Humility and Flowers

Eve Posen1 Comment

This is the d’var Torah I delivered at Congregation Neveh Shalom on Friday, June 5, 2026.

Next week marks 12 years since Duncan, a 9-month-old Shiri, and I visited Portland for the first time. I’m sure Carolyn Weinstein remembers having to put Shiri’s car seat in her car so she could drive us around and give us the lay of the land. In between looking for a house and checking out what would be our new community, we snuck away to visit the International Rose Test Garden.  As an outside observer, they were magnificent.  What I did not know was how much work they require. Roses need pruning. They need attention. They need care. Left entirely to themselves, they would still flower, but not nearly as beautifully and plentifully as they do in Washington Park.

One of the surprising things about roses is that the healthiest blooms often come after a gardener cuts them back. Growth requires a kind of humility. The rose cannot become what it is meant to be if it insists on holding onto every branch.

Parshat Be’haalotecha is filled with moments that challenge our assumptions about leadership, greatness, and humility. The Israelites continue their journey through the wilderness. The menorah is lit. The Levites are consecrated. The people complain about the manna and long for Egypt. Seventy elders are appointed to help Moses carry the burden of leadership. And at the end of the parshah, Miriam and Aaron speak critically of Moses, leading to one of the Torah’s most remarkable descriptions of his character.

The Torah tells us: “Now Moses was exceedingly humble, more than any person on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3).

What is striking is where this verse appears. It comes not after a great triumph, but in the middle of criticism. And Moses doesn’t defend himself. He doesn’t lash out. He doesn’t demand recognition. His humility is not weakness; it’s confidence rooted in purpose, rather than ego.

Like a rose, Moses does not need every branch of self-importance to remain intact. He understands that leadership is not about being admired. It’s about serving something larger than oneself.

Humility is often misunderstood. We think it means making ourselves small. Jewish tradition disagrees. True humility means knowing exactly who you are—your gifts, your strengths, your limitations, and placing them in service of others.

The rose does not humbly apologize for being beautiful. It simply blooms.

As we move through this week, may we embrace the humility of the rose and of Moses. And supposedly his toeses. I’m sure you didn’t expect me to get through a whole drash about Moses and roses without Singing in the Rain. Anyway, may we be willing to let go of what no longer serves us. May we focus less on proving ourselves and more on growing into the people we are called to become. And may we remember that the most beautiful blossoms often emerge from hearts rooted in quiet strength and humble purpose.

We Were All At Sinai

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This is the d’var Torah I delivered for Shavuot at Congregation Neveh Shalom on Friday, May 22.

On Shavuot, we return again to Sinai. Not only to remember it, but to relive it. 

The rabbis teach that every Jewish soul—past, present, and future—stood at Sinai when Torah was given. Every one of us. The scholar and the skeptic. The deeply observant and the quietly searching. The Jew fluent in Hebrew and the one who only knows how to hum along to the melody of a prayer. We were all there. 

And that matters because Sinai was never meant to belong to only one kind of Jew. This beautiful text study reminds us that sacred space in Judaism has always wrestled with one central question: who belongs?  

One of the most striking teachings comes from Vayikra Rabbah, which describes the Temple courtyard somehow holding all of Israel at once. The midrash says it was “one of the places where a small space held a great multitude.” People stood crowded together, yet somehow there was still room for everyone. 

Clearly, this is about more than architecture; this is theology. Holiness, Judaism teaches, expands, and sacred space is meant to stretch itself to hold the fullness of the Jewish people. 

Honestly, this concept feels increasingly urgent right now when we think about the Kotel and the growing fractures within the Jewish world. The fight over the Kotel has never been only about prayer sections or who holds a Torah scroll. It has become symbolic of a much larger and more painful question: who gets counted as a legitimate Jew in the Jewish state? 

For years, many Diaspora Jews—especially Conservative, Reform, egalitarian, and pluralistic communities—have watched an Israeli government increasingly shaped by ultra-Orthodox political power make decisions that feel less about unity and more about control. The freezing of the Kotel compromise in 2017 was not simply a political maneuver. For many Jews around the world, it felt like being told “your Judaism matters less here.” 

And that heartbreak runs deep precisely because Israel and the Kotel matter so much to us. It’s devastating because Judaism keeps reminding us that at Sinai, revelation came through collective presence, not ideological uniformity. The Torah was not given only to the strictest voice in the camp. It was given to an entire people. The midrash teaches that God’s voice split into many voices and many languages so that everyone could hear Torah in a way they could receive it. Sinai was spiritually pluralistic from the very beginning. 

The Torah says, “And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” It doesn’t say “within it.” It says “among them.” Rabbi Moshe Alshekh paid close attention to this. God does not dwell primarily in buildings of wood and stone, he says, but within people themselves. The holiness of sacred space comes from the people who gather there. 

Which means when Jews are pushed away from sacred space—women carrying Torah, egalitarian families, LGBTQ Jews, Jews whose practice differs from state-sanctioned Orthodoxy—it is not only those Jews who are diminished. The holiness of the space itself is diminished. 

This is not a call for less Judaism. It is a call for a Judaism expansive enough to hold the Jewish people. Because Shavuot reminds us that Torah was given in the wilderness, in open space, where no one tribe could build walls around revelation. 

And perhaps that is our charge this year: to resist the temptation to shrink Judaism into camps of “real” and “not real,” worthy and unworthy. To insist that Jewish unity does not require sameness. To build communities and support an Israel that remembers the lesson of Sinai: that covenant was created when all of us stood there together. 

Because we were all at Sinai. And if we were all there then, every Jew deserves a place at the wall, at the table, and within the story of the Jewish people now. 

Action-Packed Judaism

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This is the d’var Torah I delivered at Congregation Neveh Shalom on Saturday, May 16, 2026.

One of the fundamental differences between Judaism and Christianity is the order in which these words go: faith and action. Christianity is rooted in the idea that a deep faith in salvation naturally leads to righteous action. In Judaism, the action, the practice comes first. By actively performing mitzvot, we understand and internalize our faith.

This is true not just in our traditional rituals, but in Jewish communal life too. Did you say yes to the committee before you knew the workload? Have you shown up to comfort someone before you knew what to say? Maybe you’ve started a new role, relationship, or responsibility, carrying equal parts hope and uncertainty. And somehow, along the way, clarity comes not before the doing, but through it.

That is the heartbeat of our congregational theme this year: Na’aseh v’nishma. “We will do, and we will learn.” This month’s reflection pushes us even further: Say yes to doing something meaningful before you fully know the details. Step in with trust. What did you discover by acting first and learning as you went?

Parshat Bamidbar opens in precisely that space of uncertainty. The Israelites stand in the wilderness, not yet settled, not even really fully formed as a people. God commands Moses to take a census, counting the people tribe by tribe, preparing them for the journey ahead. On the surface, it sounds administrative. Logistics. Numbers. Troop organization.

But beneath the census lies a deeper spiritual truth: the Israelites are learning who they are by showing up for the journey before they fully understand where it will lead. The medieval commentator Rashi notes that God counts the Israelites repeatedly because of love. Counting in Torah is never only about numbers; it’s about mattering. Every person is seen. