Doesn’t everyone just love the word sin? I know I don’t. Sin is a loaded word. I find it intimidating, scary, and perhaps a little bit shameful. It is uncomfortable to consider all the ways I fail those I care about and contribute to the brokenness of our world. However, just because something is uncomfortable doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth doing. After all, how can I improve myself if I can’t take an honest look (at least once a year) at all the ways in which I fall short?

Every year I remind y’all that Yom Kippur is a day of forgiveness for our communal sins. If we have harmed another person directly, we should apologize to that person directly and work to repair the relationship. On Yom Kippur we confess the collective sins of the Jewish people, hoping, praying, and trusting that God will forgive us and accept us back in love.

The two main prayers of confession are – “We Are Guilty” and  – “For Our Sin” As it happens, we may not have committed many of the sins mentioned in these prayers. We also may not consider many of the actions we’re confessing to be sinful – our culture is very different from that of the ancient world. However, some categories of sin – such as speech-based sin – are still relevant today. The ancient rabbis understood just as we do that speech can be one of the most potent and harmful forms of sinning out there.

The prayer Ashamnu has 22 phrases, each corresponding to a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is an alphabetized catalog of sins. I count 5 explicit instances of speech-based sinning: dibbarnu dofi – we’ve spoken slander; tafalnu sheqer – we’ve spoken lie after lie; ya’atznu ra’ – we’ve advised wrongly (or advised evil); kizavnu – we’ve deceived; and latznu – we’ve mocked. If you include other phrases that could apply to speech acts, such as angering, rebelling, betraying, causing others to sin or become evil, sinning deliberately or sinning carelessly, committing abominations, making errors, or just being guilty in general, that’s at least 9 more. Whether explicit or implicit, most of the sins in Ashamnu can describe speech. This is an extraordinary number.

A similar focus on speech occurs in the prayer Al Cheit. We have sinned through: bittui s’fatayim – utterance of the lips; dibbur peh – using (or misusing) our mouths; viddui peh – only confessing verbally when actions of repentance are required (we might call this a “lip service” confession); tifshut peh – foolish talk; tum’at s’fatayim – impurity of the lips; kachash uvkhazav – false denial and false promise; lashon hara’ – evil talk (or slander); latzon – scoffing; siach sif’teinu – prattle of our lips; rechilut – gossiping; shevuat shav’ – swearing in vain. Like the Ashamnu prayer, Al Cheit mentions many other kinds of actions that can be applied to speech more broadly.

I don’t know about you, but I find this list of speech-based sins absolutely overwhelming. I have gossiped, scoffed, lied, deceived, and spoken badly of someone not just in the past year, but probably also this past week. I don’t even know how to track the full impact of my speech-based sin: often it is not directed against someone but contributes to a negative culture more broadly.

I think the rabbis were onto something when they lifted up speech-based sin as both extremely harmful and extremely hard to avoid. And the rabbis lived long before social media…. Nowadays, many speech-based sins aren’t even directly attributable to humans – the AI bots have learned from us how to sin with words! They’re having entire conversations without us!

So why does this matter? Let me tell you one place where I see the most harmful effects of sinful speech impacting the Jewish people and our campus today.

Three years ago when I first learned about October 7th, I was horrified. I had lived in Israel for two and a half years and thought of the many friends I still had there. Were they okay? Were their families okay? As a rabbi and a chaplain, the most pressing work right after October 7th was listening to y’all students talk about how Oct 7th impacted you personally. For so many of us here tonight, when we speak about Israel, we’re not talking about some abstract, far away other:  we’re talking about family and friends – people near and dear to our hearts.

As I listened to students share after October 7th, it quickly became clear to me that there was a second emotional crisis unfolding: the repeated fracturing of friendships, many of which were caused or exacerbated by social media. I repeatedly heard from students who identified as Zionists that they wanted others to know they didn’t want Palestinian civilians to suffer. And I heard from several pro-Palestinian students (Jewish and non-Jewish alike) that they wanted to express their criticisms of the government of the state of Israel without being antisemitic. Many of them approached me for advice on how to do so.

