September 12, 2025 | Shabbat Sermon – Ki Tavo 5785

It took years after the Broadway show Hamilton debuted for me to finally get to say, “I was in the place where it happens.” Lin-Manuel Miranda, the show’s creator, left us with a profound question at the end of the show: “Who will tell your story?” Aaron Burr notes earlier, “History obliterates in every picture it paints.” He is teaching us that after we die, we have no control over who tells our story, but we realize that the story of our lives is all that is left. Hamilton is Miranda’s attempt to uncover Hamilton’s life, which for nearly two centuries was often hidden in obscurity when compared with the other founding fathers of our country.

The lyrics of this final song begin with Washington reflecting that when he was young, he wished he knew he had no control of “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” Jefferson chimes in and says Hamilton’s financial system was a work of genius. Madison adds that he took the country from bankruptcy to prosperity and that he doesn’t get enough credit. Angelica bemoans the fact that every other founder’s story is told. It is Hamilton’s wife Eliza who works to tell his story. She shares in this song that she interviewed every soldier who he fought with, and she tried to make sense of a thousand pages of his writing. Angelica and Eliza sing together, “We tell your story.” Eliza talks about the orphanage she set up in New York City and how in every one of the children’s eyes, she sees Hamilton. “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?”

As Jews, we are a storytelling people. It may be one of the things we do best. And this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, grounds us in our obligation to tell our story. The parshah begins by telling us, “When we enter the land, we are to bring the first fruits as an offering.” The ritual is detailed. You bring the first fruits to the priest and say to him, “I acknowledge this day before your God Adonai, that I have entered the land that Adonai swore to our ancestors.” The priest then takes the basket, and the person is commanded to say the following:

“My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and dwelled there but became a very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. We cried out to God, the God of our ancestors, and God heard our plea, saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. Adonai freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents, bringing us to this place and giving us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now I bring the first fruits of the soil which You, Adonai, have given me.” (Deuteronomy 26:5–9)

I am so moved by the power of this ritual. Moses’ instruction to us is that once we have settled the land and we have first fruits that have grown from the soil, we have to bring them to the priest. And it is not just the first time—it is every year. If any of us have ever done home gardening, we will remember when that first fruit grows on the plant. We want to eat it because of our excitement. But the Torah comes along and says, “Not so fast. Bring that first fruit as a donation to God.” It is an instruction in gratitude—that it is not you who did it, but there are natural forces at play. And when we bring the first fruit, we don’t just offer it as a donation—we tell a story. It is the story of our people. We tell the story, reminding ourselves of the challenge of being a wanderer and then living in a place that is not our home. Then, we share the pain and suffering we experienced while living in Egypt, reminding ourselves that God brought us up out of the land of Egypt.

There is something profound about living in the land, going about your business, doing the work you need to do, and being required to bring in an offering of gratitude before you even get to enjoy the literal fruits of your labor. And then to have to offer a specific blessing—which is the literal telling of our story—reminds us of the importance of not forgetting our past. It would be far too easy to forget our past after settling in a place and encountering the joys of abundant blessings. This ritual establishes for us the necessity of telling our story. But why?

Perhaps one answer lies in the debate about the nebulous nature of the opening line of the blessing: “Arami oved avi, my father was a wandering Aramean.” The text immediately invites us to think about who it is referring to as our father. Ibn Ezra understands the Arami to be Jacob. If we know our story, that interpretation makes sense. Jacob journeyed to Egypt with his family, and we grew and became populous there. Ibn Ezra adds that when Jacob was there, he was poor—he was oved, perishing.

Rashbam, Rashi’s grandson, disagrees with Ibn Ezra. He suggests that the avi was Abraham because it fit him better, as the prayer should begin with the beginning of Jewish history and continue with the first fruits.

