Best Temple Emanuel in Newton Podcasts (2025)

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Shabbat Sermon: Ripples with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 17:39

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12d ago17:39

17:39

The two lands we love, America and Israel, both have a problem. The problem is real, recurrent, and deadly. The problem showed up in both lands this week. The problem is violence and lack of regard for the sanctity of human life, lack of regard for the Bible’s most important teaching: that all human beings are created in God’s image and therefore d…

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Talmud Class: Does the Serenity Prayer Work If Our Loved Ones Make Self-Destructive Decisions? 32:27

12d ago32:27

32:27

In last week’s class we encountered the Greek myth of Icarus who, ignoring his father’s advice, flew too high and too close to the sun so that his wings made of wax and feathers melted, he fell to the sea, and died. In class one of our learners offered a poignant coda. While the rest of the world did not see and did not care about Icarus dying, his…

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Shabbat Sermon: The Deep Meaning of the Daily Grind with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 17:25

18d ago17:25

17:25

For many of us, this week has been the week of the big pivot. We pivoted from August to September; from summer to fall; from vacation to obligation; from light and breezy summer rhythm to an alarm clock that wakes us up to face the reality of a schedule. Back to school. Back to shul. Back to the High Holidays coming up with their invitation to take…

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Talmud Class: Icarus and Us 38:05

18d ago38:05

38:05

Icarus has so much to say to us now, a few weeks before Rosh Hashanah. According to Greek mythology, Icarus flew too close to the sun with wings made of feather and wax. The sun’s heat melted the wax, and Icarus fell into the sea and drowned. In 1560, the Netherlandish master Peter Bruegel the Elder painted a masterpiece entitled Landscape with the…

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Shabbat Sermon: Love That Sticks with Rabbi Michelle Robinson 12:51

25d ago12:51

12:51

August 30, 2025

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Shabbat Sermon with Guest Speaker Rabbi Jamie Kotler 15:22

1M ago15:22

15:22

Inheritance – A Personal Journey of Discovery and Choice. We have no control over what we are bequeathed. Or do we? Rabbi Jamie Kotler teaches Torah and Jewish texts at synagogue communities in the Boston area and beyond. She has served as chaplain at Fireman House (Hebrew Senior Life), and has served on the Boards of The Rashi School, and Mayyim H…

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Shabbat Sermon with Guest Speaker Rabbi Rachel Silverman 19:19

1M ago19:19

19:19

Rabbi Rachel Silverman (she/her) first joined the Camp Ramah New England staff as a Rosh Edah (unit head) at the overnight camp from 2005-2010. Many years later, she’s thrilled to be back as the Director of Ramah Boston, our newest day camp. Rabbi Silverman previously served as a congregational rabbi in both Brookline and Sharon, MA, after receivin…

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Shabbat Sermon: Five Little Monkeys! with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger 13:15

2M ago13:15

13:15

August 8, 2025 Just about every night, before bed, we read one of Eder’s favorite books, usually a few times in a row. Eder loves many books, but for the past few weeks, his absolute favorite has been Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. He loves it so much that he often doesn’t have the patience to wait for us to read it to him—he will take it …

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Shabbat Sermon: Tag You're It with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 20:21

2M ago20:21

20:21

On January 15, 1997, Princess Diana walked through a minefield in Angola. The background for her walk was the civil war in Angola that raged for 27 years, from 1975 through 2002, which meant that she was walking through a minefield while the war was still going on. When Angola secured its independence from Portugal, a civil war broke out between a …

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Shabbat Sermon: The Curious Case of...Curiosity with Rabbi Sonia Saltzman 19:05

2M ago19:05

19:05

I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying: “curiosity killed the cat.” We say it when curiosity leads us down an unproductive or even dangerous path. However, in a fascinating interview with Professor Tal ben Shahar, an expert in the field of positive psychology, he offers this wonderful line: “curiosity might have killed the cat, but it keeps us al…

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Shabbat Sermon: The Tooth Fairy with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger 12:03

2M ago12:03

12:03

July 19, 2025 The most amazing article appeared in the New York Times this week titled “The Tooth Fairy is Real. She’s a Dentist in Seattle.” No seriously, I am not making this up. Apparently twenty years ago, when Purva Merchant was applying for dental school, her boyfriend set up an email account for her using her nickname “the tooth fairy.” Ever…

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Shabbat Sermon: The Deepest Love with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 15:30

2M ago15:30

15:30

When she was six years old, Erin Paisan fell in love not only with Camp Mystic in the Hill Country of Texas. She specifically fell in love with the Guadalupe River, which was the life force, the energy, the joy, of Camp Mystic. Decades later she still remembers with perfect clarity the very moment when she fell in love with the river. As she told t…

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Shabbat Sermon with Rabbi Michelle Robinson 14:15

