What do Batman and Superman have to do with Jewish identity?

Other than the fact that their creators were Jews: Batman by Bob Kane, and Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster?

It is more than that. It is about having multiple identities.

About a decade ago, I interviewed for a rabbinical position. A past president of the synagogue asked: "Rabbi, are you a Jew first, or an American?”

This was my answer.

"With all due respect: If that question could wear clothing, it would be a Nehru jacket. It seems so out of fashion right now. I live my life fully, both as an American and as a Jew. And I suspect that most American Jews would say the same thing. They feel no tension between their American identities, and their Jewish identities."

The (admittedly edgy) answer must have satisfied him. He nodded; I got the job; we became good friends.

But, what was this gentleman really asking me? 

He was resurrecting a classic Jewish accusation -- that Jews have dual loyalty -- to their Jewish identity, and to the places that they live. It is a suspicion as old as Pharaoh in the book of Exodus.

And, what was I doing? I was playfully suggesting that you can have both identities -- often, simultaneously.

It is not only possible to have dual loyalties. It is necessary. That is the subject of our podcast interview with Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz. He is the senior rabbi of Valley Beth Shalom, in Encino, California – one of the most prominent synagogues in America. His new book: "The Case for Dual Loyalty: Healing the Divided Soul of American Jews."

"If God lived in our neighborhood, we'd throw stones through His [sic] windows."

I do not know who originally said that, though I think that the original was in Yiddish.

But, it's true.

And, if you were to ask me whether Jewish worship has a "design flaw," I would say that this is it: almost nowhere in our services do we get to yell at God, and to protest God's actions and in-actions.

We want our worship experiences to be uplifting and inspirational. But, we are missing out on the emotional richness and depth of the religious experience. Yes – joy, gratitude, uplift. But, anger and questioning are part of any healthy relationship. Where is that in our prayer experience?

This is a crying shame -- and I emphasize "crying."

Because crying out at God, and yelling at God, and protesting God is a distinctive part of Judaism and Jewish texts. It goes back to Abraham, who protested God's planned destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; Moses, who protested God's threatened destruction of the Israelites at the incident of the Golden Calf; Job, who demanded justice from God; the author of the Psalms, who has a lot to say about God's actions and silence -- all the way to Tevye ("I know we are your chosen people. But, once in a while, can't You choose someone else?") to Elie Wiesel....

In fact, that is the original meaning of the term "chutzpah." It means audacity -- against, and with, God.

This is the essential, sacred lesson of a new, spectacular book by Menachem Rosensaft -- "Burning Psalms: Confronting Adonai after Auschwitz.” Menachem is an attorney in New York; the founding chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, and most notably, had been active in the early stages of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Remember the 10th commandment?

"Thou shalt not covet"?

This past week, many preachers violated that commandment.

They were coveting the sermon Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde delivered at the National Cathedral during a service the day after President Donald Trump's inauguration, in which she pleaded with Trump to show mercy to the most vulnerable among us.

(Speaking Jewish right now: If I had been blessed with the opportunity to address the president, I would not have used the word "mercy." I would have asked him to show compassion and to do justice. But that's me).

Many of my colleagues and friends have been debating: Was the bishop appropriate? Was her sermon in good taste? Did she publicly shame and humiliate the president?

I have been struggling with all that as well, and now I think she was totally spot on. And not only because I agreed with her.

Sure, she made President Trump a little uncomfortable. 

Deal with it, Mr. President. That's often what sermons are about. As my colleague and friend Rabbi Rick Jacobs notes: "The job of a religious leader is not to tell those in the pews — whether the usual parishioners or their country’s leaders — what they want to hear. Rather, the job requires clergy to speak the truth of their tradition as they understand it."

Or, put differently, sometimes it is the goal of a sermon to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. To "shake and stir" them.

You want to feel all good and comfortable? Go to a spa.

It happened exactly four years ago.

I am speaking of January 6, 2021 -- the attack on the US Capitol Building by supporters of Donald Trump – claiming that President Biden had stolen the election. It was, to quote Bill Kristol, our national day of shame. It was, to borrow FDR’s iconic phrase, a day that will live in infamy.

There were many things that we cannot unsee, and that we cannot unhear.

Among the rioters that stormed the Senate chamber was a man who provided us with one of the most memorable and disturbing images of that dark day in American history. A bare-chested, self-styled “shaman” named Jacob Chansley, was wearing a horned helmet. At a certain moment, he removed that helmet, and he led the group in prayer:

"Thank you heavenly father for gracing us with this opportunity… to allow us to exercise our rights, to allow us to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists, and the globalists, that this is our nation, not theirs. We will not allow America, the American way of the United States of America to go down… In Christ's holy name, we pray."

That was a demonstration of Christian nationalism -- the subject of our podcast with Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) -- a powerful national voice on issues of democracy, antisemitism, extremism, and hate. 

In our conversation, you will learn that Christian nationalism poses three threats -- to America, to Jews and other religious minorities, and even to Christianity itself. (Many Christians themselves recognize this; check out this interview with Amanda Tyler, author of "How To End Christian Nationalism.")

Last week, we observed the first yahrzeit (anniversary of a death) of Dr. David Ellenson -- past president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, past provost of that institution, a professor at that institution for a generation – a teacher, a theologian, a historian of Jewish ideas, a world class thinker. Someone said that “David was always the smartest person in the room, and he never let you remember that.”