Perhaps their answers do not really matter as far as who the subject of this text is, but rather the overall content and purpose. Benno Jacob explains that Arami is not the name of a resident of any particular country but more so that of an occupation. He adds, just as the merchant was called a Canaanite and the caravan of traders who brought Joseph to Egypt were called Ishmaelites, the shepherd or the wanderer was called an Aramean. And the Mussar text Sefer HaHinukh brings it all together by explaining that we say these words as the blessing because the utterance of our lips deeply impresses our mind and imagination. If we tell the story as part of our blessing, it will shape us both ethically and with a rootedness in our history.

The question we ask ourselves just ten days before Rosh Hashanah is: Who tells our story?

This is a time and a moment when we do the deepest work of discovering and rediscovering our own story. We see ourselves mirrored in our tradition, and in every generation, the sacred story that rises from the text of Torah and the annals of Jewish history emerges and re-emerges again, helping us reflect on our lives and give them new meaning and purpose. Telling our story helps us go another layer deeper, because as we vocalize this sacred story, we remind ourselves that we are not alone. We came forth out of Egypt hand in hand with a family, sharing the journey together. And yet, we still wonder: Who tells our story?

It is that sharing that is critical to storytelling. Psychologist Ira Hyman looked closely at the lyrics of the final song in Hamilton and notes that throughout the entire show, it is Aaron Burr who is the narrator. But in the final song, it is Hamilton’s wife Eliza. Hyman explains that the change in narrator determines who tells our story and who shapes the perspective and how we remember. He writes, “A narrator determines the story, choosing events and perspectives to include—and just as importantly, choosing what to leave out. History is supposedly written by the winners. But history is really written by those who write. They decide how to tell the story. The narrator is important for our personal memories as well. Who tells the stories in your family, or in your circle of friends? That narrator plays a critical role in how we reconstruct our memories and our shared past.”

When we sit down to tell the Jewish story, we find a story that has been curated over the centuries by rabbis and leaders who have captured the complexity of the past, reminding us of what is sacred. Those stories are often combined with commandments that are discussed and debated on the pages of books. It is the study of those debates that brings the stories to life. We tell the story in every generation because we are the newest narrators of the story.

Hyman adds an interesting insight—he reminds us that “Remembering is a collaborative process in groups. [Families or friends work to tell a story together.] Once a group collaboratively remembers something, that recollection will influence each person’s own memories.” As Jews, we do not sit alone to tell our story—we share it in groups. We are narrators of a collective past that we are actively living.

When I tell the story of my life, I see it as a journey that was rooted in my own family’s journey. When my grandfather died months before I was born, my mother wanted to mourn. As a Jewish adult who could not read Hebrew, she knew the way she could mourn was through the recitation of Kaddish. She endeavored to learn Hebrew, and it became an important part of her life. Along with my father, they committed to making Judaism central to our lives throughout our upbringing. They took us to Israel as teens and impressed a deep connection to Jews and the Jewish people upon our hearts.

Rabbi Donniel Hartman likes to teach that the Jewish people are the sum of the stories we tell about ourselves. While every Jewish person cannot hear the story of every other Jewish person in the world—or every other person who has ever lived—I like to imagine that God is the collector of every Jewish story. As we share our story and the prayers in our hearts, God is collecting it all. And perhaps through coincidence, brings us to moments where we encounter someone with a similar story.

One of the names for Rosh Hashanah is Yom Hazikaron, the Day of Remembrance. The second set of calls of the shofar is called Zikhronot—reminding us that God remembers the covenant with us. Yosef Yerushalmi, who wrote a book entitled Zakhor – Remember, explains that the nature of Jewish memory has never been dispassionate recollection but rather evocation, identification, and re-actualization. In explaining what this means, Ellen Umansky teaches: we read the stories of our past because in them we see confusion, fear, and a sense of hope, and taste the bitterness of slavery and the sweetness of freedom—in short, we experience all that our ancestors experienced as if we were there. We also recognize that we live these experiences as well, and the stories of our past can help us navigate our own unique pathways forward as we tell our stories.

“My ancestor was a wandering Aramean…” How do I see myself in that story?

