When You Come (to dinner) — A poem for Parsha Ki Tavo

Ki Tavo — when you come (Deuteronomy 26:1–29:8)

We went to dinner the other night
and when we asked if we could bring anything
they said no, but if you want, you could

bring dessert or fruit. Being good
citizens of the dinner guest economy
naturally, we brought both.

When we arrived, they already had
a bowl of fruit and dessert. We’re
still not sure if we passed this test.

They had a bowl of mixed fruit and
we brought watermelon on its own
because (make a note historians of poets)

watermelon is my favorite food and
I like it pure like the first fruit of the soil
brought to a holy place because

we like to do what we’re told so
no one needs to consult the very
long list of consequences if we don’t.

This is also why we declined the
offer to pour our watermelon on top
of the bowl of other fruits.

We did not write the recipe for watermelon
but we surely don’t want to alter it.
(Except for occasionally adding

salty cheese, like they do in the holy land
because the salt and the sweet, when
commingled, bring us closer to the divine.

[also sometimes mint]) When I come to a place,
I want to bear gifts. I want them to know
my heart knows they deserve my fruits.

I want their eyes to see I see them with my eyes.
I want my ears to hear all the beautiful things
they have to say.

Rick Lupert, a poet, songleader and graphic designer, is the author of 30 books including “Begin the Beget” and “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion.” Visit him at www.JewishPoetry.net

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A Moment in Time: Showing Up

'A Moment In Time', Blogs / Rabbi Zach Shapiro

Dear all,

I recently got a summons for jury duty. The original date conflicted with something on my calendar, so I postponed it until last week—when I thought my schedule would be more open.

The truth is, my schedule is hardly ever open.

Those words we read during the Holy Days—“Who shall live and who shall die?”—remind me that a rabbi never really knows when we’ll be called upon to be present for someone in our flock’s most important moments.

And yet, there I was, at the courthouse, doing my civic duty, for an important moment in time for complete strangers.

I ultimately wasn’t seated this time (I’ve served on a jury before), but I was struck by the whole process.

No one wants jury duty. But as I sat there, I found myself feeling grateful. My ancestors came to this country from places where justice could not be counted on. And here I was, sitting in a courtroom where ordinary people would be asked to listen, consider the facts, and help determine what happened.

That’s a pretty remarkable thing.

This wasn’t a case of “Who shall live and who shall die?” But the decisions being made would still change people’s lives.

It made me think about how often we make judgments about other people—with nowhere near the time, information, or responsibility of a jury.

As we approach the Holy Days, maybe that’s something worth remembering: to judge carefully, to listen closely, and to remember just how much our showing up matters.

With love and Shalom,

Rabbi Zachary R. Shapiro

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Erroneous: That Israel has Renewed an Eye for an Eye

Poetry / Gershon Hepner

Deeds that you perform have life
like living beings. Every action
is virtually the deed’s midwife
whose job is to prevent retraction
of something that may either lead
to benefit or punishment,
the punishment part of the deed,
like an investment, spent
long after it has been performed.

We reap from deeds what we have sown
not as a measure made for measure,
but because the deed has grown,
and finally provides displeasure
if the deed was wrong, and when
correct and virtuous can provide
a benefit like interest men
deserve––and God does not deride.

Relationships are forms of deeds––
we reap what’s sown in them, the joy
or pain that they provide not seeds
but capital that we enjoy.
For what is wrong in them we must
not judge, but must remember they
are built with tendencies to bust,

When deeds or words of friends or allies
of Israel and the US cause displeasure,
we should not magnify their malice
with “eye for eye,” measure for measure,
but try humanely to avoid
this tactic since it often lacks
the balance that should be employed,
responding to all foes’ attacks.

Because of this Israel has been advised
by many friends and allies to restrain
responses to their foes, and are despised
for causing what can’t be prevented, pain,
to those who don’t deserve to suffer,
a problem that’s insoluble,
responses, seeming than their causes rougher,
opposed by cries that are more voluble,
in the media that are called
social, but are not towards the Jews,
not even seriously appalled
by genocidal anti-Jewish views.

Now opposition to the rule of “ayin
tahat ayin” mamash,
eye for eye, strongly succors
all Israel’s foes who are relyin’
on revenge refusing hate to banish,’
causing them to become martyr suckers.

Literal execution of the eye for eye rule by most rabbis long has been rejected,
but sadly since October 7 it has radically been renewed and resurrected.

Baba Qama 84a states:

תַּנְיָא, רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר אוֹמֵר: ״עַיִן תַּחַת עַיִן״ – מַמָּשׁ.?! It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Eliezer says: The verse that states: “An eye for an eye” (Exodus 21:24), is referring to an actual, mamash, eye.

Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.

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A Bisl Torah — Season of Renewal

A Bisl Torah / Rabbi Nicole Guzik

Rabbis are nervous during this season. We call it the season of renewal.

