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PODCAST

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

Temple Emanuel of Newton

Bringing weekly Jewish insights into your life. Join Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz, Rabbi Michelle Robinson and Rav-Hazzan Aliza Berger of Temple Emanuel in Newton, MA as they share modern ancient wisdom.

religion & spirituality judaism

All Episodes

00:44:48

Talmud Class: What Does Jewish History Ask of Me?

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/04/18

What does Jewish history—its incredible heaviness (Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron) and its incredible inspiration (Yom Ha’atzmaut)—ask of me? Does the passage of time affect the answer to that question? We are 81 years from the Holocaust. We are in the midst of yet another war with Iran and its proxies. What is our current responsibility to the Shoah and to the State of Israel? If we choose to disengage from all this heaviness, if we choose to not make Jewish history our problem, if we choose just to

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00:14:49

Shabbat Sermon: Purpose Has a Real Cost—And It Is...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/04/11

From the very moment the downed airman landed in Iran after ejecting from his plane, he knew the clock was ticking. He knew that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would be hunting for him. He knew that local tribes might find him first. He knew that if he were caught by the enemy, it would dramatically complicate an already complicated war. He was concussed. He was injured. And he was trained for just this moment.As has been widely reported, he somehow summoned the strength to climb a steep,

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00:36:36

Talmud Class: Should We Care About What Other People...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/04/11

What do you want to be known for? That is a question only you can answer. What are you known for? That is a question you cannot answer. That is a question that can only be answered by other people. The difference between what we want to be known for, and what we are known for, is the work we are called upon to do to become ever better versions of ourselves. That is the Torah of a thought leader named Jeff Henderson in a recent Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast. In other words, there are times when

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00:18:14

Shabbat Sermon with Guest Speaker Amy Schectman

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/04/04

Please enjoy this special Shabbat morning sermon with Amy Schectman, CEO of 2Life Communities. Amy teaches us about optimal aging and the liberation that is possible when we orient ourselves around living in and building community.About Amy SchectmanAmy has served as the CEO of 2Life Communities for over a decade where she successfully launched an aggressive expansion campaign to fill gaps in the senior housing affordability marketplace, managed the creation of a quasi-endowment to support agency

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00:36:35

Talmud Class: Broken Love Stories

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/04/04

On the Shabbat of Chol Hamoed Pesach (April 4), we encounter a curious reading: Shir Hashirim, Song of Songs. If you have never really studied it, you might think, “Oh, that is the Bible’s famous love story. On the festival of Passover, a springtime of renewal, we read about love. How lovely.” You would think that only if you haven't read the book. If you read Shira Hashirim, it is not a happily ever after love story. To the contrary, it is a story of lovers who seek but do not find, who knock

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00:15:33

Shabbat Sermon: A Sermon for Shabbat Hagadol with...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/03/28

Do you rememberthe classic Lay’s potato chip ad—you can’t eat just one? That line came back to me on our recent flight to San Francisco, because once I picked up a new novel, I simply could not put it down.The book, Good People, by Patmeena Sabit, tells the story of Afghan immigrants who come to America after the Soviet‑Afghan war. At the center is one family: Rahmat and Maryam Sharaf and their four children, struggling in a cramped one‑bedroom apartment. Fellow immigrants tell Rahmat to accept

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00:34:30

Talmud Class: A Fabulous Short Story: 'Redemption...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/03/28

Allegra Goodman recently published a collection of short stories called This is Not About Us. The irony is that the book is very much about us. She describes the Rubinstein family of Greater Boston. The kids went to Maimonides. Much of the action takes place in Brookline. There are stories of day-to-day life in Boston, and in Jewish Boston, that will feel deeply familiar. I felt I was reading about us. One of those stories, Redemption Song, is about how a family does Passover together where they

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00:16:20

Shabbat Sermon: Redemption Song with Rabbi Wes...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/03/21

For the last two weeks, I have been wearing this tallit. At Kiddush, both weeks, I have discovered that our congregation is very generous when it comes to offering feedback. People had opinions about the tallit which they shared promptly and candidly.Comments like: “What’s with that new tallit? What is it? It doesn’t really look like a tallit. Is it a shawl? Is it a scarf? Is it a new shawl, scarf type of tallit?”Or: “Rabbi, it doesn’t sit right on you. It’s lopsided.”Or a very generous offer of

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00:34:59

Talmud Class: Going Back to Egypt to Get the Exodus...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/03/21

One of the hardest things in the world is to come up with something new to say about a subject that has been amply covered by other writers. A new biography of Abraham Lincoln, a new history of the Civil War, a new take on the New Deal—is a new insight even possible on topics that have been written about so extensively?In that spirit, can there be a new Haggada that comes up with a new take that no one else has ever seen before in thousands of years of Haggadot? Apparently, the answer is yes. Last

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00:19:11

Evan Falchuk and Elias Rosemberg: Jewish Roots in...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/03/20

Cantor Elias Rosemberg and Temple Emanuel member Evan Falchuk discuss Evan's family roots in Venezuela and the current political situation.