If we only took our cues from social media or just the media landscape more broadly, we might think that we can either support Israelis OR Palestinians, that we could either support the return of the hostages OR work to safeguard Palestinian civilian lives, or that we need to choose between supporting a Jewish, democratic state OR the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. I don’t believe that we have to make these choices. Our minds are big enough to hold two ideas simultaneously and our hearts are big enough to care for the whole world.

Another error of social media is that it creates an echo chamber that encourages us to be in relationship only with people who agree with us. Social media encourages a latent human tendency to demonize those who are different. Somehow, engaging with people who hold different views than you do has come to be a thing we should do, rather than a thing we get to do. Yes, conversations highlighting differences of opinion can sometimes be uncomfortable and even downright excruciating. But they can also be generative and even delightful. After all, how would we ever learn anything if we only ever heard opinions we agree with? How would we grow?

When we can engage with others who hold different views than we do from a place of mutual respect and curiosity, our conversations and communities become elevated. Engaging with different voices helps us to develop empathy and wisdom. When we can approach these conversations from a place of psychological and physiological safety, they can broaden our minds and open our hearts. We can learn and we can grow. I cannot tell you how many times my own thinking on various topics has become far sharper when I have engaged with those I disagree with. I also cannot tell you the number of times I have been surprised and touched by someone else’s story. Hearing differing perspectives – when practiced in an atmosphere of mutual respect and safety – is a gift.

If I had to pick one of the biggest communal sins of the Jewish people from the past several years, it is that we have too often used our words to tear each other apart for having different views on Israel. We have failed to speak respectfully to one another. We have failed to listen. We have failed to honor the good intentions of others. We have failed to see the humanity of the person who disagrees with us, or the deeper universal values at play behind their specific politics. We have failed to see how learning to understand different opinions – including the opinions of those among us who may just want to be Jewish and not think too much about Israel – can strengthen our community. We have failed to create safe spaces to discuss our differences constructively. And we have failed to open our hearts to each other. We have put politics over relationships.

I want to be clear. I do not believe that we caused this situation on our campus. It is a symptom of a much broader, systemic issue facing the global Jewish community today. However, we do have the opportunity to change how we speak to one another on this campus. We can choose to take a different path together.

On Yom Kippur we confess the collective sins of the Jewish people, hoping, praying, and trusting that God will forgive us and accept us back in love. It is an opportunity for a fresh start. My invitation for us all gathered here tonight is that we may also consider what it might mean to confess our collective speech-based sins to each other. My hope is that this confession might break open our hearts so that we can better connect with one another. I pray that we can work together to build a stronger Jewish community, one based on mutual respect and honoring differences, one that elevates each other and our conversations, and one in which all can trust that we will be accepted in love.

Finally, I want to acknowledge that I have used a lot of words to give this message to you! I am sure my own words have been imprecise and imperfect. I pray my message will be received according to the intention with which it is given – to strengthen the Jewish community in love. And if I’ve said anything tonight that resonates with you – whether you agree or disagree, whether you understand or you have no idea what I’m talking about and want to know more, or if you feel unseen or unheard by what I have said – I invite you to reach out. Let’s talk. I am sure that I have something to learn from you. And together we can create a new story about how we talk about Israel together on campus and beyond. To echo the ancient words of the psalmist (adapted from ) yehiyu l’ratzon imrei finu vehigiyon libeinu lefanecha Adonai tzureinu vego’aleinu – may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you Adonai, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Even now when I think of that moment – twenty-five years later – my shoulders become tense and my stomach begins to churn. I feel the emotional echo of that moment in my body. So much history has unfolded in the past twenty-five years, and yet my memories of Sept 11, 2001 still feel real. As many of y’all know, modern psychology teaches us that trauma lives in our bodies, but the body-based nature of memory can still surprise me.

One of the most potent symbols and practices of Rosh Hashanah is the blowing of the shofar. However, because of the rabbinic prohibition on blowing the shofar on Shabbat, this year most traditional communities will wait until the second day to hear the shofar. Rather than experiencing Rosh Hashanah as a day of shofar blowing (Yom HaTru’ah, ), we will experience it as a day of remembering shofar blowing (Zicharon Tru’ah, ).

