Saturday, December 19, 2015

Reconciliation and Redemption: Vayigash

Reconciliation and Redemption
D’var Torah for Parashat Vayigash
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman


The story of Joseph and his brothers reaches its emotional conclusion in this week’s Torah portion, Vayigash (Genesis 44:18—47:27).

Having planted—and (surprise!) discovered—his divination cup in Benjamin’s satchel, Joseph demands that the boy be handed over to him as a slave.  To their horror, the brothers realize that their worst nightmare could not have turned out any worse than this.  All their fears, their father’s fear, the secret they had been harboring for twenty two years, all were about to come out into the light; their shame, their guilt, were about to be exposed to the whole word, with everyone watching, with the great Pharaoh’s own viceroy as their judge and witness.

Yet, with nothing left to lose, one of the brothers finds enough moral courage within him to speak up.  If something—anything—good is to come out of this, it is only by speaking the truth. And so Judah steps up, “Vayigash Yehuda,” and recounts the entire tale to Joseph.  He recalls to Joseph that horrible day when his life was completely changed.  Not that Joseph had forgotten any moment of it, or any detail of the betrayal, or the special tunic his father had sewn for him and that he wore with such pride, seeing it again as it was being torn off him and thrown in the dirt.  How could he forget the feel on his soft flesh of the rough hands that grabbed him and hoisted him as though he were no more than a sack of flour?  The years he worked as a houseboy? The unjust accusations; the dank jail he languished in before Pharaoh’s cupbearer finally remembered him?  With his whole being Joseph felt rising within him intense hatred.  And yet, even then, he wondered and was amazed by how much hatred a person could hold within him and not explode.  With all his might, Joseph held back; he let Judah speak on, letting him choke on his own words as he told Joseph how they first plotted to kill him but finally at his—at Judah’s!—suggestion, they sold Joseph to a caravan of slave traders instead. 

“Guilty,” Joseph’s anguished soul wanted to cry out.  “Guilty! Take them all away!”

But he didn’t, and Judah went on, and Joseph’s curiosity got the better of him.  What happened then? What did you tell your father?  What did you say to one another?  Have you realized yet what a great wrong you had done me? Yourself? Our father?”

And Judah continues, his heart breaking within him, not realizing until that moment how much sorrow a heart could bear before it broke.  Yet he doesn’t speak of himself.  In despair, he sees his father, Jacob; with dread, he imagines the moment when he has to face Jacob with yet another failure, with news of yet another lost son, his youngest, his beloved Benjamin.  “How will I go back to my father without the boy?  Let me not see the unhappiness that will befall my father!” Overcome, Judah cannot continue.

At this moment Joseph’s emotions, too, break over him like a huge wave.  The false front he had been putting up, the struggle to forget the past, to suppress his true identity, crumble like so much dry clay.  The mention of his father brings up painfully sweet memories he had been forcing back, and now they flood him in a river of tears.

“I am Joseph,” he calls out to his brothers. “Is my father yet alive?”

Shaken to his core, Judah is dumbfounded.  But then he begins to understand.  He does not respond.  Bowing his head, he realizes that his whole life had directed him to this moment.  By stepping up, by letting truth into the room, he did what he had to do.  All that was left now was to wait and see what effect this moment would have on history.  But there was nothing more he himself could do at this point.

Joseph invites his brothers to step up, to draw near to him.  Their reconciliation is like a circle closing.  It was a similar drawing-near, many years earlier, that brought Jacob closer to Isaac to receive his father’s blessing.  Once again, the legacy of redemption found its rightful heir.  The blessing of Abraham would continue.


© 2015 by Boaz D. Heilman


Tuesday, December 1, 2015

What I Found In Laconia, NH

What I Found In Laconia, NH
Installation Sermon
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
Temple B’nai Israel, Laconia, NH
November 13, 2015


President of the Board of Trustees, Cantor; fellow rabbis, educators and clergy of many faiths; members of the Board of Directors and congregants of Temple B’nai Israel; honored guests and friends, I begin with the most beautiful word in the Hebrew language, shalom!  Peace!