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00:51:50

Shabbat Sermon: A Remedy for Again with Rabbi Wes...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/03/14

If you have ever had back surgery, you know what a shlepped-out ordeal it can be. You have back pain. You go to your doctor who wants to try a conservative treatment plan. Pain medication. Then you try heat. Then you try cold. Put your legs up in bed on a stack of pillows. Lie this way, lie that way. Then comes physical therapy. All those appointments. All those exercises. Still have the pain. Then you try the shots. At last, you do surgery. Then comes the recovery. And then therapy. PT. OT. And

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00:51:50

Talmud Class: Navigating Between Scylla and Charybdis...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/03/14

What text can best take in the challenge of American Jews at this moment who love America, who love Israel, and who face the daily torrent of news about the war? The text that comes up for me is Homer’s classic The Odyssey, in which Odysseus and his crew must navigate between Scylla and Charybdis. Both fierce and fearsome monsters are lethal. On the one hand, we have Scylla, a war against a genocidal enemy whose mottos are “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”; which had a tower in

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00:21:17

Shabbat Sermon: An Old Story Renewed with Rabbi Wes...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/03/07

If you have ever been married, or if you have ever walked an adult child down the aisle, think back to the energy, the electricity, the excitement of the wedding day. All that love in one sacred place. Pure magic.There was a young, bright, beautiful Israeli couple looking forward to their wedding day. The bride and the groom were getting married in the backyard of the bride’s parents. Joyful and magical. Except for two small details.The date of their wedding was Thursday, June 12, 2025. The couple

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00:27:28

Brotherhood Shabbat Sermon with Guest Speaker Rabbi...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/02/28

Rabbi Elan Babchuck serves as the Executive Vice President at Clal (National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership) and the Founding Executive Director of Glean Network, which partners with Columbia Business School. He has published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Washington Post, and Religion News Service, writes a column for The Wisdom Daily, contributed to Meaning Making – 8 Values That Drive America’s Newest Generations (2020, St. Mary’s Press) and is the co-author of Picking Up the Pieces:

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00:34:04

Talmud Class: Johnny Gaudreau's #13 Jersey in the...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/02/28

What do we do with what we remember? How does what we remember cause us to act? This question comes from two places. It is Shabbat Zachor, the special Shabbat before Purim when we remember Amalek that hated us, that tried to kill us, and that inspired commands to never forget that hate, and to respond in kind. And it is the week of the US Men’s Hockey Team’s first Olympic gold in 46 years. Poignantly, the team’s victory picture included the #13 jersey of their teammate, and hockey super star, Johnny

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00:21:35

Shabbat Sermon: DIY Instructions for the Tabernacle?...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/02/21

The Torah offers more than one account of what was revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai. This week’s reading, Terumah, suggests that the Ten Commandments were not the focus of revelation. What are the implications for us of the different portrayals of Moses’ experience?About Rabbi Peretz RodmanRabbi Rodman is a Jerusalem-based writer, translator, and editor. A native Bostonian, he has studied and taught at Brandeis University, Hebrew College, and the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew

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00:37:53

Talmud Class: A Spiritual Response to a Sordid Saga

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/02/21

There is a depressing news story that won’t go away. There are fresh chapters every week. The story goes something like this: People who were preeminent in their field—law, business, finance, real estate, professional sports, entertainment, higher education, medicine, health and wellness, spiritual counseling, politics, government—were emailing with a registered sex offender.What is that? So many people. So many different fields. So preeminent. So polished. So terribly off.If our Torah is to speak

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00:10:45

Shabbat Sermon: Strap on Your Skis with Rav Hazzan...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/02/14

Even before she stepped into her ski boots to compete in Cortina, Lindsey Vonn’s story was profound. To be a top contender at the age of 41, after six years of retirement, after a partial knee replacement and countless serious injuries, is remarkable in and of itself. But Vonn wasn’t just competing 24 years after her first Olympic games, and she wasn’t just competing on a body which had recovered from countless serious injuries. Just days before the Olympics, Vonn ruptured her ACL racing in

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00:27:17

Talmud Class: 'Boring' is a Compliment

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/02/14

Transformation. We were one thing. Now we are different, and better. How does transformation happen?Do our sources believe in the effectiveness of a transformational experience, that we are wowed and inspired and changed by some profound moment? Or are our sources skeptical that a single experience, however powerful, can sustain long-term personal growth? The Book of Exodus has a definite point of view. If ever there were a transformational moment, it would have been Sinai. God literally comes down

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00:17:21

Shabbat Sermon: 30 Years to 'I am Jewish' with Guest...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/02/07

Over the last 30 years, Adrian Gonzalez met and married his beloved, Leslie, joined Temple Emanuel, raised four wonderful children, and celebrated their bnei mitzvah right here on the Rabbi Samuel Chiel bimah. For all of this time, Adrian has been on his own spiritual journey. This year, he made the decision to officially join the Jewish people. Adrian shares his journey and about the love that brought him into the covenant.Adrian Gonzalez, the son of Cuban immigrants, was born and raised in

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