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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

00:38:22

Talmud Class: Is Anything as Strong as Inertia?

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/02/07

Inertia is super strong. What, if anything, is stronger? My late father-in-love used to say, “more than people know what they like, they like what they know.” People like what they know. They like certainty, clarity, predictability. They don’t like being rattled. They don’t like uncertainty. They don’t like unpredictability. They don’t like staring into a murky future. The address in our sacred canon for the strength of inertia comes from last week’s reading. When the children of Israel left Egypt

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00:11:30

Shabbat Shira Sermon with Cantor Elias Rosemberg

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/01/31

January 31, 2026

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00:36:48

Talmud Class: Baltimore or Israel? A New...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/01/31

Suzanne was happily married to her first husband, with whom she had two daughters, and four grandchildren. All lived happily in Baltimore. He died. At the age of 70, she was blessed to find love a second time with a man whom she married. Suzanne and her second husband went to Israel, and they loved it.She writes to Abigail Shrier, an advice columnist for The Free Press. Now age 74, Suzanne shares her dilemma: I feel I am in my last act….I will soon be enfeebled to some degree, and not myself. Right

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00:25:20

Shabbat Sermon: Clarity, Courage, and Commitment:...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/01/24

The surge of antisemitism has left many of us unsettled, confused, and struggling to understand what type of Jewish future is possible in the Diaspora. In fact, we can have a large hand in shaping our future, but to do this we first need to better understand the challenge before us.About Robert LeikindRob Leikind has been director of AJC New England since 2008. A child of parents who survived Hitler’s Europe, he grew up with a deeply rooted regard for the opportunity that American democracy affords

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00:44:09

Talmud Class: Silver, Gold, and the Whirlwind

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/01/24

What is the difference between the Exodus story we encounter in the spring in the Haggadah and the Exodus story we encounter in the winter in the Book of Exodus? One common answer is that Moses is hardly mentioned in the Haggadah and is obviously a major protagonist in the Torah’s telling. But there is another important difference. The Torah has a lot to say about the Israelites taking silver and gold on their way out of Egypt. The announcement before the 10th plague:“Tell the people to borrow, each

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00:12:15

Shabbat Sermon: Walking in the Light of God with...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/01/17

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was courageous beyond measure. He walked with clarity and conviction in the face of menacing dogs, water cannons, angry mobs, and violent police and never seemed afraid. What gave him this courage? In this sermon, we will hear his own testimony from his book Stride Toward Freedom: the Montgomery Story, as Dr. King shares what enabled him to move from paralyzing fear to courageous action. Can we learn to do that? Can we do our own version of what he did?

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00:27:45

Talmud Class: The Best Thing to Do with Secrets,...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/01/17

What would you think about a nephew marrying his aunt—his mother or father’s sister—and starting a family together? It feels creepy, gross, incestuous. In fact, the Torah not once but twice bans nephew-aunt unions.Do not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is your father’s flesh. Leviticus 18:12You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or of your father’s sister, for that is laying bare one’s own flesh; they shall bear their guilt. Leviticus 20:19Why am I telling you

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00:11:55

Shabbat Sermon with Guest Speaker, Maya Afergan

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/01/10

TE Teen, Maya Afergan, delivers a special guest sermon as part of our Youth Shabbat Morning service on January 10th.

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00:17:42

Shabbat Sermon: From Vision to Reality: The New...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2026/01/03

Why does Boston need a new Holocaust museum now? Jody Kipnis, Co-Founder and President & CEO of the Holocaust Legacy Foundation, shares the ways the museum (opening in late 2026 across from Boston’s historic Freedom Trail) urgently confronts the rise in antisemitism today, and how its exhibits teach about democracy, choice, and moral courage.

