Rabbi Sherman - Honorable Mensch-ion

Graduation season arrives once again. As I watch our youngest move up from pre-school, our middle schoolers head to high school, and our high school seniors head to the college campus, I am always impressed by their connection to our spiritual home, Sinai Temple. Inside the physical walls of Sinai Temple, these graduates have been spiritually nourished, created life long relationships, and built sacred connection. While we play "Pomp and Circumstance" for our graduates today, the Torah tells us of a different ritual for the leaders of the past. We are told to make two trumpets of silver and they should be used to call the congregation to travel.

Sunday evening, we once again reenact the revelation at Mount Sinai. The holiday of Shavuot is called Matan Torateinu. It is often translated as the receiving of Torah, but the accurate translation is the giving of Torah. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes that while Passover is our Exodus and Sukkot is our exile, Shavuot is our homecoming.

We often read about heroes and see their pictures on a screen. To shake their hands, to hear their voices, and to offer gratitude for their heroic actions is unprecedented.

Rav Kook, the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, pointed out a small difference between Psalm 104 and Psalm 92.

We have entered the Hebrew month of the yom’s, “the days.” These are not Biblical or Rabbinic holidays or commemorations. Rather, they are modern moments in our Jewish history. On Wednesday evening, we lit six candles to remember the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. As a child, I have a vivid memory of watching Holocaust survivors, like my Hebrew teacher Mrs. Szafran, walking down the sanctuary aisle to kindle the flames. This week, all six candles at Sinai Temple were lit by children of survivors, for as time passes, it is now our generation that must carry the responsibility to tell their stories.

This past winter, Sinai Temple hosted a basketball team consisting of teenagers from the destroyed kibbutzim on the Gaza border.

This is a most unique Passover, as we have to be prepared a day earlier than the Seder because Shabbat precedes Passover. In a normal year, we would have another 24 hours to prepare for the Seder, up until the moment it begins.

A few years ago, when I began the podcast, “Rabbi On The Sidelines,” I asked Rabbi Wolpe, “Would you find it acceptable if I used my rabbinic voice in the sports world?” To my surprise, he answered, “One day, that voice will be needed.”

Last weekend, I had the good fortune of spending Shabbat with our always sold out Sinai Temple Religious School Shabbaton. Before we took out the Torah, a young student read a prayer she composed.

While we learn about Shabbat in the book of Genesis, when God creates the world in six days and rests on the seventh, we continually learn about Shabbat’s sacredness throughout the entire Torah.