“What’s Going On?” Rabbi Dan Slipakoff’s 5/23/25 Qabbalat Shabbat Sermon
Rabbi Dan Slipakoff
Qabbalat Shabbat, May 23, 2025
Temple Israel of Boston
I need to begin by thanking everyone for being here tonight.
Onsight online, right now, or rewatching later.
It is a very challenging time to show up in a Jewish space.
And your act of courage, community, and seeking
makes us who we are.
We are here, because you are here.
Yesterday was awful.
This late season nor’easter was cruelly befitting the energy of the day
Really much of the week has felt like a gathering storm,
Not just the weather, but politically and emotionally.
I had not seen the news of the DC shooting on Wednesday night,
it was the first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning.
The clouds burst open, the storm was here
Yesterday morning I dropped both of my children off at school,
their Jewish schools
And probably squeezed them a little too tight
I was the first one in the clergy suite here at TI,
which was dark and gloomy when I entered it.
I sat at my desk, knowing I had to write this sermon.
It’s hard to compose your words, before you compose yourself.
I needed comfort
I found it in two places
The writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s
“Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity”
And the music of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”
The album and the essays, both responding to the War in Vietnam.
I got to track 2 before I started weeping in my office.
That track is entitled “What’s Happening Brother?”
The second track in a row that asks the soulfully sincere question: How are you?
How are you? In this absolute mess of a world?
There are no concrete solutions to the unrest of the time
Instead these songs focus on empathy, emotional honesty,
and a longing for connection as a form of healing.
And from the depths of that pain, rises prayer
Father, father
We don’t need to escalate
War is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today
I looked into this musical mirror yesterday
And felt seen.
This was not a time for me to philosophize or politicize
About the cold hearted murder in DC
A heinous act of terror that brings no one closer to liberation,
This was a time to mourn the young lives lost,
And to sit in the worries of the aftermath,
as our world took one deplorable step closer to the brink
What’s Going On?
It was a good cry.
I could have stayed in that safe sad space all day
But Heschel had other ideas…
I frequently say that you can’t say it better than Heschel says it himself:
And so I quote:
It became quite clear to me that while our eyes are witness to the callousness and cruelty of man, our heart tries to obliterate the memories, to calm the nerves, and to silence our conscience.
In a world where our eyes are bleary from the onslaught of information
Our hearts sometimes pull us back, make us go numb
Recoil as a way of self protection from emotional exhaustion
Yes. Of course. We sometimes need to retreat.
AND he also reminds us that, quote
“Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings”
And so I turned back to the news of the world, eyes strained but opened.
More Heschel…
OUR LIFE IS BESET with difficulties, yet it is never devoid of meaning.
The feeling of futility is absent from our souls.
There is a divine earnestness about our life. This is our dignity.
To be invested with dignity means
to represent something more than oneself.
The gravest sin for a Jew is to forget what he represents.
To me, the Israeli government has forgotten what they represent.
This is to say nothing of who they represent
As more and more citizens prioritize the safe return of the hostages above all else,
As they Beg, Plead, and Protest for an end to war.
Rather, I fear the decision makers have forgotten their moral core.
They have forgotten the vision of
Theordore Herzl and Martin Buber and David Hartman
Of what Israel could be. A light unto the nations, a ethical north star
That (in Heschel’s words:)
In order to be a people, we have to be more than a people
In order to be a nation we have to be more than a nation.
God said of Abraham:
“I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of God by doing what is just and right”
This occurs as God is planning to wipe out Sodom,
but God checks with Abraham first
And Abraham tries to stop God!
Challenging the Almighty,
“Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?”
I hold Israel to a higher standard,
From one Abraham to another.
This is what a Jew represents:
Judaism is a system in which human relations rest upon two basic ideas:
the idea of human rights and the idea of human obligations.
From these foundations flow the values that we need to reemphasize today
chesed—loving kindness extended without expectation;
tzedek—justice pursued with courage and compassion;
and tikvah—hope that dares to imagine a world redeemed.
Marvin Gaye would chime in:
And all God asks of us
Is we give each other love.
It is said that on Shabbat we receive a second soul
Not just to rest, but to feel more deeply.
This Shabbat, embrace your additional space—
to feel and to sit with discomfort,
to make room for joy,
Find that razor’s edge where sadness and beauty meet,
where a word or a melody brings tears because it speaks to you just right.
And if that second soul grants you even more spaciousness,
make room for someone else—
For their pain, for their joy, for their presence.
That, will make us more than a people.
That will make us holy.
That is what we represent.