Having just begun serving as rabbi of Temple B’nai Israel, you will forgive me, I hope, for still feeling a little bit like “the new kid on the block.”  You see, I’m still looking around, still trying to familiarize myself with the area, the people and the culture. 

To tell the truth, about a year ago, when I began looking at this fresh and new venture, I didn’t know what to expect.  I was finishing a 20-year rabbinate in the Boston area, an area known for its erudition in academia as well as Judaica.  What would I find in Laconia, New Hampshire?

The whirl of events surrounding my transition left me almost in a daze.  It was good that soon afterwards I left for some R&R in Israel.  Israel is my home.  My mother lives there, my brother and his family—my family…. It is where my entire being finds nurturance and replenishment, where my roots reach as deep as the most ancient strata of my people’s history, and where my boughs extend up and out, even to the most modern times and innovations.

When I returned at the end of the summer, I felt refreshed, ready to begin this new chapter in my life.  Yet I still didn’t know quite what to expect, and the High Holy Days met me with a bit more than the usual trepidation in my heart.

What I did find astounded me—and still continues—to this day.

Not only did I find the kind of powerful and dramatic beauty of nature that New Hampshire possesses. Within the first few weeks, I found some time to hike up a couple of mountains and explore a couple of nearby trails.  I experienced the magnificent kind of New England fall that artists and poets rhapsodize about. 

Not only did I discover a slower, more patient, more easy-going way of life; a place where you don’t need to cut off another driver just to get in the line of traffic; where, if you want to stop and enjoy the moment, you can, and do.

Not only did I discover a thriving Jewish community here, but one that has been in existence for well over one hundred years!

I discovered a community of people so devoted to their Judaism that they took it upon themselves to make sure that it survived and even thrived.  Working first with volunteers and then with student-rabbis—many of whom went on to become national leaders in their own right—this group took on the mitzvah—the imperative—of maintaining their Jewish way of life for themselves and their children.  Volunteers all, they not only ascertained that the temple stood on solid financial ground, but also that it faithfully followed our customs and traditions and became a warm and welcoming home—in the fullest, most “heimisch” sense of the word—for all its sons and daughters. 

Maybe that’s what has to happen in places like New Hampshire, where we Jews find ourselves more isolated and therefore more dependent on our own skills and abilities than in some other, larger and more specialized communities.  The responsibility of being Jewish, of living Jewish, of making sure the Jewish People continue beyond us, is so much more incumbent upon us here.

At the same time, however, Laconia is not so isolated from the rest of the world, not in this age of social media and instant communication.  The same problems and issues that Jews face all over the world are as crucial here as elsewhere. 


Living as a small minority among other cultures has always made keeping Jewish traditions alive and meaningful a difficult task.  It is possibly even more of a challenge today, especially in places where gathering to worship and study as a k’hilla, as a sacred community, means we have to get in our cars and drive nearly an hour just to get to a temple.

Throughout our people’s history, the study of our sacred texts has been key to Jewish existence.  Yet today, in our time of unprecedented progress in research, science and technology, a day when the study of the cosmos can take us to the very first milliseconds of the universe’s existence, the stories of Creation that we find in the Torah seem—at least to some of us—irrelevant and childish.

Laws that once regulated our people’s behavior—what we wore, what we ate, even whom we socialized with and married—are less in keeping with our contemporary lifestyle than they ever were before.

Perhaps it was the Holocaust, less than a lifetime away, or maybe the advances of photography—particularly images of war and terrorism—that allowed the most horrifying crimes, the most horrendous cruelty ever exercised by human beings, to penetrate the safe havens that once were our homes and break down the walls of our carefully structured lives.


Israel, the homeland our people returned to and rebuilt as a safe harbor, a refuge from the age-old scourge of anti-Semitism, is still being attacked and delegitimized among its many enemies and detractors.  Among us, too, some of us are examining our relationship to our homeland, trying to understand both the politics and the special bond that exists between Israel and the Diaspora, and what that means for us—and more importantly, for our children, who have never known a world without a State of Israel, without an Israel Defense Force to help defend and protect them, and to fill us with joy, gratitude and pride.

