Rabbi Sherman - Honorable Mensch-ion

I am not a Lego builder. My children, on the other hand, are experts. I watch as they go page by page building intricate designs. What started as simple houses has now turned into complex Marvel scenes and replicas of famous landmarks. It is nerve wracking knowing that one misstep can derail the entire project.

Today is Rosh Chodesh Adar. As we enter this month, the Rabbis teach us that our joy should increase. Yet, how can it be? Many feel awkward rejoicing when our people are still grieving, when our future is in flux. This year is a leap year in the Jewish calendar where an additional month is added before we celebrate the holiday of Purim, putting on our costumes, shaking the gragger to drown out Haman’s name, and ultimately dancing again.

While we learn that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh in the first book of Torah, it is only this week where remembering Shabbat becomes a commandment for all time. The mitzvah is twofold: We fulfill the mitzvot relating to Shabbat and we refrain from work.

Tomorrow marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day. January 27th was chosen as that is the day the Red Army liberated Auschwitz. Yet, one day cannot define the Holocaust.

A few weeks ago, we had a blackout. Our entire street was dark. Yet, looking just across the block, the street lights and houses were lit.

The Passover seder is famous for the number four.

When were the Jewish people called am, a nation for the first time? This did not happen by our ancestors, the Israelites, or the Jewish people. Rather, it was Pharaoh who called us a nation for the first time when he recognized that the people before him were too strong for him to bear.

At the end of Jacob’s life, he calls his family together and says, “I will tell you what will happen at the End of Days.” Yet, the Midrash tells us the time of redemption was in fact hidden from Jacob. God goes to Jacob and asks, “You gathered your sons and not Me?”

An ostensible advantage of leading one of the largest synagogues in Los Angeles, Sinai Temple, is that the outside world tends to monitor what is and is not said during a perceived crisis.

In any other year, we would put our Chanukiya away today and tonight we would kindle the Shabbat candles. We know this is not any other year.