Membership renewal—ensuring congregants return as members, enabling synagogues to provide strong Jewish and Israel education, to create pathways for growth in Jewish identity, and to be a beacon of light for those in need. It’s a daunting and inspiring task—each year, reflecting on why the synagogue matters—to the member, to the community, to the Jewish people.

It’s also the season of renewal: Renewing our personal purpose, looking at the ways we present ourselves, and determining whether this is the path we’re meant to walk upon. Do we like who we are? How we treat others and how we treat ourselves? What is it that we want to renew within ourselves, strengthen, embolden, and what characteristics and traits should ultimately be discarded?

I watched another adult admonish a child with the words, “This isn’t you.” But each year, we ask a version of that statement—who am I now and is this the version of myself I want to be?

Don’t forget the story of Zusya. Upon his deathbed, Rabbi Zusya lamented, “When I soon meet with God, God won’t ask me, ‘Why were you not more like Moses?’ God will ask me, ‘Why were you not more like Zusya?’”

In other words, figure out how to be more like you. The best versions of you. The you that is needed right now.

It’s the season of renewal. Renew your membership. It’s time!

And renew your soul. It’s time for that, too.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Nicole Guzik is senior rabbi at Sinai Temple. She can be reached at her Facebook page at Rabbi Nicole Guzik or on Instagram @rabbiguzik. For more writings, visit Rabbi Guzik’s blog section from Sinai Temple’s website.

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Mark Ruffalo, Meet Dolly Parton

Editor's Note, Featured / David Suissa

It’s virtually impossible to find anything negative about Dolly Parton, the superstar entertainer who passed away this week.

That kind of clean record is hard enough for anyone, let alone a highly successful American icon who has been in the public eye for more than half a century.

As Tyler Parker wrote on The Ringer:

“Her talent is staggering. Her résumé’s nuts. Impossible to do it justice. Eleven Grammys, six Golden Globe nominations, three Emmys. Twenty-five no. 1s on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, the most ever by a woman. She had 49 top 10 country albums. No other woman has done that. She’s sold more than a hundred million records. Her trophy case includes a National Medal of Arts, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and a Kennedy Center Honor. She even had her own top 10 list.”

And yet, not one blemish to her reputation.

How did she do it?

I saw two clips on Youtube that suggest an answer.

One was her appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, when her charms were on full display. Instead of plugging a new movie or album, she picks up a guitar and performs a humorous song of gratitude for Carson (“I never really made it till the Johnny Carson show”). If you have to pick one clip to show why Parton was so beloved, for my money that would be it.

The second clip is an interview on ABC, when an interviewer tried to goad her into criticizing Donald Trump.

“I have a lot of fans out there, and I don’t want to offend anybody,” Parton said.

When the interviewer drew a parallel between Trump and the sexually abusive boss in Parton’s 1980 film “9 to 5,” she refused to bite.

“I’m not addressing that,” she said. “I learned a long time ago, keep your damn mouth shut if you want to stay in show business. … I’m not in politics, I’m an entertainer.”

The interviewer pointed out that Parton was also a role model. “Yes I am,” she replied. “That’s why I don’t talk about people.”

At that point, I thought, she could well have been a rabbi delivering a Rosh Hashanah sermon on the ills of gossip.

But Parton was no spiritual leader. She was a talented entertainer who married sweetness, generosity and common sense in huge doses.

Actor Mark Ruffalo is also a talented entertainer, but one afflicted with Israel Derangement Syndrome.

He’s taken a lot of heat lately because he couldn’t resist connecting his critique of a media merger with his animosity toward Israel. It didn’t matter that it was a blatant stretch that echoed antisemitic tropes. He couldn’t help himself.

So now, instead of people talking about his acting chops, they’re talking about his obsession with the world’s only Jewish state.

Ruffalo used his freedom of speech to say whatever he wanted; and his critics are using their freedom of speech to rake him over the coals.

Parton took a broad view of free speech.

“Like God gave us free will,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY, “America gave us free speech, but you’ve got to be responsible for anything you say and do.”

Ah yes, responsibility.

Self-righteous stars like Ruffalo convince themselves it’s their “responsibility” to take a side on a complicated conflict halfway around the world; while humble stars like Parton prefer to focus on their responsibility to share what they’re good at.

That humility and decency have no doubt contributed to the tributes to Parton coming from all over the country– regardless of class, race, gender, politics or any of the tribal affiliations that divide us.

Perhaps this is a tribute to America itself.

It suggests that, unlike the ugly divisions we see on social media that drown us in cynicism, there is an America outside our digital universe that values the innocence of a Dolly Parton who can bring our nation together.

“The goodness of America is plentiful and has not stopped revealing itself,” Abe Greenwald of Commentary wrote this week. “We see it in the very outpouring of love for Dolly Parton and what she means. That we seem to mourn her America en masse is itself an encouraging sign of that America’s continued survival.”

What a welcomed legacy: Instead of the arrogance of cynicism, Parton embodied the innocence of humility.

We could all use some of that humility.

We could all try to channel our inner Dolly Parton– yes, even Mark Ruffalo.

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