Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz

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 Shemini Atzeret Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz What is the Purpose Of Religion? This is probably a truism in the United States as well, but as a child in Europe I learned that there were three things that were considered impolite to discuss in polite society: politics, religion and matters pertaining to physical intimacy. Of course, when I studied cultural anthropology, these were exactly the questions I engaged with. Taboo is just another excuse for an anthropologist to get up, close and personal with the most hidden aspects of human nature.  This unrelenting and uninhibited curiosity serves one well when studying Jewish sacred literature. As Pirke Avot states: one who is shy, the ‘ bayshan’ , cannot learn. The sacred Jewish literary tradition oscillates between the sublime and the crude. There are plenty of difficult texts, satiated with misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism as well as dismally inaccurate science. The ability to have a multilayered, intertextual...

Sermon Shabbat Chol  haMoed  Sukkot 2018 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz There are many legends and responses to the phenomenon of the lulav. Karaites (Jews who only follow  Mikra , Scripture, and not the Oral Law, or Talmud) will dwell in booths during Sukkot but not bless the lulav, which they see as a rabbinic innovation. Likewise, Samaritans who were separated from the ancient Israelites after exile and war and only have the Torah, do not use a lulav either and dwell under canopies of fruit suspended in their homes. There are even some Reform and Reconstructionist Jews who have reinvented the lulav. Critiquing the economic and environmental costs of  lulavim  and etrogim, they have chosen to source local plants and fruits in a direct fulfillment of the Biblical commandment,  yet  in contravention of the classical  Halakhah . All these are creative responses to an inherent tension: what are we to make of this rather strange and arcane r...

This High Holiday cycle, I chose the theme ' V'heyeh B'rachah - Be a Blessing ' based on the blessing God gave Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. The theme ' V'heyeh B'rachah - Be a Blessing ' was incorporated musically throughout the High Holidays by Linda Wertz and myself. Linda Wertz and I 'retro-engineered' the melody of 'El Na Refa Na La' composed by Daphna Rosenberg and Nave Agmon from Israeli worship band ' Nava Tehila' , and fit (some) of the words of Gen. 12 to the tune. You can listen/watch the video of us playing/singing the song here . My sermon series focused on the first three versus of Genesis chapter 12 where Abraham (then still Abram) is charged with his mission: וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-אַבְרָם, לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ. וְאֶעֶשְׂךָ, לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל, וַאֲבָרֶכְךָ, וַאֲגַדְּלָה שְׁמֶךָ; וֶהְיֵה, בְּרָכָה. וַאֲבָרְכָה, מְבָרְכֶיךָ, וּמְקַלֶּלְךָ...

Sermonette Ne’ilah Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz ‘Veheyeh B’rachah’ – Be A Blessing.  A blessing is a curious thing. To be a blessing even more so. A blessing is not a gratuitous gift. A blessing is not an indulgence, a luxury of the soul. A blessing, rather, is that great synthesis between joy and covenant. We cannot be a blessing: to ourselves, to our households, our communities, the Land of Israel and to the world entire, if we do not find our sense of  purpose .  No other argument in Judaism – of fear and loyalty, of continuity and cohesion – will be compelling in today’s world, where choice is a fractal upon fractal of more choice, where we have a thousand doors to open and a thousand reasons to walk away.  This is why ‘ veheyeh b’rachah ’ and ‘ lech lecha’ are intimately connected.  The fulcrum is the land we are to be shown and the blessing to the families of the Earth that we are called to be. How we can ask the question of how we can give...

Yom Kippur Morning Sermon Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz To A Land That I Will Show You Imagine a cat in a box. How do we know whether the cat is alive or dead? This paradox is part of a thought experiment that physicists dub ‘ Schroedinger’s Cat ’ and it is used to explain the basic principle of quantum mechanics, the idea that a something can be both a particle or a wave and that, bizarrely, our perception can affect reality.  Perhaps our Jewish future is like  Schroedinger’s Cat : whether we live or die, thrive or decline, is a matter of perception. Abraham had to journey into the great Unknown: ‘ el ha’aretz asher ar’echa ’ – ‘to a land that I will show you’.  He was called to draw on all his inner resources and vision in order to heed that vision.  The commentators analyzing that crucial verse – ‘ to a land that I will show you ’ wrestle with that quantum state also. What are the implications of being sent on one’s  shlichut but without...