To quote a line from one of my favorite Broadway musicals, “Fiddler on The Roof,” these are all problems “that would cross a rabbi’s eyes!”


And yet, just as we’ve never lost hope in the past, so we remain hopeful today.  Our strength as a people has never come only from within us.  And surely, as our third patriarch, Jacob, learned to recognize so long ago, surely God is present here, among us, at this sacred time and place.

When I first walked into this community and sanctuary, I felt—as palpable and as tangible as anything in the physical world that can be perceived, measured and gauged—love and devotion that are nothing short of miraculous.

Our very presence here tonight is proof that, despite all the challenges and difficulties, we have not abandoned our faith, nor lost any of the love that we’ve always carried with us, throughout our journeys.  Our love for our heritage, for our people and our land and, ultimately, for our God, is still the single most powerful force that has always inspired us to create and maintain our sacred communities.


Despite the relative isolation of this congregation—or perhaps because of it—Temple B’nai Israel has become hallowed ground for this community.  They just can’t seem to stay away from it!  From the Board of Directors to the volunteer teachers, caretakers, cooks and handymen (and women); from Cantor to Educator; from the children and the parents or grandparents who bring them here, to a rabbi who drives two hours every other weekend so we can all celebrate or mourn together, learn together, and worship together.  Surely there is excitement here, a spirit of innovation, a true miracle of survival and existence.


Temple B’nai Israel is a staple in the rich communal life of the Lakes Region of New Hampshire.  Every summer, it participates in the Food Festival, offering a wide array of traditional Jewish foods.  In the fall, the school children glean the fields of local farms and prepare soup for Salvation Army lunches.  The annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Service will take place here, in this sanctuary, a week from this Sunday; and proceeds from tomorrow night’s performance, at the Winnipesaukee Playhouse, of the Boston College Jazz Band and Vocal Ensemble will benefit the Central New Hampshire Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice.


Services at Temple B’nai Israel are a true example of what the rabbis called not only avodat hakodesh—the sacred service—but also avodat halev—the service of the heart.  And the enthusiasm shown by the children as well as adults who come here to participate in Torah study and Jewish learning only highlights the nearness of the message of Torah and Judaism to our hearts and minds.

All these—beauty of nature, a vibrant community, challenges and blessings—and yet so much more, have I found here, at Temple B’nai Israel, in Laconia, NH.



Not too long ago, a child asked me a wonderful question.  “Rabbi,” he said, “how do you know that God hears our prayers?”  I looked him in the eye and answered, as truthfully as I could, “Because you are here.”

My friends, I feel blessed to be here tonight with you, to participate with you in this joyful occasion.  I feel blessed to have been asked to be one of a long line of rabbis who found inspiration, purpose and meaning here. I am humbled by the kindness, trust and faith you have shown me by entrusting into my hands not only your own spiritual care, but also the care and education of your children and grandchildren.  It’s a gift I will always treasure. 

As always, I am filled with love and gratitude to my wife, Sally; to our children Hannah and Jonathan; to our parents, family and friends for always being there for me and supporting me along my path.

I feel particularly blessed and grateful to have a role in the history of our people, to carry God’s message forward, to help bring to reality the vision of the prophet Isaiah:

“These I will bring to my holy mountain and I will give them joy in my
house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted
on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”
(Is. 56:7).

Thank you and may God bless us all tonight and always.  Amen.



© 2015 by Boaz D. Heilman






Friday, November 20, 2015

To Fight The Darkness: Vayeitze In Memory of Ezra Schwartz, HY"D

To Fight the Darkness
D’var Torah for Parashat Vayeitze
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

To the Memory of Ezra Schwartz, HY"D


The hardest part of being a rabbi is to eulogize or speak after a death of a young person.  There simply are no words to convey the pain one feels; nor can words by themselves comfort the bereaved.  The pain is immeasurably deep.