That is the question we need to ask ourselves. When we sit down to study Torah, when we sit down and open up our prayer book, when we sit down at the Passover Seder—we open the pages of our collective past and we have to ask ourselves: How do we see ourselves in it?

Rabbi Donniel Hartman shares a story about a time he was on faculty at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute, which was offering a program for college students. A student came up to him and asked if he was one of the teachers. He said he was, and the student asked, “Why should I be Jewish?” Hartman thought about his response and realized that if he said, “You should be Jewish because Judaism teaches you to be a moral human being or connects you to God,” the student might respond, “What, only Jews are ethical? Only Jews have a relationship with God?”

Instead, Hartman gave one of the most profound answers he could have given. He said, “There is no reason why you have to be Jewish. You can live a perfectly meaningful, ethical, and valued life as a secular American, or a Christian, or a Muslim for that matter. Why then be Jewish? The only reason to be Jewish and to belong to the Jewish people is if doing so adds meaning and value to your life. I will be sharing what I love about Judaism and how it has added meaning to mine. Whether it does so for you is for you to determine.”

Hartman’s words are an invitation to each of us to open a book, engage with, and live our story. “Who lives, who dies, who will tell your story?” For us, right now, we tell our own stories. This season of the High Holy Days gives us the opportunity to write them as well. By seeing ourselves mirrored through our people’s story, we gain wisdom and insight from the challenges and journeys told in our sacred texts that help us shape our stories. As we remind ourselves of our wandering past, we share our own journey that is also filled with challenges and blessings.

In these days and weeks ahead, let us find the opportunity to sit down and tell our story to a friend or neighbor. May we have the wisdom to look deep into our past, and may we have the courage to use the memories to shape our lives and Jewish identities in the future.

Kein yehi ratzon.

September 12, 2025

Last week, I was welcomed into Worthington Kilbourne High School to present to the American Thought and Political Radicalism Course. It is a semester course elective for seniors and has been taught in Worthington Schools since the 1970s. The course is an important opportunity for students to learn and understand how political thought and radical ideas have developed in this country. Students are exposed to speakers who present ideas that are extremely radical. Such ideas have included flat earthers, neo-Nazis, members of the KKK, among others. To be included as one of the speakers feels interesting because I don’t consider myself a “radical.” It is an honor that the instructor feels confident in me to present to his students. (I will also present to the Thomas Worthington students in October.)

I am invited each semester to teach about the development of antisemitism. When I began presenting on this subject three years ago, it was in the aftermath of the infamous Kanye West X post in which he claimed he was going to go “death con 3” on the Jews because of our “agenda”. It was a classic form of antisemitism, depicting both a threat to Jewish well-being and also reflecting an age-old notion of a Jewish agenda that would threaten existing power structures. When I present, I teach about classic antisemitic tropes and myths. I discuss the Tree of Life shooting and the factors that motivated Robert Bowers that dark Shabbat morning in October 2018. I also discuss our security needs.

Now, in recent years, I have added an in-depth look at antisemitism on the left as it pertains to Israel. I have modified my presentation to reflect the symbolism that indicates antisemitism. Yossi Klein HaLevi offers the idea that the Jew is the symbol of everything evil in society. In pre-Holocaust Europe, the Jew was a Christ killer. In Nazi Germany, the Jew was the ultimate race polluter. In the former Soviet Union, the Jew was the capitalist. Now, in the age of universal human rights, the Jew is a White Settler Colonialist and racist. Antisemitism is the ultimate chameleon, changing its color and form to depict anything that is evil in a given moment.