3M ago14:15

14:15

July 5, 2025

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Shabbat Sermon: Korach's Challenge with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger 13:43

3M ago13:43

13:43

Some weeks, when we open the Torah, it’s not clear how that particular parsha speaks to our lives. But this week, the Torah feels so real. It feels like the Torah could easily be written for exactly this moment. So today, I want to do something radical: I want to take a deep dive with you into our parsha. I want to learn with you the story of Korac…

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Shabbat Sermon: Both/And: Being a Proud Queer Zionist Jew in a Post-October 7 World with AJ Helman 11:09

3M ago11:09

11:09

AJ Helman (they/them/theirs) is an educator and artist with a focus on Jewish and LGBTQ+ theater and education. After graduating from Emerson College with a BFA in Theater Education and Performance, AJ remained in Boston, working in the local theater and film industries as both an artist and a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion liaison. As part of th…

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Shabbat Sermon: Goats Are Us with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 18:56

3M ago18:56

18:56

How did you sleep on Thursday night? When I first learned that Israel’s war with Iran had begun in earnest, I, like so many of you, did not sleep much at all. Because of the 7-hour time difference between Boston and Israel, in the early hours of Friday morning I was able to reach Micah Goodman, our beloved teacher and friend who lives in Kfar Adumi…

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Talmud Class: Israel's War With Iran 42:30

3M ago42:30

42:30

I called my brother-in-law Ari this morning in Jerusalem. He and his family spent the night in their bunker. Two of their sons have been mobilized yet again. He shared one story that speaks to this moment.This morning (Friday is typically a day off for many Israelis, kind of like our Sunday, though it is spent getting ready for Shabbat) a friend of…

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Shabbat Sermon: Rib Eye with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger 12:46

4M ago12:46

12:46

Last week, I went to the bank. The teller was quite friendly. He looked vaguely Middle Eastern and had an accent I couldn’t quite place. We were chatting about the weather and the start of summer as he looked up my account. And then, he asked as he was typing away, “so, what do you do for work?” I paused, looking at him.Should I tell him what I do?…

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Talmud Class: If an Old Era Were to End, and a Scary New Era Were to Begin, Would We Know It? 42:33

4M ago42:33

42:33

How do we know when an old era ends? How do we know when a new era begins? Is that happening to us now? Do we now live in an era where we might be going about an ordinary day and be attacked because we are Jewish, the attacker shouting “Free Palestine.” It happened in Pennsylvania to the Governor of the State. While Governor Josh Shapiro, his wife …

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Shavuot Sermon: Post-Its and the Power of Memory with Rabbi Michelle Robinson 10:24

4M ago10:24

10:24

June 3, 2025

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Shavuot Keynote Speaker: Beyond all Consolation: A Jewish Philosophy of Redemption and Tragedy with Rabbi Jason Rubenstein 58:42

4M ago58:42

58:42

Beyond all Consolation: A Jewish Philosophy of Redemption and Tragedy Rabbi Jason Rubenstein joined Harvard Hillel as Executive Director on June 1, 2024 after six years as the Howard M. Holtzman Jewish Chaplain at Yale. Jason’s background is as diverse as Harvard’s Jewish community: a childhood at Temple Micah in Washington DC, formative years stud…

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Shabbat Sermon: Jane Austen Did Not Wreck My Life with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 13:59

4M ago13:59

13:59

I am not a huge fan of rom coms. But there was one rom com I just had to see the minute I heard about it. I was drawn to its title. Its title was irresistible. Its title conveyed the central problem in the Book of Numbers. Its title conveyed one of the central challenges in our own lives. The title of this rom com is Jane Austen Wrecked My Life. Ja…

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Talmud Class: Can We Ever Be At Peace With Our Own Mortality? 43:50

4M ago43:50

43:50

The Talmud has a famous story from Menachot 29B that invites us to confront three hard truths that we would rather not think about. Our mortality. The limited reach of our legacy. And the unredeemed nature of our world—we will live, and we will pass, with the world’s big problems unsolved. Why this story now? It is Erev Shavuot, the eve of our rece…

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Shabbat Sermon: My Journey in Israel with Cantor Elias Rosemberg 27:16

4M ago27:16

27:16

Following the March of the Living trip, Cantor Rosemberg remained in Israel to volunteer and perform with 25 Latin American cantors. Listen to learn about Cantor Rosemberg's incredibly meaningful and moving experience!