As anyone who has heard the shofar knows, hearing its blasts constitutes a profound embodied spiritual experience. The shofar represents birth, alarm, victory, and a demanding invitation that we wake up to the reality of our lives. When the shofar is not sounded on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, we feel its absence and we long for its return.

The spiritual invitation of a shofar-less Rosh Hashanah is to lean into memory. Just as we remember traumatic events in our bodies, so too can we remember transcendent moments, such as hearing the shofar. Because we do not have the sound of the shofar to help us direct our attention inward, we must rely on our memories. We must choose to remember so that the shofar – even in its absence – becomes a force for good in our lives.

A shofar-less Rosh Hashanah reminds us that we have choices about what we remember and how we remember it. Memories of trauma may live in our bodies, but so do memories of joy, connection, hope, and resilience. When remembering Sept 11th, 2001, I may always feel an echo of the emotional experience I felt on that day. However, rather than focusing exclusively on my grief, I can expand my awareness to include the gratitude I felt at not having to experience that moment alone. I was with my friend, and we were able to experience that difficult moment together. My heart warms at the memory.

As we move into a new Jewish year, I invite all of us to remember that we have family, friends, and communities that can be with us through hard times. Look around – many of the people in this room may be your friends (or your future friends!). Each of you has the opportunity to experience the ups and downs of college life with each other.

I know that there are many broken and unfinished parts of this world, but I am grateful that we can have partners in this journey called life. And I pray that the memory of all the lives lost on Sept 11th, 2001 may be for a blessing. May their memories inspire us to do the work of building a better future together.

Note: A different version of this piece appeared originally in .

Welcome to Â鶹ĘÓƵ! Welcome first years, welcome back returning students, and welcome families. We are so very glad that you have chosen to be here with us.

This week’s Torah portion (parshah) is called . Ki Teitzei means “when you go out”. In the parshah, this going out refers to war and is immediately followed by laws governing the taking of captives. The parshah then provides an extensive collection of commandments.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that while I imagine that moving into Â鶹ĘÓƵ may have been a rough or challenging experience for many of you, it probably didn’t feel like going to war. At the very least, I hope it did not! However, I imagine that going out from the homes and families you have grown up in has also involved taking care of an extensive list of seemingly unconnected details, just like the parshah.

In looking over these detailed commandments, one struck me as essential to thriving here at Â鶹ĘÓƵ. says “If you see your brother’s [or your fellow’s] donkey or ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it; you must raise it together.”
At first glance, this verse may not appear to be relevant to our lives. I am unaware of any donkeys or oxen present on Â鶹ĘÓƵ’s campus, although if senior administrators know differently, please let me know! [Correction: apparently have been an issue!] However, if you bear with me, I will show you why this verse still matters for us here today.

The Talmud () – an ancient collection of commentary on rabbinic law considered authoritative for traditional observance even today – connects this passage with a similar passage from : “When you see a donkey of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless help raise it.”

According to traditional rabbinic interpretation (), the verse from Exodus commands us to remove undue burdens from animals, even animals belonging to people who hate us. This command shows us that we should alleviate animal suffering whenever possible.

However, the verse from this week’s parsha in Deuteronomy is understood to command us to put a load back onto an animal if its load has fallen off. This verse teaches us that we should not just care for the animal, but also for the owner of the animal, honoring their intentions to build a secure life for themselves. The verse also clarifies that we are meant to put the load back onto the animal with the owner. We are meant to care for the economic success and flourishing of our fellows with our fellows.

So why does this matter? These laws in these verses matter in three ways.

First, many of us live our lives carrying heavy emotional burdens. We are not donkeys or oxen, but college life can sometimes be a lot to bear. If the Torah asks us to alleviate animal suffering, how much more so would it want us to assist each other in relieving our own suffering? We at Jewish Life (Betsy, Boaz, Jay, Sarah, Tal, and myself) want you to know that we are here for you and will be here for you whenever you need us.

Second, college is also a time of growth and opportunity. There are some burdens (such as the responsibilities and privileges of adulthood) you will want to take on! Classes, internships, study abroad, leadership experiences, Greek life, clubs – these are aspects of college life that I know many of you are already excited about! We are also here to help you grow in the ways you want to grow and support your flourishing!

Finally, you may have heard the phrase – all of the Jewish people are responsible for one another. I believe that forming relationships – with mentors and with each other – is the most important part of the college experience. I know that it can sometimes take time to make friends at college and to find your place. It is totally normal to feel anxious about making friends. If you do feel this way, know you’re not alone!

As you and your families adjust your being in college, I hope all of you gathered here today know that you will always have a home with Jewish Life at Â鶹ĘÓƵ. We’re here to help you let go of or manage the burdens you don’t want, take on the burdens you do want, and help you form the relationships with one another that will sustain you through college and beyond. We are so happy that you have chosen to make your home with us. Kol yisrael arevim zeh bazeh. Let us all take care of one another. Shabbat shalom.

The article is titled “Kindness, Compassion, Love, and Generosity at a Time of Mass Killing: The Musar Teachings of Rabbi Amy Eilberg.”

In the article, Claussen analyzes the musar (virtue/character-focused) teachings of Rabbi Amy Eilberg, the first woman ordained as a rabbi within Conservative Judaism. He focuses on how Eilberg’s work has emphasized kindness, compassion, love and generosity and how her writing has developed in response to extreme violence and suffering in Israel/Palestine since Oct. 7, 2023.

Six rising juniors have been named members of the tenth class of Multifaith Scholars, a two-year fellows program for juniors and seniors that offers a closely mentored, experientially rich and intellectually rigorous educational opportunity for students with significant potential.

After a highly selective application and interview process, students are awarded $5,000 annually to support research and study in global contexts connected with religious diversity and multi-religious societies. Students who show great potential as academically curious and socially engaged leaders committed to their own ongoing development and the enhancement of their local and global communities are selected each spring.

“I am delighted to welcome these six impressive rising juniors into the Multifaith Scholars program and look forward to supporting their compelling projects over the next two years,” said Amy Allocco, director of the Multifaith Scholars program. “Their research interests include music and Christian religious experience, linguistic anthropology and the vocabulary of faith, religious diversity in clinical settings, gender and religious roles in Asian art, the intersection of biomedicine and traditional healing practices and the history of Black churches here in Alamance County.”

In addition to pursuing their faculty-mentored undergraduate research projects and undertaking academic coursework in religious studies and interreligious studies, the scholars will extend the program’s ongoing community partnership with the Burlington Masjid. Through the partnership, scholars teach English classes, participate in youth and social events with the local Muslim community, join community garden workdays, volunteer with the food pantry and take part in potlucks and iftar meals during Ramadan.

“It is wonderful to welcome such a strong class with such diverse academic interests,” reflected Brian Pennington, director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society, which supports the Multifaith Scholars program. “As we approach the tenth anniversary of the MFS, it is gratifying to see so many clear signs of the program’s maturity and significance: our largest class ever, the inclusion of seven new faculty mentors, and students majoring in three disciplines never before represented in MFS.”

The 2026-2028 Multifaith Scholars

Addison Anderson

Majors: History, Sociology

Minors: Museum Studies, Public History, and Interreligious Studies

Mentor: Amanda Kleintop (History and Geography)

Project Title: History and Memory of Alamance County’s Black Churches

Proposed Research: Examine the relationship between Alamance County African American churches and local politics in North Carolina from Reconstruction through 1900.

Blair Berenson

Major: Anthropology

Minors: Jewish Studies, Sociology, Philosophy and Interreligious Studies

Mentors: Amy Allocco (Religious Studies) and Devin Proctor (Sociology & Anthropology)

Project Title: An Anthropological Approach to Cross-Generational Shifts in Hindu and Jewish Perspectives of Faith in the US

Proposed Research: Conduct fieldwork in Jewish and Hindu communities in Atlanta to understand how different generations articulate the concept of faith.

Katie Castelo

Major: Biochemistry

Minors: Neuroscience, Spanish, and Interreligious Studies

Mentor: Cathy Quay (Nursing)

Project Title: Bridging Faith and Medicine: Improving Cultural Awareness of Religious Practices in the Healthcare System

Proposed Research: Explore the healthcare industry’s approach to death and ways it can be more open to diverse religious practices.

Faith Elliott

Major: Neuroscience

Minors: Expressive Arts and Interreligious Studies

Mentors: Lynn Huber (Religious Studies) and Morgan Patrick (Music Theory)

Project Title: Neurotheology: An Interdisciplinary Study into Sacred Music and Feelings of Well-Being

Proposed Research: Examine the historical significance of music and understand and measure the behavioral impact associated with an emotional, transcendent spiritual experience and the well-being that results from listening.

Mariama Jalloh

Major: Public Health

Minors: Biology and Interreligious Studies

Mentor: Sandra Darfour-Oduro (Public Health)

Project Title: Faith, Healers, and Health: How Religious Beliefs and Community Trust Shape Healthcare Decisions in West African Communities

Proposed Research: Examine how religious leaders and traditional healers influence healthcare decisions in communities in Ghana, and how public health programs can partner with these practitioners to improve health education outcomes.

Ryleigh Rouse

Majors: Art History, Religious Studies

Minors: Museum Studies and Public History and Asian Studies

Mentor: Kirstin Ringelberg (Art History)

Project Title: Religion’s Impact on Japanese Women: Through an Art Historical Lens

Proposed Research: Employ art as a lens to examine how religion shaped gender perceptions and Japanese women’s roles.

Geoffrey Claussen, professor of religious studies, Lori and Eric Sklut Professor in Jewish Studies and chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Â鶹ĘÓƵ, edited a special issue of the Journal of Jewish Ethics honoring his long-time mentor, Louis Newman.

Newman, the John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies, Emeritus, at Carleton College and former dean of academic advising and associate vice provost for undergraduate education at Stanford University, is one of the world’s leading scholars of Jewish ethics and one of the founders of Jewish ethics as an academic field. He was the founding president of the Society of Jewish Ethics and founding coeditor of this journal.

In his editor’s introduction to the special issue, Claussen recounts how studying with Newman at Carleton College first kindled his interest in Religious Studies and Jewish Studies and eventually inspired him to also become a scholar of Jewish ethics.

In the issue, thirteen scholars engage, respond to and build on Newman’s work. Claussen’s article in the journal is titled “Lessons in Intellectual Honesty and Humility: Studying Jewish Ethics with the Guidance of Louis Newman.”

“It happened so long ago during my early childhood. It had no bearing on my present life. My parents almost never talked about it. Few of my friends were even aware,” said Silbiger. “But then I became aware it was happening again in Rwanda, Bosnia, Sudan, Myanmar, again, again and again. And eventually, as hatred and antisemitism certainly, began spreading, even in the United States, I decided I needed to come out and tell my story.”

And that’s what Silbiger did in a packed Turner Theatre on Feb. 12, part of Â鶹ĘÓƵ’s Holocaust Remembrance Day Speakers Series. Â鶹ĘÓƵ has hosted Holocaust survivors annually for more than nine years. Funding has enabled Professor Max Negin and his Holocaust Journey course to collaborate with Jewish Life, the Jewish Studies department, and the Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life. The speaker event was made possible through sponsorship from the Levy Family P’26.

Benji Stern, co-president of Â鶹ĘÓƵ Hillel, introduced Silbiger by reflecting on his experience in the Holocaust Journey study abroad course, which takes students through tours of concentration/extermination camps, ghettos, and discussions with Holocaust scholars and survivors.

“It was a profound and emotional experience that brought me face to face with both the history and the human suffering of the Holocaust,” said Stern, who discussed reading the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer at a memorial during the experience. “With a slightly broken voice, I pulled up the words on my phone, and together, we recited them. In that moment, a shared moment, Jews and non-Jews standing shoulder to shoulder, I felt something that I’ll carry with me forever. The moment was special because all of us participated, not only Jewish people remembering, but that collective act of remembrance reminds us that we’re all connected.”

In May 1940, Silbiger, now in his 90s, was just 5 years old when Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands.

“At first, the life of the Jews under the occupation, while certainly unpleasant, did not appear to be life-threatening,” said Silbiger, who said there was a false sense of security but also rumors of the mistreatment of Jews in Eastern Europe. “Jews had lived in Holland for many centuries, they had made important contributions to its economy and its culture and become a really valued part of the nation. Dutch people would never let their fellow citizens be mistreated in this manner. No one could begin to conceive the eventual role of the Nazis to extinguish the life of every Jew in Holland.”

Everything changed when Silbiger’s parents hatched a plan to escape from the Nazi-occupied territory. His mother woke him up and told him they were going on “a trip to the country.”

“I was surprised because I had not been told anything about this beforehand, and because of the (Nazi travel) restrictions, we had not been traveling anywhere,” he said. “We sneaked across the border to Belgium. Once we arrived there, I learned we were not going back home until the Germans were gone from Holland. Suddenly, without preparation, this 6-year-old was cut off from all of their friends, his stories, everything else.”

The family, including Silbiger’s older brother, adopted aliases and traveled through France across the demarcation line to southern France, down to Spain, before eventually traveling by boat to the Gibraltar Refugee Camp in Jamaica. His father used diamonds, hidden in an old smoking pipe, to help keep them afloat financially throughout the year-long journey.

“Conditions may not have been so much worse than in a summer camp, except you were forced to stay there for an indefinite length of time, perhaps even several years,” said Silbiger of the refugee camp. “On the other hand, our lives were no longer in danger and, for that, we were grateful.”

Silbiger’s father’s engineering skills eventually helped the family get to the Dutch Carribean island of Curaçao and, following the end of the war a few months later, they were able to return to Holland – but it looked much different. Their home in The Hague was still standing, but had been gutted, and his grandparents were taken to a concentration camp in Poland, where they were murdered.

“I still have fond memories of my grandparents, who lived only a few blocks from us,” said Silbiger. “The thoughts of their last days and final moments continue to haunt me.”

His parents decided to return to Curaçao, where Silbiger finished high school before attending college in the United States. He later married a U.S. citizen, relocated to Germany for a time, and eventually resettled in Durham, North Carolina, where he was a professor at Duke University. Silbiger has since worked to spread awareness of the danger of religious hatred, including in “Our Great Escape: The story of a Dutch family’s flight from persecution (1942-1943).” He encouraged the audience on Thursday night to have compassion for anyone escaping their homeland in search of a better life.

“They have the same hopes, the same desires, same needs, they are like you and me,” he said. “We must open our hearts (…for) these people, some who entered the country illegally because they didn’t have proper papers. Then again, neither did we. We entered France illegally. If we hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here to tell my story.”

The collection, edited by Jonathan K. Crane, Emily Filler, and Mira Beth Wasserman, is titled “Modern Jewish Ethics Since 1970: Writings on Methods, Sources, and Issues” and published by Brandeis University Press as part of the Brandeis Library of Modern Jewish Thought.

Claussen’s article, “Musar in a White Supremacist Society: Arrogance, Self-Examination, and Systemic Change,” was first published in 2021 in “No Time for Neutrality: American Rabbinic Voices from an Era of Upheaval,” edited by Michael Rose Knopf with Miriam Aniel.

Judaism in Five Minutes provides an accessible and lively introduction to common questions about Jews and Judaism. Claussen’s chapter, titled “What Does Jewish Tradition Say Â鶹ĘÓƵ War?” explains how “Jews in diverse historical contexts have constructed a wide range of Jewish traditions about war, framing their ideas with reference to Jewish identities, histories, and texts.”

The volume was published by Equinox Publishing as part of the “Religion in 5 Minutes” series. More information about the volume can be found .

The chapter is titled “Character and Musar,” and explores diverse Jewish approaches to questions about moral character, especially within the genre of “musar literature” focused on character and virtue.

Claussen is the author of books focused on moral character, including Modern Musar: Contested Virtues in Jewish Thought and Sharing the Burden: Rabbi Simhah Zissel Ziv and the Path of Musar. Miller is the author of books focused on character including Moral Character: An Empirical Theory and Character and Moral Psychology.

“The Routledge Companion to Jewish Philosophy” brings diverse perspectives to bear on the key topics, problems, and debates in Jewish philosophy and philosophical theology. The 37 chapters were written by an international team of experts from different traditions in philosophy and beyond.