This week was particularly bad.  The attacks in Paris a week ago today were horrendous.  On top of other terror attacks in various places around the world, it seems that those who wish to inflict pain and suffering on the innocent are reaching a crescendo of evil intentions and tragic results.

All over the world tonight there are hundreds of families engulfed by grief.  Families of those who were murdered in cold blood, families of those who are wounded and still fighting for their lives, families of those whose broken lives or bodies will never be quite the same ever again.

We can look for “rationale” behind the attacks, but that would be futile.  Hatred needs no rationale, it feeds itself. 

All that is left right now is an ache in all of our hearts.  Those who were more directly affected, feel it the worst.

So why am I so much more affected by the death of one, when so many were killed?  Maybe because Ezra Schwartz was from a neighboring town, Sharon, MA.  Maybe because he just graduated from the Maimonides School, where many of my acquaintances have either studied, taught or still teach.  Maybe because he went to Camp Yavneh in New Hampshire, a great camp that many of my children’s friends have gone to.

Maybe it was seeing his picture, seated by his brothers and sister, beaming with gentle kindness and sweetness—adjectives used to describe Ezra by all who knew him.

Maybe it’s because Ezra represented the best we human beings have to offer:  bright, caring, compassionate, helpful.  He was always there to help other people and cheer them on.  The kind of person we would all want to have as a friend, counselor, teacher or mentor.  And now the world is that much less of a loving, caring place, because where he existed there is now a gaping hole—in the already-blood-saturated, hallowed ground of the Land of Israel, in our hearts and souls.

The present as well as the future seem gloomier today.

Maybe I’m even sadder because Ezra is just the latest—and probably not the last—victim of the oldest hatred of all, anti-Semitism.  This demonic hatred, responsible for so much of our people’s suffering, seemed to have diminished in the years immediately following the Holocaust, but it is now rearing its ugly head again.

I am sad because the terror attack that took Ezra’s life happened in Israel, our people’s homeland, established to make sure that such murders would not take place again.  “Never again” is the Jewish post-Holocaust motto, yet it does happen again, again and again.

We hope that the governments of the world’s enlightened countries will wake up in time to fight this scourge of terror.  But it will take more than that.  It will take nothing less than an uprising among the more peaceful Moslem population of the world to win back the religion that had been hijacked by radical, perverted people who think that God speaks only to them, only through them, a God who commands them to kill without pity or mercy anyone—man, woman or child—who does not believe as they do.

In the meanwhile, however, our pain is still there, and hope for a peaceful tomorrow seems more distant than ever.

It is a darker world today, less kindly, less compassionate.  There is more fear in the world today, more distrust.  Bubbling just under the surface for many of us are anger and frustration, perhaps even hate.

There is no way we can just walk away from this gaping hole in our midst.  Wherever we turn, we see ghosts of people who were with us just a day or two ago but are no longer there, and who will never again sit at our table for a Sabbath dinner.

The Sabbath candles somehow seem less brilliant tonight.

That’s why I plan to light an extra candle tonight.

There will be more light!  I refuse to give in to the darkness, to the fear, to the anger, to the hurt.  We will sing, we will make our voices rise, we will vow to be more caring and compassionate—all in the name of Ezra Schwartz, because I am sure that’s what he would want us to do.

And we will pray.

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayeitze (Genesis 28:10—32:3), our Patriarch Jacob leaves his homeland, chased by his bloodthirsty brother, Esau.  Deprived of the love, comfort and joy of home, on his first night away from home, Jacob sleeps in a desolate place, with a rock serving him as a pillow.  At night, he dreams of a ladder that reaches heaven, and he comes to realize that despite the darkness and loneliness, God’s loving presence surrounds him. 

It is a comforting thought.  Tonight and tomorrow, Shabbat, I will pray as Jacob did.  I will pray to see God’s presence in our midst; I will fervently beseech God to let God’s justice appear on this earth soon and in our own day.  I will pray for peace, not war; for love, not hate.

May God comfort Ezra’s family and community of friends among all mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.  And may Ezra’s name become a blessing for us all. 





© 2015 by Boaz D. Heilman