I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying: “curiosity killed the cat.” We say it when curiosity leads us down an unproductive or even dangerous path. However, in a fascinating interview with Professor Tal ben Shahar, an expert in the field of positive psychology, he offers this wonderful line: “curiosity might have killed the cat, but it keeps us alive.” Curiosity, says this prominent researcher, is one of the great secrets of happiness. It ensures that even when we’re alone, we’re not bored. But also, says ben Shahar, being curious about others brings new relationships, can help mend broken ones and deepens connections.

About Rabbi Sonia SaltzmanRabbi Sonia Saltzman is currently serving as Rabbinic Advisor for Graduate Students at Boston University Hillel. She has taught at various synagogue communities, including Temple Emanuel (Newton), Kerem Shalom (Concord) and Newbridge on the Charles (Dedham). Rabbi Saltzman was Senior Rabbi at Temple Ohabei Shalom, Brookline from 2011-2018 and from 2008-2011 she served as the rabbi of Sha’arei Shalom, Ashland.Rabbi Saltzman was ordained in 2008 as part of the first graduating class of the Rabbinical School at Hebrew College. During Rabbinical School, she held student pulpits at Temple Emanuel in Newton and at Temple Aliyah in Needham, completed chaplaincy training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and served as faculty for the Bronfman Youth Fellowship Program in Israel. Prior to entering the rabbinate, Rabbi Saltzman worked in the field of micro-finance at ACCION International as head of the Financial Services Department, extending credit to small businesses in the developing world. She also worked in Bank of Boston’s Project Finance Department and taught in its Loan Officer Development Program. Rabbi Saltzman is a graduate of Tufts University (BA in Political Science) and holds a Masters Degree in International Affairs (Columbia University) and a Masters Degree in Bible and Jewish Thought (Brandeis University).She is married to Dr. Ned Saltzman, a urologist at Newton-Wellesley Hospital and has two grown sons, Benjamin and Gabriel.

July 19, 2025

The most amazing article appeared in the New York Times this week titled “The Tooth Fairy is Real. She’s a Dentist in Seattle.” No seriously, I am not making this up. Apparently twenty years ago, when Purva Merchant was applying for dental school, her boyfriend set up an email account for her using her nickname “the tooth fairy.” Ever since, she has received somewhere between three to five emails per day from desperate parents and adorable, sometimes disbelieving children. And she has personally responded to each and every message.The article is full of amazing email exchanges. There is the letter from the mother who forgot to exchange a tooth two nights in a row, who writes to the tooth fairy to let her know that there has been a misunderstanding and to ask if she could stop by while her son was at school. There is the letter from the child who received $100 for her first tooth, but then a much lower sum for each subsequent tooth and is very upset at the injustice of it—shouldn’t teeth all be worth the same amount of money?! And then, just some adorable little notes:“My tooth got pullen out at the dentist today and I am excited for you to cone to my house and give me a surprise for being a brave girl.I am sleeping in my mums bed tonight and my tooth is silver so you can zee it and it’s under the black pillow and it’s in a dog box wrapped in a tissue”and“I’m so sorry I swallowed my tooth. And I love you. XXX OOO”Reading these letters stole my heart. I love the whimsy of every exchange. The parents who, long before the advent of AI, were emailing random tooth fairy addresses in the hopes that somewhere, somehow, someone would save them and preserve the magic of the tooth fairy for their child. I love the image of parents sitting down to help their children write to “the tooth fairy” only to receive a real response in exchange. Can you imagine the squeals of joy?! The fact that these letters are all written by a pediatric dentist makes it even better.

When she was six years old, Erin Paisan fell in love not only with Camp Mystic in the Hill Country of Texas. She specifically fell in love with the Guadalupe River, which was the life force, the energy, the joy, of Camp Mystic. Decades later she still remembers with perfect clarity the very moment when she fell in love with the river. As she told the story to the New York Times Daily host Michael Barbaro, she and her mother were picking up her brother from a nearby camp. Six-year-old Erin saw the girls of Camp Mystic playing, splashing, smiling, in the Guadalupe River. She turned to her mother and said: “I want to go to that camp.”It was far from inevitable that she would be able to go. Camp Mystic is a century-old camp. Generations of the same family would go, m’dor l’dor, from mother to daughter to granddaughter. Erin’s family was not a generational family. And they were not, in her own words, an elite family. Her parents were divorced. Her father was not in the picture. And yet somehow, she was accepted at Camp Mystic, which she joyfully attended from ages 10 to 16. She loved Camp Mystic so deeply as a child that every year she packed her trunk in December. She loves Camp Mystic so deeply as an adult that she has instructed her family, when she passes, to have her remains spread at the camp.She loved that all the girls got a fresh start. Nobody knew or cared how rich they were, how big their house was, what kind of reputation they had at school. In the regular year, Erin Paisan was the child of divorce without a dad who was seen as a geek, in her words. But not at Camp Mystic.She shared that when her husband can’t sleep, what centers him is thinking about golfing 18 holes at his favorite golf course. When Erin can’t sleep, what centers her is thinking about the river at Camp Mystic.But wait a minute. Didn’t that river at Camp Mystic flood last weekend, claiming a heartbreaking number of innocent lives and leaving a heartbreaking number of devastated families? How could Erin Paisan find calm by thinking about the river at Camp Mystic?But the problem is deeper than that. While the flooding of the river last weekend was by far the worst and most catastrophic, it has not been the only flooding. There was also flooding in 1978, when Erin herself was a camper. She remembers being moved to higher ground and going two days without food because the waters were so turbulent that counselors could not safely bring the hungry campers the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Then there was a flooding of the Guadalupe River again in 1987 which had deadly consequences.With all that loss, with all that tragedy, how could Erin Paisan still love the river? This question gets at a deeper question. What does it mean to love deeply? What does it mean to love deeply a person? A place? Our nation? Our homeland?

