Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz

Sermon Ki Tissa 2019 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz The Torah of Trauma  One of the most stunning lines from Psalms comes from Psalm 148: ‘ HaRofeh lishvurey lev umechabesh le’atzvotam ’ – ‘God is the Healer of the brokenness of heart and the binder of their wounds.’  Brokenness is a universal human experience: everyone has encountered brokenness in their lives, their world or in themselves. Of course, while brokenness is the great leveler, our experience of brokenness is not a level playing field. Some of us are subjected to greater trauma than others; some of us may have more access or resources to heal from or repair the brokenness we face. Nonetheless, I’d wager to say that as I give this sermon, there will a number of you who are encouraged to reflect on what is broken in your lives. It seems as inevitable as death.  To the mystical Kabbalists of the late Medieval period, brokenness was not just as inevitable as death but also inevitable to life. Accordin...

Parashat Mishpatim Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz Seeking Out The Grays One of the things that my husband and I love about America is passion and vision of the American people. As we like to joke among ourselves, Americans don’t do anything in half-measures. Coming from a culture of placid consensus-building for which we efven have an administrative term – ‘the polder model’ (named after Dutch reclaimed land, polders) – it is clear to us that Americans have fire in their bones and it makes this new country vibrant, innovative and inspiring. As our current timeframe has become more polarized, American passions, for better or worse, have become more inflamed. We can notice this not only in the febrile news cycle but also in our daily interactions. Some of this is a blessing: people are more civically engaged, voter turnout is higher and it forces all of us to confront complex issues. At the same time, there’s no denying that these are draining and fraught times and Internet con...

Friday Night Sermon Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz A Torah of Life: Post-Pittsburgh Thoughts Brothers and sisters, acheinu v’achyoteinu , In our weekly reading of the Torah, we are approaching the center point, the fulcrum, of the book of Genesis. Parashat Chayyei Sarah focuses on chapters 23 to 25 and deals with the aftermath of Sarah’s death. The Midrash suggests that Sarah died a traumatic death after hearing about her son Isaac’s near-sacrifice on Mount Moriah. As we can see, this is part of Genesis that addresses some of the experiences, concerns and questions that we are sitting with as a community tonight: death, mourning, trauma, fear, healing, celebrating life, honoring, rebuilding. Love, hope, legacy, vision, future. In fact, the portion is capped by the two deaths of our giants: Sarah at the start of the reading and Abraham at the end. In between, we witness a match being made between Rebecca and Isaac and reconciliation being found at the fo...

Parashat Vayera 2018 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz The Characteristic of Sodom The following story is entirely based on the sacred texts of our tradition: Torah and Midrash. *** A pale sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows on the proud edifices and statues framing the Central Square, etching forbidding lines into the pale, sleek marble, muting its gold detail. It was Spring [1] , but with the waning of the day, a biting chill returned. Lot wrapped his grey coat tighter around him, plunging his left hand deeper into his coat pocket, while the fingers of his right hand nervously tracked his phone screen. He read the headlines and glanced around him. Tall, imposing screens mounted on the faces of the buildings blared out the news.  There was no shortage of opinions in this town, he grimly thought, each and every single one of them more horrific than the last. The media; broadcast, print, internet – it didn’t matter – glorified lies and cruelties. All propagand...

Parashat Lech Lecha 2018 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz The God Who Sees For those of you who heard my High Holiday sermons, you may remember I might have speant a lot of time already on Parashat Lech Lecha. It was the opening words of Chapter 12 that carried us through a vision of t’shuvah and transformation for the season and that have shaped our consciousness of who Abraham and Sarah were. We hold them up to be spiritual giants, innovators, the openers of doors and the makers of souls. In the Midrashic imagination, Abraham is Judaism’s first and best missionary as he welcomes people into the Covenant with food, conversation and hospitality. In the modern imagination, he is the first activist who, unlike the passivity of Noach, doesn’t only obey God but challenges God. He is the great humanitarian who stays God’s hand for the sake of ten righteous individuals before the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are overturned. This is the Abrahamic paradigm we love an...

Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz Sermon B’reishit 2018 What a Difference A Letter Makes We live in a world of information overload. In fact, we are so super saturated by choice and by information, that it can actually paralyze us and shut us down. This phenomenon is called ‘decision fatigue’. What online newspaper to read? What cereal to choose in the supermarket aisle? What clothes to wear? What social media accounts to follow? In our hyper-complex world, we are spoilt for choice… and the choice can spoil us. If anything, my theory is that Adam and Eve suffered from decision fatigue and I examined this in a sermon a number of years ago: the First Couple were completely confused by all the options in the Garden of Eden. After all God told them ‘ hineh, natati lachem et kol esev zorea zera asher al p’nei chol ha’eretz ’ – ‘behold, I give you all seed-bearing plants upon all the earth to eat.’ The word ‘kol’ (or ‘chol’) is repeated twice. In other words...

Sermon Parashat Shoftim Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz Some are Guilty, All are Responsible How many of you is a fan of the ‘whodunit’ crime-solving genre? Just think about your favorite novel series or TV show. We’re going to look at this very odd passage from the Torah - because the strange passages can teach us so much. Toward the end of parashat Shoftim, we find a very curious set of verses in Deut. 21:1-9 dealing with the eglat arufah , the ‘broken-necked cow’. Like in every good murder mystery, the mystery of the eglat arufah relies on three key elements: means, motive and opportunity. In this case, the Torah provides us with an unsolvable crime. What’s going on here? At this point in the Torah’s narrative, the land is settled by Israelite towns and villages and we have an operational judiciary system (which is the theme of the entire parashah!) Between those settlements of this nascent nation, an anonymous dead body is found. We don’t know who ki...

Sermon Parashat Devarim/Shabbat Chazon Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz                                                      My Heart is in the East None of this is supposed to be easy.  It’s certainly not a comforting message but it’s a necessary reminder of the brokenness of our world. Among the peaks and troughs of the Jewish calendar, we now find ourselves in the shadowy valley of the Tisha b’Av, the Ninth of Av. Known as the ‘Black Fast’, this day of mourning is considered our darkest liturgical day where we remember the destructions of the First and Second Temples as well as a host of other calamities that have befallen our People. On Tisha b’Av, which starts tonight after sundown, we sit on low chairs, observe a 2...