Month: October 2026

“Oh My Aching Back!”

Growing older may bring its share of aches and pains, but it also invites us to discover deeper meaning, embrace new possibilities, and appreciate the blessings of each day.

My cousins from Connecticut are visiting me in Chattanooga this week, and we are spending a few days together in Nashville as well. My cousin and I have always been exceptionally close, more like sisters, and having them here has been an extraordinary gift. There is something irreplaceable about spending time with family, sharing stories, laughing together, and enjoying one another’s company.

All three of us lead active lives. We exercise, try to eat well, and care for our health. My cousins are retired, and I am approaching that chapter myself. We still have plenty of energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity, though our bodies occasionally have other ideas!

Nearly every day, one of us remarks something along the lines of: “Oh, my aching back!” or suggests, “Perhaps we should rest before dinner.” Activities that once seemed effortless may now require more time, patience, and perhaps an afternoon nap.

We laugh about it, but beneath the laughter is a recognition that growing older brings both blessings and challenges. Our bodies carry the experiences of decades of living, working, raising a family, traveling, celebrating, and enduring difficulties. They remind us that time has passed, even when our spirits feel youthful.

Rabbi Richard Address, founder of Jewish Sacred Aging, explores the spiritual dimensions of growing older. In his essay The Courage to Flourish (February 25, 2026), he writes, “Judaism teaches us that as long as we live, we seek meaning and our place in this world.”

This week’s Torah portion, Noach, offers a compelling illustration of this enduring search for meaning and purpose. Noah is 600 years old when the Flood begins (Genesis 7:6). Whatever we make of the extraordinary ages recorded in the Torah, the message is striking: Noah’s age does not diminish his responsibility or capacity to act. At an advanced age, he becomes central to the possibility of a new beginning.

Our opportunities to contribute, discover, learn, and begin anew do not disappear as we grow older. Our roles may evolve, our priorities may shift, and our bodies may require greater care, but our capacity to live meaningful and purposeful lives remains. Perhaps this is why Jewish tradition invites us to begin each morning with gratitude, recognizing that every new day brings possibilities, regardless of our age.

Two of our morning blessings, for example, take on deeper meaning as we grow older. In Modeh Ani, we thank God for restoring our souls and granting us another day. Asher Yatzar, allows us to express gratitude for the remarkable functioning of our very human body. As we age, we become more conscious of abilities we once took for granted and more appreciative of the extraordinary gift of another day in which to live, love, and contribute.

Yet, the Jewish understanding of aging extends beyond our individual experiences. It also speaks to how we honor and care for one another. The Torah teaches, “You shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old; you shall fear your God: I am the Eternal” (Leviticus 19:32). For younger generations, this means recognizing the wisdom and experience of those who preceded them. For those caring for aging loved ones, it means offering compassion and assistance while honoring their dignity and independence.

We also recognize that not everyone experiences aging with good health, financial security, or the comfort of close family relationships. Illness, loneliness, and loss can make later years particularly difficult. As a sacred community, we have a responsibility to ensure that every person, regardless of age or circumstance, continues to feel valued, connected, and supported.

Spending these precious days with my cousins has reminded me that growing older is not simply about acknowledging our limitations. It is about recognizing what truly matters. We may navigate stairs more cautiously than we once did, become more discerning about how much we fit into each day, and recognize the importance of rest. Yet, we are so fortunate and blessed to have another day to explore, another meal to share, another story to tell, and people we love with whom to share the journey.

Perhaps that is one of the gifts of growing older: learning to measure the richness of our lives not by how much we accomplish in a day, but by the meaning we find in the moments we are given.

When we awaken tomorrow morning, may we greet the day with the gratitude of Modeh Ani, mindful not only of the gift of another day, but of the opportunity to make that day a blessing.

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Sharon L. Sobel

The Courage to Create Light in the Darkness

We cannot always dispel the darkness around us. Yet even in the face of unimaginable horror, we can summon the courage and resilience to create light, affirm hope, and choose life. A reflection on October 7.

This past Wednesday, we marked the third anniversary of October 7, 2023, one of the darkest days in Israel’s history. It has been three years since Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, murdering approximately 1,200 people, taking 251 hostage, and shattering countless lives.

Three years later, the wounds remain profound. Families continue to mourn. Survivors carry memories that will never disappear. Entire communities are struggling to rebuild. Beyond Israel, Jewish communities face an alarming resurgence of antisemitism, fueled by rhetoric that distorts history, minimizes Jewish suffering, and increasingly normalizes hostility, intimidation, and violence against Jews.