As I enter these classrooms, I know that most of our young people get their news on Instagram and TikTok; often taking form as a series of short memes or videos. I am fearful that their minds are already pre-disposed to radical ideas that have grown on social media. I was comforted to know that many of these young people had never heard of the phrase “Globalize the Intifada” – because they had not seen it on social media – and I had the opportunity to share with them what it means and why it was problematic. As I have collaborated with many of our congregants to do the sacred work of partnering with our schools, I have found that this kind of learning is missing from most curricula; there just isn’t time. I wish I had the time and capacity to present in every high school; I also wish I was given an invitation. Most young people living near us do not know many Jews. It is just the nature of living in the community that we do. Last year, I modified my presentation to also give a brief overview of who Jews are and explain our core beliefs. I feel that this is important to help show that we are not evil people that we are sometimes made out to be. Having the opportunity to teach about antisemitism gives me hope that these young people will take these ideas and help shape a better future.

The Talmud offers a principle called mipnei darchei shalom – for the sake of peace. I enter these classrooms with the hope that through knowledge, education, and truth, we will build a pathway to peace and a better future for us all.

With that in mind, I want to express my sadness over the continued political violence that is festering in this country. We could list countless acts of violence that have targeted elected leaders, political activists, business leaders and others. The assassination of Charlie Kirk is another example – in a long list of political violence – of the radicalization of our actions. David Graham wrote in the Atlantic in the aftermath of yesterday’s assassination: Scholars have noted that assassinations occur most frequently in countries with “strong polarization and fragmentation” that “lack consensual political ethos and homogeneous populations (in terms of the national and ethnic landscape).”

That’s an accurate description of this moment. American politics today are dangerous not merely because they are polarized, but also because they are so widely divided. No party or side is able to win an enduring political advantage, which produces a constant back-and-forth—what the scholars John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch, and Lynn Vavreck have called “calcification.” Partisans on both sides believe that the stakes of each election are existential—for their way of life and perhaps even for their actual life. Conspiracy theories, including claims of election fraud, are common.

People who have concluded that they are powerless to stop politicians and policies they oppose are killing, trying to kill, or threatening to kill CEOs, Supreme Court justices, judges, members of Congress, Jewish people. Although political violence and support for it have been a larger problem on the right for the past few decades, in recent years, there have been a number of prominent acts of left-wing violence.

As a society, we must find other ways to respond to disagreement. We need to seek a path that promotes the virtues of listening, education, and problem solving rather than vilification and the pursuit of power. It is my hope that opportunities like the course taught in Worthington Schools will help promote opportunities for discussion rather than violence.

As Shabbat arrives in the world this evening, may the vision and taste of The World to Come help us nurture the values in ourselves that can build this sacred vision.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rick Kellner

September 5, 2025 | Shabbat Sermon – Ki Teitzei 5785

When I enter the season of Elul, I am often humbled by the incredible work that needs to be done. Prepare sermons. Create the order of the High Holy Day service. Make sure everyone has the honors sent to them. Write the iyyunim I want to share during the service to help frame prayerful moments. Pick the story I want to tell at the kids’ service. One year, I was so well prepared for the holidays, I actually made a checklist so I could refer to it year after year. Maybe I should check it, so I know what I have to do in the next two weeks.

During the month, I also try to find ways to help our congregation prepare. This can happen through sermons, teachings, or my Friday Shabbat message. But the challenge for me is that I wonder where I find time to do the spiritual work I need to do—the same work that I am encouraging all of us to do. I do try to convince myself that the sacred work I am encouraging our community to do applies to me as well. Maybe I am actually doing the work while helping us all prepare.

One of the ways I prepare is by turning to a text from the Talmud in Tractate Shabbat 31a. In the text, Rava, one of the great Talmudic sages, teaches the following:
When you arrive in the world to come for judgment, you will be asked several questions: Were you honest in business? Did you set times for Torah study? Did you leave a legacy? Did you have hope in your heart? Did you get your priorities straight?
The framing of these questions is a more modern adaptation by Ron Wolfson, found in his book The Seven Questions You’re Asked in Heaven. It is a book I turn to each year at this time. And you might be wondering, wait, Rabbi, that’s only five. Wolfson adds two questions from two different Hasidic thinkers which ask, “Did you enjoy this world? And, were you the best you could be?”