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Talmud Class: On Standards - Having Them, Enforcing Them, Relaxing Them 42:36

4M ago42:36

42:36

Standards. Is there an elegant theory for when to enforce them and when to choose not to enforce them? Parents face this question all the time. We have standards in our home! But our children do their own thing that flies in the face of our standards. Do we enforce the standard, or let it go? Synagogues face this question all the time. To celebrate…

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Shabbat Sermon: We Are Cosmos 482 with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 14:19

4M ago14:19

14:19

Fifty-three years ago, on March 31, 1972, the Soviet Union launched a spacecraft that was supposed to go to Venus. But it never made it to Venus. Some malfunction in the rocket prevented it from leaving the earth’s orbit. The Soviets named this spacecraft Cosmos 482—which became code in Soviet lexicon for epic failure. For 53 years, the spacecraft …

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Talmud Class: Loving Critics 37:00

4M ago37:00

37:00

Loving critics. The phrase feels like an oxymoron. In fact it is a willed double entendre. Perhaps it means that critics are loving. Their words of critique flow from a place of love. In fact, they feel that suppressing their critique, going along to get along, would undermine that which they love. Perhaps loving critics means that people who are n…

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What Does It Mean To Be Pro-Israel in 2025? Conversation with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz and Adina Vogel-Ayalon, J Street Chief Of Staff 1:20:57

5M ago1:20:57

1:20:57

Adina Vogel Ayalon – an Israeli citizen who has lived and raised a family in Israel and worked for decades toward building peaceful relations between Israelis and Palestinians – and Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz are uniquely positioned to unpack some of the difficult questions facing our communities today, including: How can American Jews most effectively…

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Shabbat Sermon: L’Chayim with Rabbi Michelle Robinson 16:12

5M ago16:12

16:12

May 10, 2025

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Talmud Class: Local Imperfect Peace Part 2: Mipnei Darchei Shalom (Being Nice to Promote Peace) 37:08

5M ago37:08

37:08

Last week we encountered one kind of “imperfect peace,” to use the term coined by our teacher, Sara Labaton of Hartman: shalom bayit, domestic harmony, made possible by a lack of transparency in a marriage. We read the ruling of Ovadia Yosef that a wife not disclose the fact of her abortion before she had met her husband so that their marriage coul…

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Shabbat Sermon: When It Just Is with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 15:32

5M ago15:32

15:32

A woman in Israel approached her rabbi with the following dilemma. When she was a younger woman, she was not religious. She had relations with a man and got pregnant. She had an abortion. She then became religious. She did teshuvah, repentance. She committed herself to learning Torah, doing mitzvot and joining an observant community. She moved to a…

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Talmud Class: Is a Small Peace, a Local Peace, an Imperfect Peace Worth Pursuing? 36:51

5M ago36:51

36:51

Sara Labaton, the Director of Teaching and Learning at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, recently taught a group of local rabbis. She observed that the prophetic ideals of peace (lion lies down the with lamb, nations will beat swords into ploughshares, neither will they know war anymore) are so lofty as to be unattainable. Would we be …

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Talmud Class: Between the Holocaust and Israel 41:35

5M ago41:35

41:35

God is always confusing. We never know what to think. But that is especially true now in this fraught theological season between commemorating the Shoah (April 24), honoring soldiers who fell in Israel’s wars and victims of terrorism on Yom Hazikaron (April 30), and celebrating the birth of the State of Israel on om Ha’atzmaut (May 1). Tomorrow we …

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Shabbat Sermon - April 26, 2025 41:35

5M ago41:35

41:35

Led by Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

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Pesach Sermon: Our Unfinished Love Story—A Yizkor Sermon with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 19:50

5M ago19:50

19:50

What happens when we lose our loved ones before we lose them? This happens to so many of our families. Our loved one experiences a slow decline, cognitively, or physically, that takes place over years that feels like forever. The decline crowds out earlier chapters. Our mother has not been herself for so long I can’t even remember what she used to …

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Shabbat Sermon: Make Your Offering and Then Let It Go with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 41:35

5M ago41:35

41:35

In 1987 Oprah Winfrey read a book that changed her life. What happened to her as a result of reading that book, the unanticipated lesson she learned, remains fresh and urgent for her 38 years later. The book, by author Toni Morrison, was a novel called Beloved in which Morrison attempts to show what it was like to be a slave. What did slavery do to…

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Talmud Class: Why Does Our Tradition Canonize, Twice, King David's Big Fat Lie? 34:17

5M ago34:17

34:17

Powerful leaders who lie are as old as the Bible. Our Haftarah tomorrow, King David’s song of gratitude to God (2 Samuel 22:1-51), contains a big fat lie—a lie so obvious, so brazen, that one wonders how he had the temerity to utter it. King David says of himself: The Lord rewarded me according to my merit, He requited the cleanness of my hands. Fo…

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Pesach Day 2 Sermon: Not Four Questions: Just One with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 19:42

5M ago19:42

19:42

How is this Passover different from all other Passovers? How is the seder we are doing tonight different from all the other seders we have ever done? Let me share a recent conversation I had with a good friend. We have a beloved member of our shul whose mother was born in Londorf, Germany. She was taken with all the other Jews of Londorf to Auschwi…

