Parashat Sh’lach L’cha 5786: No Day But Today” Rabbi Oberstein’s 6/12/26 Qabbalat Shabbat Sermon

Rabbi Andrew Oberstein | Qabbalat Shabbat, June 12, 2026 | Temple Israel of Boston | Riverway Project

View the video recording of Rabbi Oberstein’s sermon

Parashat Sh’lach L’cha 5786: No Day But Today

Because it’s Pride Shabbat, 

I want to begin by asking: 

did you catch the Tonys this week?

It won’t surprise you that I never miss a Tonys broadcast. 

And despite what was, 

in my opinion, 

a fairly mediocre theater season, 

I thought the show itself was phenomenal.

I especially loved the time set aside to honor the 30th anniversary of the Chicago revival, 

the 50th anniversary of A Chorus Line, 

and Leslie Odom Jr. leading the In Memoriam segment with a tribute to the 30th anniversary of RENT.

His performance of “Without You” hit me like a punch to the stomach. 

Not only because the song is so beautiful, 

but because of the memories it stirred up.

Memories of the summer of 1997. 

Sublime and Green Day blasting from the shared boom box in my camp cabin while I curled up in my bunk with my Discman, 

playing the RENT original cast recording on a loop.

*****

For a certain generation of queer people, that show was a revelation.

I’m sure I’m far from the only gay man my age whose senior yearbook quote was lifted straight from Jonathan Larson:

Forget Regret or Life is Yours to Miss

No Other Road

No Other Way

No Day But Today

*****

At seventeen, 

those words felt easier than they do now.

The lines that come right before them,

“There is no future

There is no past

I live this moment as my last.”

are so aspirational. 

And so different from how most of us actually live.

Because as human beings, 

and certainly as Jews,

we place enormous weight on the past.

Memory works its way into the core of how we understand ourselves.

We tell our story again and again, 

forwards and backwards, 

retracing our ancestors’ steps every single day.

As the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks taught: 

“Nations need identity. 

Identity needs memory. 

And memory depends on the story we tell ourselves and our children as to who we are. 

If you preserve that memory forever, 

[he teaches], 

you will preserve that people forever.”

*****

And as human beings, 

and certainly as Jews,

we place enormous weight on the future, 

too.

We plant trees so that descendants we will never meet will have fruit to eat. 

We end our seders with “Next Year in Jerusalem.” 

We pray for the day that is coming, 

bimheirah v’yameinu, 

speedily and in our days.

If “there is no future, [and] there is no past,” there is no Judaism.

*****

And yet, 

we are also a people obsessed with the present.

Our signature act is the blessing:

a deliberate pause before we do almost anything.

Sacred things, 

like kindling Shabbat candles or wrapping ourselves in a tallit.

Ordinary things, 

like eating a sandwich.

We are commanded to stay awake to the moment we are actually in.

“No Day But Today.”

*****

This week’s Torah portion, 

Sh’lach L’cha, 

hands the Israelites a life-or-death decision rooted in exactly this question: 

are we governed by the past, 

the future, 

or the present?

After years in the wilderness, 

the people are so close to the Promised Land they can taste it.

God tells Moses to send twelve scouts across the border to survey the land and report back.

Many of you know what happens next.

Ten of the twelve come back with a devastating report: 

we’ll never conquer this land. 

It’s full of giants. 

The land devours its own people. 

Next to them, 

we looked like grasshoppers. 

Only Caleb and Joshua believed the people could persevere.

*****

Now here is the part I want to sit with. 

It would be easy to say that Caleb and Joshua were the two who “lived in the present” while everyone else got lost in the past and future. 

But that’s not quite it, 

and I don’t think Judaism would let me get away with it.

We are not a “forget the past, 

who-knows-the-future, 

seize the day” people.

Memory and hope are the air we breathe.

*****

So look more closely. 

Caleb and Joshua stood in the same wilderness, 

carried the same history of oppression, 

and faced the same uncertain future as everyone else. 

They were not braver because they forgot where they came from, 

or because they were somehow sure of how it would end. 

They were braver because they refused to let the past and the future blind them to what was actually in front of them: 

a land genuinely flowing with milk and honey, 

fruit so heavy it took two of them to carry it out.

*****

The other ten couldn’t see it. 

Their past, 

generations of degradation, 

told them they were grasshoppers. 

Their fear of the future told them they were already defeated. 

And so they missed the present entirely. 

The good land was right there, 

and they could not see it. 

That was their downfall. 

God decides it will take one more generation, 

one no longer shackled to the memory of enslavement, 

before this people can move forward.

*****

The story is devastating. 

It’s also a warning. 

And it’s a warning for every one of us, 

because we all know that trap:

letting an old wound, 

or a fear of what’s coming, 

blot out something good that is sitting right in front of us.

This Pride Month, 

I pray we won’t let it be our warning, 

either.

I think LGBTQ people, 

especially, 

can see ourselves in this story. 

Like the Israelites, 

we carry real collective wounds from the past, 

and those wounds can make the future feel frightening. 

That fear isn’t irrational. 

But the scouts remind us what fear costs: 

it can blind us to the good that is right here, 

right now.

And tonight, 

there is so much good right here.

*****

To the LGBTQ people in this room: 

whatever your life looks like outside these walls, 

in here, 

in this moment, 

you are seen, 

you are loved, 

and your joy is entirely your own. 

No one here can take that from you. 

And if you are not with us in body tonight, 

then wherever you are, 

you are loved, 

and you have a home here.

And this is not a celebration only for the queer people in the room. 

A community that makes space for queer joy, 

that guards it and delights in it, 

is a more whole community, 

a holier community. 

That is something every single one of us gets to be proud of tonight.

That’s where I want to live this Pride month.

We have to tell our stories and remember our past, 

without letting it crush us. 

We have to stay vigilant about the future, 

without letting it steal our present. 

Caleb and Joshua held all three at once. 

That is the whole trick.

*****

When Jonathan Larson wrote:

There’s only now

There’s only here

Give into love

Or live in fear…

I’m fairly sure he wasn’t thinking about twelve Israelite scouts.

But the choice is the same one.

*****

The future is unwritten, 

and the past gives us plenty of reason for caution.

And still, 

on this day, 

on this Pride Shabbat,

what if we let ourselves be fully, 

joyfully here, 

in this very moment?

*****

On this day, 

in this room,

whoever you are, 

I hope you feel loved.

I hope you feel seen.

If there’s no day but today,

then even just for today,

I hope you feel proud.