As Wolfson dives deeply into each of the questions, he expresses some surprise over the first question: Were you honest in business? He cannot believe that the first question is not about believing in God, following the commandments, or giving tzedakah, but that it is about being honest. He adds, it is not just about business but about being honest in all matters. He wonders: If you are not honest in your business dealings, can you be trusted to be honest in other relationships? If you are not honest with others, can you be honest with yourself? If you are not honest with others, can your faith in God be trusted?

As he reflects on these questions, he shares a story about a time in his life when he was newly married. He and his wife Susan were in college in St. Louis. He was just shy of his 21st birthday. He and his wife had decided to have a kosher home, and they were looking for a kosher butcher shop. They entered the store and one of the owners asked, “What can I get for you?” Wolfson asked, “How much is a pound of ground beef?” As Wolfson recalls, instead of answering directly, one owner turned to the other and said in Yiddish, “Who are they?” “I don’t know,” said the second. “What shall we charge them?” “$3.95,” said the second. Susan then turned to Ron and said, “Ronnie, let’s get out of here.” Ron had no idea what had happened, and when they got to the car, Susan explained the whole thing to him. Susan knew the going price for kosher ground beef was about $2 a pound, and they were overcharging them. The owners did not know that Susan grew up in a home where Yiddish was spoken and that it was her first language.

Now, I will admit, if I were in Susan’s shoes, I would have replied in Yiddish with something like, “That seems awfully high for ground beef,” and I would have really enjoyed the look on their faces as they realized what they had done.

Our Torah portion this week teaches us about the importance of honest weights and measures. We learn in Deuteronomy 25, “You shall not have alternate weights and measures in your pouch; you shall not have alternate weights and measures in your house. You must have completely honest weights and completely honest measures if you are to long endure.”

Ron Wolfson is echoing the concerns laid out for us by Moses in ancient times. It would seem that one of the core pillars of society must be honesty and integrity. In order for that to endure, the community must commit to that. It is why we often see a seal at the gas station or the grocery store that says the scales or pumps have passed inspection by someone in the county. Such an act is also a foundation for trust. The moment we cannot trust each other, the fabric of society begins to tear apart, and the pillars begin to crumble.

In Pirkei Avot, we find a teaching from Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, who explains: Al shlosha devarim ha-olam kayam—On three things the world endures: al hadin, al ha-emet, v’al hashalom—on judgment, on truth, and on peace. When commenting on this particular Mishnah, Rabbi Yehuda Loew ben Bezalel, better known as the Maharal of Prague, explains that each of these three virtues aligns with three parts of the self. One’s physical possessions align with justice; one’s spiritual possessions match truth, which is concerned with intellectual integrity; and finally, one’s actual self aligns with peace. He explains that these three virtues sustain the world because they sustain human existence.

The lesson here is simple: we rely on truth as a foundational value of society. Not lying is something we teach our children when they are young, and we reinforce it throughout their youth. And yet, it seems like some people just never learn.

I recall a story from high school where a young person cheated on a test, and they were the president of the National Honor Society at school. It is a group that requires not only academic success and commitment to service, but also a dedication to academic integrity. The student was removed from the Honor Society. Major League Baseball players who were suspected of steroid or performance-enhancing drug use have been left out of the Baseball Hall of Fame. I am sure we can think of other situations or moments in time when a failure in honesty and integrity cost someone something important.

One of the interesting words in this text is the word for “endure.” In Hebrew, it is kayam, which indicates a sense of groundedness and being established firmly. Modern Orthodox Rabbi and scholar Yitz Greenberg, quoting Robert Cover, a Yale Law professor, interprets the word endures or sustained as continuing to exist, and that the world is upheld by the three principles of justice, truth, and peace. He explains that these three principles are central to the preservation of the post-Destruction Jewish community. He adds that the values paramount to building a new world are different from those required for ensuring the continuity of an ongoing communal life.

We are living in a time where we are searching for truths. As Jews, we once again feel alone in the world as information out of Gaza spreads from once reliable and trusted sources. As truth-seekers, we hope to build educated opinions based on facts and truth.

