to proofread? 

Solomon's questions made me realize how quick I was to judge Dr. Schnell, and how willing I was to laugh at his expense without pausing to question the situation more fully.

What does our tradition teach us about judging people when we don't have the full story?

Imagine you have a friend who cannot stop raving about a book. "I love this book. You have to read this book.” One day an Amazon package sits at your front door. Inside is the book, along with a note from your friend: "I hope you find this book as life-changing as I do." You cannot wait to begin. But the moment you open the book, you notice something strange.

There is no beginning. No page 1. The book begins on page 2. There is only an ongoing story.

That is true of Judaism's most foundational text. Open any one of the sixty-six tractates of the Talmud and you will notice that there is no page 1. The first page is always page 2. There is only an ongoing story.

And it’s not just true of the 66 tractates of the Talmud. The same thing happens a 67th time in our Torah this morning. As generations of commentators have observed, when the Torah tells the creation story, it does not begin with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, alef. It begins with the second letter, beit. There is no page 1. There is only an ongoing story.

What is true of our sacred texts is true of our lives. None of us is born on page 1. All of us are born on page 2. Each of us enters a story already in progress.

Cain.

What comes up for you when you think about Cain?

Most of us know the first half of the story. That Cain kills his brother Abel. That Cain is the first murderer. That Cain is the first to commit the ignominious act of fratricide—one brother killing another brother.

Most of us know that God sentences Cain to wander aimlessly throughout the world as a punishment—na v’nad tiheyeh va’aretz.

But there is a coda that most of us do not focus on. Namely, Cain does not wander aimlessly throughout the world. To the contrary: Cain “settled in the land of Nod.” Nod means wandering. Cain settled in the land of wandering. Not only settled: Cain is the first to build a city, he is the first city builder. Cain gets married, becomes a father, indeed becomes the patriarch of multiple generations.

How do we understand this coda, that Cain defies/transcends/ignores God’s express punishment, “You shall become a ceaseless wanderer on earth”? The first murderer is also the first city builder, a husband and a patriarch.

What are we to learn from the whole story, including its underappreciated and curious end?

October 3, 2026

Tomorrow is not only Shabbat, but also Shmini Atzeret, which means we recite Yizkor for our beloved departed. We are going to explore a question the Talmud raises at least three times: Do the dead know what is happening in our lives? When we are going through hard times, do they know? Are they rooting for us? Even interceding for us? When we are going through happy times, when we are celebrating a wedding of their grandchild or great grandchild, do they know? Are they celebrating in heaven? When we say that “they are shining down in heaven on us,” is that just poetry? Or is there any sense in which these gauzy words may be true?

Many of us see ourselves as rational: When you are dead, you are dead, you don’t know, you don’t care, you don’t exist, so how could you know or care? Many of us may believe that what Kohelet writes is true: ve’hameitim anam yodim meumah, the dead know nothing. 9:5.

And yet, I have been in the pews of funerals at a local Orthodox shul, where a local Orthodox rabbi who gives exquisite, moving, poignant eulogies, offers a trope that your beloved mother, your beloved father, your beloved grandparent, is in heaven, an advocate, a melitz yosher, arguing on your behalf before God, still knowing, still caring, still working to make possible your best life. I have been there, and heard those eulogies, and seen those tears, when dry-eyed rationalists who might believe in Kohelet weep away at the notion that their loved ones still know and care and work for our best lives.

What is that? What is the question behind the question? The Talmud’s stubborn refusal to accept the inexorable logic of Kohelet is not about ghosts or spirits. It is about loss and grief. It asks the question of Yizkor: when life ends, how do our relationships live on?

Why Are We Still Here? An exploration of the second day of Yuntif’s role in keeping the Jewish people alive.We already celebrate a lot of holidays during the month of Tishrei, and on the second day of Sukkot, our tradition asks to add more limitations than was originally expected. The reason? It’s an acknowledgement of a time gone by. Join Rabbi Ravid Tilles to explore how upholding of a second day of yuntif can teach us important lessons about how our thousands year old people has sustained ourselves. If you don’t think we need to be practicing a second day of Yuntif, then you are exactly the person who should come!About Rabbi Ravid TillesRabbi Ravid Tilles is the School Rabbi and Director of Jewish Life and Learning at Schechter Boston. He and his wife, Yaffa, and three sons are members of the Temple Emanuel family.

More than 2,000 years ago, Hiero II, the ruler ofSyracuse, Sicily, was feeling frustrated. He had given a local goldsmith a nice piece of gold and asked for him to create a beautiful crown. However, when the craftsman delivered the final project, Hiero had the strong suspicion that he had pocketed some of the gold and made the crown out of a mixture of gold andother, cheaper metals. He asked the goldsmith, who of course assured him that the crown was entirely gold. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been cheated. So, he summoned Archimedes, a local physicist and brilliant scientist, and asked if he could figure out a way to test the composition of the crownwithout melting it down (which was the only way to ascertain composition at thetime).

Archimedes spent weeks trying to devise a strategy. Every day, he would sit in his studyand ponder different scientific principles and approaches. And every day he returned home without answers. Finally, there was one day he was just exhausted. After hours of trying without luck, he decided to visit the bathhouse.

It was there, as he sat down in the hot water, that he suddenly had an epiphany. Henoticed that his body entering the water displaced water corresponding to thevolume of his body. If that was true, he thought, then he could test the contents of the crown by placing the amount of gold Hiero had given for the project in water and then seeing if that gold displaced the same amount ofwater as the crown that had been fashioned. His mind was racing. I’ve got it! He jumped out of the bath, shrieking “Eureka, I’ve got it!” He was so excited, he couldn’t wait. He took off running naked through the streets of Syracuseshouting “Eureka! I’ve got it!”

Archimedes was right on the money. He performed his experiment and proved that the crown had indeed been constructed of a blend of metals, and the goldsmith had indeedpocketed some of the gold intended for the crown. And he didn’t just solve the problem, he invented a principle which is still utilized today. Known as the Archimedes Principle, his discovery more than 2,000 years ago still helps us to design ships and submarines, to study fluid mechanics, and with important engineering and physics projects.

Here’s what I find so amazing about Archimedes’ discovery. He went to the bathhouse not because he was intending to continue his research and when he sat down inthat water, it wasn’t that he was trying to evaluate how much fluid would be displaced. However, somehow it happened that when he changed his physical environment, that change affected his internal environment and allowed him to expand his thinking and to solve the problem.

We’ve all lived this. We’ve been in that struggle—trying to write a paper or solve a puzzle or figure out a plan for dinner. We too have found ourselves spinning wheels until we make the choice to do something else or go somewhere else and suddenly a dazzling new idea comes to us.