Yet amid this grief and uncertainty, something extraordinary endures: the determination of Israelis and Jews throughout the world not to allow tragedy and hatred to define our future.

We see that resilience in Israelis returning to devastated communities, in survivors finding the courage to embrace life despite unimaginable loss, and in Jewish communities that continue to gather, celebrate, educate their children, and affirm their identities, even when doing so requires greater vigilance and courage.

Resilience does not mean that suffering has ended or that wounds have healed. It means refusing to surrender the possibility of a future to the devastation of the past.

This week, as we begin reading the Torah anew with Parashat B’reishit, we encounter a remarkable insight into the nature of hope. The Torah opens not with a world of beauty and perfection, but with darkness and chaos:

“The earth was unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water.” (Genesis 1:2).

Then God speaks:

יְהִי אוֹר. וַיְהִי אוֹר. Y’hi or. Vay’hi or. “Let there be light. And there was light.” (Genesis 1:3).

Creation begins in darkness. God does not eliminate the darkness, but separates the light from it, allowing both to become part of the created world. Perhaps there is a profound lesson here: the presence of darkness does not negate the possibility of light. Grief and hope can coexist. We need not wait for suffering to end before finding the courage to create something meaningful in its midst.

This is one of the most important lessons of B’reishit. Hope is not the naïve expectation that suffering will somehow be undone or that tomorrow will necessarily be better than today. Hope requires something far more demanding. It asks us to acknowledge the world as it is, with all its brokenness, and still believe that we have a responsibility to shape what it might become.

Our Jewish history bears witness to that conviction. Across centuries of persecution, displacement, and destruction, our ancestors did more than survive. They created communities, built institutions, preserved learning, nurtured families, lived life fully and completely while passing their traditions and values from one generation to the next. Their hope was expressed not simply in what they believed, but in what they continued to build.

Today, that same spirit is evident throughout Israel and the Jewish world. Survivors of October 7 are finding the courage to move forward, families are rebuilding their communities, and Jews throughout the world continue to embrace their identities openly and proudly, even in the face of growing hostility. They refuse to allow fear and hatred to determine how they live their lives.

They are creating light while darkness still exists.

We cannot undo October 7 or restore the lives that were stolen. Nor should we allow the suffering of others to diminish our own grief, or our grief to diminish our concern for the humanity of others.

What we can do is refuse to become indifferent. We can confront hatred, challenge falsehoods, strengthen our communities, and ensure that our words and actions reflect the values we seek to preserve.

The message of B’reishit is that creation is not simply an event in the distant past. It is a sacred responsibility entrusted to each of us. Three years after October 7, the future of the Jewish people will be shaped not only by what we have endured, but by what we choose to create in its aftermath.

The courage of the Jewish people has never rested on the certainty that darkness will disappear, but on our determination to create light even when darkness remains.

Y’hi or. Let there be light.

May we have the courage to follow God’s example, becoming creators of light even in the midst of darkness.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Sharon L. Sobel

Pardon, Your Bias is Showing

The words we choose reveal what we see, what we overlook, and sometimes, the biases we would rather keep hidden.

This past Wednesday, I met with a reporter from a local newspaper who wanted to get to know me better since I am new to Chattanooga. This was not intended to be an interview. The paper had recently changed ownership, staffing responsibilities had been realigned, and the reporter was getting a feel for a new assignment. The reporter also attended one of our High Holy Day worship services.

We spoke about my background. I shared my deep love for Israel, the two years I lived there, my time as Executive Director of ARZA Canada, and my many visits over the years.

Then, warmly and conversationally, the reporter responded with something to the effect of, “Oh yes, I can see you care deeply about Palestine.”

The choice of the word “Palestine” did not strike me as incidental. I had been speaking specifically about Israel, about my relationship with Israel and about my years of involvement with Israel. Substituting a different word seemed to communicate a perspective without actually inviting a conversation about it.

I chose not to engage.

Not because I was unwilling to defend my convictions. There are moments when speaking forcefully is necessary. There are also moments when the more effective choice is to listen, to observe and to understand the person sitting across from us. If my goal is ultimately to build relationships that make honest conversation possible, I do not have to respond to every provocation in the moment it occurs.

Still, I noticed.

Bias is not always announced loudly. Sometimes it reveals itself quietly, through a word chosen, a word omitted, a fact emphasized or a fact pushed to the margins. Journalism aspires to fairness, accuracy and context, yet journalists, like all of us, bring perspectives and assumptions to the stories they tell. That is precisely why words, context and editorial choices matter so much.

Later that same day, a terrifying event unfolded aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv. The co-pilot attacked and stabbed the captain, and the aircraft plunged nearly 14,000 feet in less than thirty seconds. Despite his injuries, Captain Smit Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to intervene and overpower the attacker. Other pilots traveling aboard the flight then took control of the aircraft and landed it safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. The flight was carrying 174 people, many of them Israelis.

The motive remains under investigation. What does not require speculation is the extraordinary courage displayed aboard that aircraft. A gravely injured captain, crew members, passengers and fellow pilots who acted with remarkable presence of mind and bravery and prevented what might otherwise have been a catastrophe.

How did The New York Times initially describe what had happened?

Its headline read: “Flight to Israel Is Diverted After Pilots Clash in Cockpit.”

My friend and colleague Rabbi Asher Gottesfeld Knight, Senior Rabbi of Temple Beth El in Charlotte, North Carolina, expressed the problem powerfully:

There is a peculiar magic trick that certain news outlets use when talking about attacks against Israelis. A co-pilot allegedly stabs the captain of an airplane. The plane begins to fall out of the sky. Passengers force their way into the cockpit and subdue him. Most of the passengers are Israeli. And at The New York Times, all of this emerges as: “Pilots clash in cockpit.”

A clash.

A remarkable little word. There is no attacker in a clash. No wounded captain. No knife. Two forces simply meet somewhere in the cockpit of a plane, each with roughly equal claim upon the verb. Perhaps the knife clashed with the captain. Perhaps the airplane clashed with gravity.

Sure, one could argue: “We do not yet know the motive. We should be careful about what we do not know.”

Consider what we do know. The co-pilot stabbed the captain and tried to crash a plane of Israelis. The aircraft plunged nearly 14,000 feet. The Israeli passengers broke into the cockpit and restrained him and thankfully the plane landed safely.

More than 170 Israelis were aboard the flight. Does that matter?

This has become painfully familiar in The New York Times and other outlets too. Violence becomes an incident. An attacker becomes a participant. Eventually nobody has done anything but “clashed.” Beneath that lovely, bloodless word, a wounded pilot and more than 170 terrified people wondering whether they are about to die.

Let’s be real.

Words teach people what to notice. They also encourage people to overlook important facts. Not much news in a “clash.”

So yes, let’s talk about motive and learn more about what happened. But treating the identity of more than 170 Israeli passengers as incidental requires its own kind of blindness and is an abdication of basic editorial responsibility. It certainly looks like and feels like a form of complicity in the erasure of the facts.

Earlier that day, a reporter’s choice of the word “Palestine” caught my attention. Hours later, I found myself thinking about the words chosen to describe what happened aboard this flight.

The two situations are not remotely equivalent in gravity. 

One was an uncomfortable conversation; the other was an act of violence that endangered the lives of everyone aboard an aircraft. I place them alongside one another only because encountering them on the same day caused me to reflect on a common thread: words are never merely words.

The words we choose reveal something about what we see. The words we omit can determine what others fail to see. A single word can frame an entire story before the story has even been told.

That lesson feels especially resonant as we prepare to celebrate Sh’mini Atzeret and Simchat Torah this weekend.

On Simchat Torah, we reach the final words of Deuteronomy and immediately return to the opening words of Genesis:

“B’reishit bara Elohim – In the beginning, God created…”

What happens next is remarkable. God creates the world through language: “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3)

Again and again, creation unfolds through speech: “And God said…” God speaks and a whole universe unfolds. Extraordinary!

Our tradition begins by teaching us that words have the power to create. Words can illuminate. Words can obscure. Words can reveal truth, and words can distort it. Words can build relationships, and words can destroy them. Words can make visible those whom others would rather render invisible.

The Jewish people calls ourselves Am HaSefer, the People of the Book. That identity carries with it a particular responsibility to take words seriously.

On Simchat Torah, we do something else that I find profoundly meaningful. We reach the end of Torah and immediately begin again. We do not assume that because we have read these words before, we already understand everything they have to teach us. We return to the beginning and read them again, hopefully with different eyes, different life experiences, deeper understanding and a willingness to notice what we may have missed the first time.

That may be an important lesson for all of us.

None of us is free of bias. Not reporters. Not rabbis. Not editors. Not readers. The challenge is not to pretend that we approach the world without assumptions. The challenge is to recognize our assumptions, interrogate them, and refuse to allow them to obscure what is actually before us.

As we roll the Torah back to B’reishit and begin once again, may we listen more carefully to the words we hear. May we choose more carefully the words we speak. May we have the courage to notice when language illuminates truth and when it conceals it.

Because B’reishit reminds us that words do more than describe the world.

Words help create the world in which we live.

May we choose ours wisely.

Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Sharon L. Sobel