“Eikev – It’s the End of Summer and That’s Emotionally Uncomfortable” Rabbi Suzie Jacobson’s Qabbalat Shabbat Sermon, 8/15/25
Rabbi Suzie Jacobson
Qabbalat Shabbat, August 15, 2025
Temple Israel of Boston
We are smack in the middle of August. It’s still hot, flowers are still blooming, beaches are still packed, and my family is preparing for vacation next week. Undeniably—this is summer.
And yet, in the last few days I’ve felt the shift—camps are ending, school starts in two weeks, college students are returning, and we’re about five weeks from Rosh Hashanah.
No matter our age, stage, or faith tradition, we tend to see September as a new year. Which makes this a moment of transition. The season hasn’t changed… yet. But it will. And this year I’m especially aware of how emotionally uncomfortable it can be to hold so many realities at once.
We take these long, warm days as a time for rest, rejuvenation, and quality moments with friends and family. Summer invites us to put things down—to look away from anxiety and complexity so we can heal. And it’s much easier to put things down than to pick them up again.
But there is much to pick up: busier schedules, the return to routine, a season of introspection and focus on our faults… and a world, literally and metaphorically, on fire—here and in Israel.
A colleague told me her 3-year-old is melting down nightly. After weeks of late-night swims, ice cream past bedtime, and looser schedules, her child is a mess. Not fun for the parents—but at least it’s honest.
This week I’ve met with stressed parents worrying about their kids, a 25-year-old who left her job only to have her fellowship canceled, and several people losing sleep over fears about the future of gay marriage, troops in the streets of DC, or war and hunger in Gaza. And each of them is also preparing for one last summer getaway.
It wasn’t the advice I gave at the time, but I bet each would feel better if they allowed themselves to have a full on toddler meltdown. Or maybe a good cry?
The end of the summer – this transition from ease to responsibility, from distraction to awareness – is emotionally uncomfortable. I’m there too! Preach what ya know.
There are plans to make, conversations to have, realities to face, questions to ask, lessons to learn. We’ll do it—individually and as a community. But in these waning weeks of summer, we’ve only just begun to notice the mountain ahead, and it’s daunting.
This week in Torah, the Israelites are on the edge of a monumental transition. After forty years in the wilderness, they are about to enter the land, build their society, and face the peoples already living there.
Speaking in the voice of the Deuteronomistic view of history, Moses plays the role of threatening parent, warning that if they obey God and Torah they will be blessed; if not, they will be cursed. I find this part of Deuteronomy less than inspiring. Most of us know there are countless factors—economic, cultural, political, technological—that shape military victory or defeat, famine or plenty.
But the portion also offers a more complex, seemingly contradictory teaching that feels especially relevant now.
As the Israelites stand on the precipice of great change, and prepare to meet their new neighbors, God teaches them two contradictory things:
First, God warns the people that the peoples of the land are violent, even dangerous and God prepares them for conflict and war.
And then, Israel is reminded that (Deut 10:17,19) “Adonai your God… is not partial and takes no bribe, [God] executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing… Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
As Professor Adele Reinhartz teaches: “These two views may express a before-and-after perspective: hostility reflects the process of settling a land that was already occupied by other peoples; the imperative to love the stranger reflects the ethical stance of a sovereign nation. For modern readers, however, they sit uncomfortably together in the same Torah portion.”
The contradictions don’t end there. God also describes their own contradictory relationship with Israel.
God calls Israel “a stubborn people” who provoked God’s wrath repeatedly (Deut. 9:6). Moses retells the story of the golden calf and the broken tablets—two of Israel’s greatest mistakes. For forty years, they have carried those broken tablets, the literal weight of their failings, into the new land.
And yet—God loves them. God reminds them of the covenant: “God will love you, bless you, and multiply you; God will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground.” (Deut. 7:12)
It’s tempting to smooth contradictions in life and Torah, but we shouldn’t. There is power in complexity. The ancient Israelites were trying to understand their place in the world. Deuteronomy, written over centuries during the First Temple period, reflects a people surrounded by nations both more and less powerful. A people struggling to define a countercultural, monotheistic God full of love, jealousy, protection, anger, pride and disappointment.
Contradictions are not always mutually exclusive. We can know that there are dangers in the world, people who wish to hurt us, conflicts that are hard to avoid. We can also believe there is kindness to be found and cultivated. We can recognize our power and also feel the immense moral responsibility it carries.
Similarly, our spiritual lives are never simple. We can feel loved and part of a great whole while also feeling lonely and adrift.
As the Israelites prepare to move from nomadic refugees to an established nation, they need an honest reckoning with the complexity ahead—not platitudes or empty promises.
We feel so much this time of year because we, too, face the complexity of daunting personal, communal, and moral challenges. Like our ancestors, we carry hope and dread, power and powerlessness, love and fear.
We don’t need to smooth our own contradictions. We don’t have to pretend late August is fun. It’s ok to sit in emotional discomfort.
So—let’s have one more beach day. Let’s spend time with loved ones in the sunshine. Let’s laugh… or cry… and trust that we have deep spiritual and moral resources to meet this new season together.