If you could look up the word mensch in a dictionary, you would see David's photograph. You could meet him and never know he possessed one of the greatest Jewish minds of this generation. Simple, unpretentious, a man who made everyone feel that he was a member of their family. A man who passionately loved his own family, especially his wife, Rabbi Jacqueline Koch Ellenson, and their children, several of whom have followed David and Jackie into the rabbinate. David and I were friendly for more than fifty years; our kids are friends; our grandchildren are friends. Three generations of friendship in one family. It does not get any better than that.

Please check out the podcast that we recorded in his memory. It features:

We took a deep dive into David's life -- beginning with his formative years in the Orthodox community in Newport News, Virginia. We discussed how David's Southern Orthodox Jewish boyhood shaped him -- making him sensitive to what it means to be a cultural stranger, and imbuing within him an infectious love for clal Yisrael -- the entirety of the Jewish people.

If you encounter someone who wants to talk about God, odds are that person isn't Jewish. Why?

I am talking to a friend of mine about his experience on various dating sites. He tells me that from time to time, he will come across a profile that seems promising. And then, right there in the first paragraph, the woman will write: “Must love God.”

As he scrolls down a little further, he sees that she is a Christian – and that she inevitably describes her politics as “conservative.”

“I don’t get it,” he says to me. “Why is it that anyone who writes ‘must love God’ is always Christian? I’m Jewish. I love God. Do these people think that only Christians love God? And since when does ‘must love God’ mean ‘must be a Christian – and of a particular kind and political persuasion?’”

That was the question that led me into a conversation with Professor Arnold Eisen, one of American Judaism’s most esteemed thinkers and personalities.

From 2006 to 2020, he served as the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America – the flagship academic institution of Conservative Judaism – where he was only the second non-rabbi to serve in that post. He is an author of many books, and a cherished teacher and public intellectual.

Rabbi Jeff Salkin sits down with Rabbi Jonah Pesner, one of American Judaism's most prominent voices and the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Together, they dive into the deeply rooted relationship between Judaism, politics, and social justice, exploring why so many Jews align with liberal causes while maintaining a vibrant spectrum of political thought within the community.

From the historical and spiritual foundations of Jewish values to modern-day challenges in maintaining empathy amidst polarization, Rabbi Pesner offers insights that are both grounded in tradition and urgently relevant. The conversation spans critical topics, including:

As always, Rabbi Salkin keeps the conversation shaken and stirred with humor, insight, and a dash of martini wisdom. Whether you lean left, right, or somewhere in the middle, this episode will challenge you to think critically about what it means to live into the Jewish covenant in today’s world.

If you’re inspired by this episode, let’s continue the conversation:

On Tuesday, July 16, I and a group of rabbis traveled south from Jerusalem — to the Gaza envelope.

There, we visited the places that Hamas had ravaged on Oct. 7, 2023.

We visited the site of the Nova music festival, where we said kaddish for the young victims.

We visited Kibbutz Nir Oz. We walked through the rubble of the burnt houses, the burnt kitchen, the places where people died, and the places where people were taken hostage. One-quarter of the residents of Nir Oz were killed or taken hostage.

I have experienced many moments of pain in my Jewish life, even as I have experienced many moments of joy and exaltation.

But never in my life have I encountered the memories of such sheer evil as I did at Nir Oz.

I had not known at that time that I was walking in the footsteps, walking the same ground, as Alex Dancyg, of blessed memory — a proud son of Warsaw.

And so it was in Warsaw on Yom Kippur that I dedicated the memorial service to his memory.

Adapted from my Yizkor sermon, given on Yom Kippur, Beit Warshawa, Warsaw, Poland.

Two of my favorite people — Abigail Pogrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer — who have just written a new book, "It Takes Two To Torah: An Orthodox Rabbi and Reform Journalist Discuss and Debate Their Way Through the Five Books of Moses," with a foreword by Mayim Bialik. This is a book about each Torah portion, as read through their lenses, and is a series of conversations and intellectual wrestling matches.

First, this modern Orthodox rabbi was one of the first rabbis to really touch my life and to engage me in what my Protestant colleagues would call “formation.”

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg was a congregational rabbi in Riverdale, NY; the founder of the Jewish studies program at City College of New York; the creator of CLAL, the Center for Learning and Leadership – which is a think tank for Jewish pluralism and intra-Jewish conversation.

I first met Rabbi Greenberg and his wife, Blu, the major Jewish feminist leader, when he engaged me to work with a bunch of modern Orthodox teenagers on a CLAL retreat.

That encounter with Rabbi Greenberg, whom I would come to know as Yitz or Rabbi Yitz, changed my perception of Orthodox Jews and Orthodox Judaism. It made me more open to seeing the Jews as a unified people, and not just a discrete collection of ideologies.

Yes: this Orthodox rabbi helped shape the world view of this Reform rabbi. His vision of an observant Judaism that was open to the world and freely encountered the world moved me – so much so, that decades later, I would become a regular participant in the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, founded by Rabbi Greenberg’s colleague, the late Rabbi David Hartman – also an Orthodox rabbi, and like Yitz, also a rebel.

The second way in which Rav Yitz is my oldest friend in the rabbinate: he is 91 years old, and he has just published his magnum opus, his master work, the culmination of everything that he has taught for so long -- "The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism."

This is the book that Yitz's students -- and frankly, the Jewish world -- has been waiting for for more than a half century.