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Shabbat Sermon: Getting Generations Right with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 18:34

6M ago18:34

18:34

In 1992 Rabbi Joseph Telushkin published a book entitled Jewish Humor: What the Best Jewish Jokes Say About Jews. While he dedicated the book to his three daughters, the first chapter is about how hard it is for generations in a Jewish family to understand one another; how easy it is for frictions and misunderstandings to grow. Chapter one is entit…

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Talmud Class: Can One Person Change the World? 28:04

6M ago28:04

28:04

Can one person change the world? That is the question at the end of the tractate Sanhedrin. The word "Sanhedrin" means the supreme judicial, civic, legal, religious authority in ancient Israel. The Talmudic tractate Sanhedrin is about justice-the human beings, institutions, procedures and protocols, evidentiary rules, safeguards, that enable human …

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Shabbat Sermon: Listen, Listen, Listen with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger 11:52

6M ago11:52

11:52

This week, I was speaking with a member who has been struggling with an intense family situation and was heading into a tense and painful meeting. She was riding in a Lyft. The driver was playing Christian radio quietly in the front. A few minutes before they arrived at their destination, she heard something on the radio that piqued her interest. "…

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Talmud Class: Do Today's Troubling Headlines Belong at Our Seder? 39:46

6M ago39:46

39:46

Shall we invite the troubling headlines—from Israel, Gaza, America, our world—to our seders? Are our seders supposed to be a joyful way to avoid the world (family, friends, songs, children’s skits, plays, games, great food, lots of wine, tasty desserts), or an invitation to engage the world and think out loud together about how we can make it bette…

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Shabbat Sermon: Theology, Community & the Search for the Hiding God with Arnie Eisen, former Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary 31:06

6M ago31:06

31:06

In the Torah God tells us that from time to time God will hide God’s face. This would seem to be such a time. How do we find God in our troubled world together?

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Shabbat Sermon: Counterworld with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz 17:07

6M ago17:07

17:07

A woman named Jessica Sklar, her husband and their two children were happily living their lives in Pacific Palisades when their house burned down. Since losing all their earthly possessions, they have been wandering in the wilderness. In less than two months, this family has moved five times, from A B & B X5. In the home they used to love, they had…

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Talmud Class: Mahmoud Khalil and the Documentary Hypothesis 37:44

6M ago37:44

37:44

How are we to understand the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil and the stated intent of the federal government to deport him? It is good. He is an Israel hater. Finally the federal government is cracking down on Israel hate and Jew hate that have been running rampant on college campuses, leading to the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students and supp…

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Brotherhood Shabbat Sermon with Yad Chessed Founder Bob Housman 16:25

7M ago16:25

16:25

Robert Housman established Yad Chessed so he could help his neighbors struggling in Boston’s Jewish community. In the early years, he ran it by himself, with help from his wife Sue, as he worked full-time as a computer programmer. He directed Yad Chessed until the summer of 2012 when he became a member of its Board of Directors.…

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Talmud Class: Do We Own It, and if So, What Do We Do About It? 41:16

7M ago41:16

41:16

On Yom Kippur, October 9, 1943, in the middle of the Holocaust, Rabbi Walter Wurzburger gave a sermon at Congregation Chai Odom in Brighton, Massachusetts entitled “The Individual in the Crisis.” He argued that Jews in Greater Boston own moral responsibility for the Holocaust. On the basis of the High Priest’s avodah service, Rabbi Wurzburger offer…

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Shabbat Sermon: Sing Your Song with Rav Hazzan Aliza Berger 16:16

7M ago16:16

16:16

In 1992, then 25-year-old Sinéad O'Connor appeared on Saturday Night Live. She was a budding international musical superstar with two chart-topping records to her name. And, unbeknownst to producers, she had decided to use her platform to protest rampant child abuse in the Catholic Church. At the end of her performance, she stared straight into the…

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Talmud Class: Joy and Sorry in Megillat Esther - Is There Room for Both? 48:56

7M ago48:56

48:56

Often music reflects the mood of the time we are in. That is the case with Megillat Esther – but in a surprising way. While we are chanting in a joyous musical mode, reflected in the trope of Purim, we suddenly hear two mournful tunes at several points during the Megillah reading. There are six verses that we sing to this mournful trope, the trope …

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Shabbat Sermon: Meeting our Moment 16:34

7M ago16:34

16:34

Has this ever happened to you? One frigid morning, I grab my warmest jacket. I reach down to zip the zipper and it won’t budge. I pull. I push. I take it apart. I put it back. I pull again. I’m late. I’m from California – I need this coat to zip. Now there are probably more rational things to have done, but I do not do them. I pull with all my stre…

Temple Emanuel In Newton Podcasts