Several weeks ago, we recall several photos spreading around the world of children in Gaza who were emaciated. Those images evoked global outrage about the hunger situation in Gaza. Within 24 hours, information started to spread that these images and the news stories were incomplete. You may recall that one image shared by The New York Times was a cropped photo. What was cut out from the picture was the image of the child’s older, healthy-looking brother. Omitted from the story was information that this young child also suffered from a preexisting condition like cerebral palsy.

The editors of The Free Press subsequently did a deeper investigation to uncover additional facts about 12 images that were spread by media sources throughout the world. The response from those they critiqued varied. They were clear to share that their reporting was not intended to question the dire humanitarian situation. They acknowledged there is real hunger, but they were extremely concerned about the current state of journalism and the ease with which a journalist can write and share a bias that ultimately shapes people’s opinions into believing a narrative that is not necessarily truthful.

The Free Press wrote an editorial entitled “Journalists Against Journalism”, where they wrote:

You’ll notice one important aspect about the uproar: No one is disputing the facts in our piece. Instead, they take issue with the facts we have exposed. They take issue with curiosity that points in the wrong political direction.
This story—like all of our reporting—does not deny that there is hunger in Gaza. Their situations—and those of the people in these 12 images—are tragic enough, as is the horror of the war itself.
But the panic over our investigation is not sincere—it is strategic. They think if they can make an example out of our reporters, no one will dare ask uncomfortable questions. Questions like: If there is a deliberate campaign of starvation, why did our reporters find that many of these children are receiving medical care, and some of them have already been airlifted out of Gaza to seek treatment with Israel’s help? If these images are representative of the average Gazan, then why were our reporters able to find complicated backstories behind the first dozen images they investigated? And if these critics are such accuracy hawks, why do they take issue with adding basic context to news stories?

If we cannot rely on our journalists for truth, and they are not asking the critical questions, where does that leave us? I recall reading reports from CNN and other news agencies in the past using language that says, “This person is reporting X, but we cannot verify that X happened.” Journalism relies on verification from trusted and reliable sources.

The world has now been trapped by the Hamas propaganda machine that is shaping our minds. When we read information about Israel, how can we respond? What is the information we might come to trust? When I read news, my first reaction is to wait and not judge. One of my colleagues recently suggested that we give Israel the benefit of the doubt when something happens. That can be hard to do because we have such high expectations of Israel.

There is a deeper question I want to ask today: How can we respond when we read or see something? We might want to respond internally that it is in fact true. I recall from the very first seminar that we offered to public school teachers in Holocaust education, one of the workshops focused on identifying and understanding propaganda. We looked at photos and were taught to think about several questions: Who are the people in the photo? What are they doing? Who is taking the photo? What is their purpose in taking the photo?

News stories and photographs are literally snapshots of a moment in time that often do not capture the full essence of what they depict because words and images are finite. Sermons are too. There is often a story behind the image and an intent by the image-taker. As readers of news and students of history, can we be taught to question and understand when to question? By questioning, we open our hearts to alternate possibilities.

The Rabbis offered a teaching that may resonate. In the Tosefta, a Jewish legal text similar to the Mishnah, it suggests: “Make for yourself a heart of many rooms, and enter into it the words of Beit Shammai and the words of Beit Hillel, the words of those who declare a matter impure and those who declare it pure.” A heart of many rooms is a powerful image that invites us to hold many opinions in one vessel, inviting us to discern one matter from the next. If we are asked to hold both the teachings of Hillel and Shammai together, what can we do? The invitation is to think about their responses and discern the truth—that can be an incredibly challenging journey to take.

The Book of Deuteronomy and the Rabbis that followed in the Talmud and the Mishnah help us recognize the value of being honest. If we cannot rely on others to be honest, then we have to do our best to discern the truth. May we have the courage to ask questions and look for multiple sources that allow us to discern judgment, capture a fuller story, and seek the truth.

Kein yehi ratzon.