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00:17:21

Shabbat Sermon with Rabbi Michelle Robinson

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2025/12/27

December 27, 2025

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00:19:36

Shabbat Sermon: Two Lights with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2025/12/20

How did we get from Saturday night to Thursday night?The arc of this past week, the dizzying emotional trajectory, is hard to explain, a genuine mystery. Saturday night, December 13, was Bondi Beach and Brown. The Hanukkah celebration by the Sea that became the Hanukkah massacre by the Sea. The school shooting at Brown, an hour from here, where we have students, parents of students, and long-time faculty at Brown who are members of Temple Emanuel.Just five nights later, Thursday night, December 18,

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00:45:06

Talmud Class: When, If Ever, Should We Say "You Should"?

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2025/12/20

We are all horrified by the mass shootings at Bondi Beach and Brown University that coincided with Hanukkah. We mourn the tragic and senseless loss of innocent life. We pray for the recovery of those who were wounded. So too we are horrified by the murder of 47-year old MIT professor Nuno Loureiro in his Brookline home. So too we are horrified by the assaults on Jews this week in the subway in New York City. How to understand such hate and darkness on Hanukkah, a time of love and joy, is on

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00:33:05

Questions to Humanity - Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz with...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2025/12/17

Omri D. Cohen’s new book ‘Questions to Humanity’ contains 106 questions from people all over the world to humanity at large. Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz and Omri discuss what inspired the project, how he gathered the questions, and what we can all learn from the questions of our fellow man.You can learn more about about Questions to Humanity at https://qtohumanity.com/, on Amazon and with the video series on Instagram.

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00:13:09

Shabbat Sermon with Rabbi Aliza Berger

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2025/12/13

December 13, 2025

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00:41:07

Talmud Class: For Our Children and Grandchildren Who...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2025/12/13

Every once in a while, I read a d’var Torah that takes my breath away—an interpretation that is original, creative, casts a new light on an old question, and does it so persuasively that I can no longer see any other way to read the text.Josh Foer is the founder of Sefaria, a free online digital library of Jewish texts. He is also the co-founder of Lehrhaus, a Jewish tavern and house of learning in Cambridge. He is also on the board of The Jim Joseph Foundation where he recently offered a new lens

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00:18:28

Shabbat Sermon: Worry with Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2025/12/06

I once met with a family after their beloved mother and grandmother had passed away. Her son shared that whenever he would visit her, she would say to him before he left, please call me to let me know you got home. One day, as he was taking leave, she said to him again: please call me to let me know you got home. He finally said: “Mom, I live in Newton. You live in Newton. We have both lived in Newton all our lives. I live 10 minutes away. And Mom, I am 62 years old! Do I still have to call?” And

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00:40:18

Talmud Class: The Jersey Dilemma - Does Our Tribal...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2025/12/06

In this vintage Jerry Seinfeld bit, the comedian captures a moral dilemma of our time, in America, in Israel, in the world: our jersey color shapes our moral vision. We identify with our team, whom we root for, and it shapes how we see the world. For our team, yay! For the other team, boo! But what about the moral equities?Can we root for our team and also see the humanity of the other team? Or does rooting for our team necessarily mean we cannot or should not see the humanity of the other team? Is

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00:48:15

Shabbat Sermon: It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over with...

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2025/11/29

In the festive spirit of Thanksgiving weekend, let me start with two trivial pursuit questions. Who famously said “It ain’t over till it’s over”? And what was the context for this observation?Answer: It was Yogi Berra who said: “It ain’t over till it’s over.” And he said it in 1973 when he was managing the underachieving New York Mets. Their season had been a long slog. They could not win consistently. After one particularly dispiriting defeat, reporters asked Yogi Berra if their playoff hopes were

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00:30:37

Talmud Class: A Broken Love Story

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2025/11/29

The Talmud, Bava Metzia 84A, has an emotional story about a love gone bad. Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish are drawn towards one another. They become mentor-disciple and then colleagues. They bring out the best in one another. Reish Lakish marries Rabbi Yochanan’s sister, and the couple has children. And the text hints, strongly, that in an age before gay was okay, they were attracted to one another. And then, it all falls apart. They say mean things to one another. Why they do so is not clear. The

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00:13:44

Shabbat Sermon with Rabbi Michelle Robinson

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life ·

2025/11/08

November 8, 2025

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