July 5, 2025

Some weeks, when we open the Torah, it’s not clear how that particular parsha speaks to our lives. But this week, the Torah feels so real. It feels like the Torah could easily be written for exactly this moment. So today, I want to do something radical: I want to take a deep dive with you into our parsha. I want to learn with you the story of Korach and what our rabbis teach. And I want to be very granular about the lessons we can learn from that story.

AJ Helman (they/them/theirs) is an educator and artist with a focus on Jewish and LGBTQ+ theater and education. After graduating from Emerson College with a BFA in Theater Education and Performance, AJ remained in Boston, working in the local theater and film industries as both an artist and a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion liaison. As part of their activism and educator work, they facilitated workshops on gender diversity in theater and spearheaded better inclusion practices for transgender employees in the film industry thanks to the support of Ryan Reynolds’ and Blake Lively’s Group Effort Initiative. AJ proudly marched with Keshet at San Francisco Pride directly following the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act, effectively making LGBTQ+ marriage in the United States legal. In addition to their activism and artistry, AJ is thrilled to be a part of the Temple Emanuel staff as the Ritual Coordinator.

How did you sleep on Thursday night? When I first learned that Israel’s war with Iran had begun in earnest, I, like so many of you, did not sleep much at all. Because of the 7-hour time difference between Boston and Israel, in the early hours of Friday morning I was able to reach Micah Goodman, our beloved teacher and friend who lives in Kfar Adumim, twenty minutes outside of Jerusalem. What Micah had to say was both inspiring and concerning at the same time.First the inspiring part. Micah shared that Israel’s attack on June 13 exceeded its wildest dreams. As Micah put it, the start of the war was all of Israel’s best military victories—the Six Day War, Entebbe, the destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactor in Osirak in 1981, the exploding pagers that crippled Hezbollah—all at once. Using intelligence, covert operations, Mossad agents on the ground in Iran and drone technology, Israel was able to eliminate Iran’s leading generals and nuclear scientists in their homes, in their beds, in targeted attacks, in which Israel did not also kill their families. Why were Iran’s leading generals and nuclear scientists at home, in the first place? Why weren’t they in a bunker? Micah answers his own question by observing that we cannot prepare for something that has never before happened in history. What Israel accomplished on June 13 had never before been accomplished in the history of war, the kind of chutzpah, planning, skill and savvy that allowed these targeted assassinations. Add to that Israeli fighter jets that evaded Iranian air defenses, allowing Israel to attack more than 100 sites. Micah observed that Israel’s morale is very high.But there is a but. Micah and his wife and their teen-age daughters, like so many Israeli families, spent their night in a bunker. Shul throughout Israel has been cancelled. Micah’s public lectures for next week have been cancelled. All public events have been cancelled. Since the airport is closed, Israelis are worrying about food. Where will their food come from? Israel imports much of its food supply. He went to the grocery store on Friday morning, worried about whether his family will have enough food, and the store was jam-packed with nervous grocery shoppers, and the shelves were largely empty.So there is edge in Israel. Iran remains formidable. The Houthis remain formidable. There still is Hamas. There still is Hezbollah. While the beginning of the war could not have gone any better, where it will go next, nobody knows. There is what Micah calls “radical uncertainty” about what this war will mean for Israel’s future and for the region.What do we do with this complex picture? How do we understand and respond to it? What does it mean to us? What does it ask from us?

I called my brother-in-law Ari this morning in Jerusalem. He and his family spent the night in their bunker. Two of their sons have been mobilized yet again. He shared one story that speaks to this moment.This morning (Friday is typically a day off for many Israelis, kind of like our Sunday, though it is spent getting ready for Shabbat) a friend of theirs has a daughter who was go get married. She had a dress. She had a groom. She had a venue. She had a guest list. She had a caterer. She had a mazel-dick day, 6/13, June 13, which corresponds to the number of mitzvot in our tradition. 613 embodies a fullness of hope and experience.The wedding was cancelled. For now. How do we process Israel’s existential war with Iran? What texts from our canon speak to this moment? What can we do to support Israel now?

Last week, I went to the bank. The teller was quite friendly. He looked vaguely Middle Eastern and had an accent I couldn’t quite place. We were chatting about the weather and the start of summer as he looked up my account. And then, he asked as he was typing away, “so, what do you do for work?” I paused, looking at him.Should I tell him what I do? Is that safe? What if he hates me for being Jewish and sabotages my bank account… And then, I thought to myself, “what, are you crazy, Aliza?! There are how many thousands of Israelis literally fighting on the front lives, fighting for their lives and the safety and security of our beloved Eretz Yisrael and you’re going to shy away from simply disclosing your profession?!” I tried to put on a warm smile. “I’m a rabbi,” I said.

“Hmmm…” he said, as he typed away on his computer. Click, click, click. I heard the keyboard, but nothing else. My mind was racing, worrying, wondering what he thought of me. Suddenly he stopped and looked me in the eye. “Wait, that’s a steak!”

I burst out laughing. I could barely form my next sentence. “No,” I choked out, “that’s a rib eye. I’m a rabbi.” He furrowed his brow and handed me a piece of paper. “Write it down,” he said. I did. He took the paper thoughtfully and began typing away at his computer. “Oh,” he said after a while, “a spiritualleader for the Jewish people…”

What a crazy time. To think that I was nervous about sharing my work with a random teller at the bank. And yet, every week we are inundated with stories about people in similarly benign situations that quickly devolve into tragedy.

The attack on the Jewish community in Boulder this week hit me particularly hard. You must know that Boulder is the epicenter of hippie life in Colorado. It’s a crunchy granola college town at the base of the Rocky Mountains. It’s so progressive that you have to work hard to find dairy ice cream. You can get avocado ice cream, soy cream, hemp cream, rice cream, oat cream, but if you want ice cream with cow’s milk you practically have to go to a specialized store or milk your own cow. I grew up visiting the Pearl Street Mall every week. We would go to religious school and then have dinner on the grass right there, where the attack happened, in front of the courthouse. It always felt like the safest place.

How is it that in 2025, Jews are publicly torched in the middle of a hippie college town in broad daylight? How is that an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor finds the strength to go out with their community in solidarity with the hostages for the first time only to end up in the ER with severe burns over their body? How is it that caring members of our community in their 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s are now coping with life-altering injuries simply for the sin of being identifiably Jewish in public? How is this our new normal?

How do we know when an old era ends? How do we know when a new era begins? Is that happening to us now?

Do we now live in an era where we might be going about an ordinary day and be attacked because

we are Jewish, the attacker shouting “Free Palestine.”

It happened in Pennsylvania to the Governor of the State. While Governor Josh Shapiro, his wife Lori, their four children, two dogs, and another family were inside their home, their home was firebombed on April 13, hours after the family had hosted a Passover seder. The suspect set the fire using Molotov cocktails and did so, in his own words, because Governor Shapiro needed to “stop having my friends killed,” and that he, the suspect, “will not take part in his (Governor Shapiro’s) plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.”

It happened in Washington D.C. to a young couple about to be engaged. Yaron Lischinsky, age 30, had planned to propose to Sarah Milgrim, age 26, in Jerusalem, but they were gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum on May 21. The suspect shouted: “Free, free Palestine” upon his arrest.

It happened in Boulder Colorado. On June 1, a man shouting “Free Palestine” threw Molotov cocktails at a group of Jews who were rallying for Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Among the 15 people injured was an 88-year old Holocaust survivor. The suspect stated that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people.”

How do we process this? What does it mean to us and to the American Jewish community? Since October 7, every Hartman podcast of Israel at War has been about Israel at war. But the most recent podcast, for the first time, is not about Israel. It is about the Jewish people. It is entitled the War Against the Jews. Donniel and Yossi do a De Tocqueville for the American Jewish community. Their point: American Jewry is entering a new era, what they call the “normalization” of Jew hatred, and the “Europeanization" of American Jewry. It is not about the absolute number of haters. It is about the fear that, at any moment, a deranged hater might shout “Free Palestine” while attacking us. That fear fuels terrorism. Which means that terrorism has come home to us, where we live and breathe. If it has happened in Pennsylvania to the Governor, in Washington, and in hip, cool Boulder to Jews asking that hostages get released, why not us?

Is this a scary new era? If so, how do we respond? Can we imagine a different and better future, and if so, what do we do to bring about that better future?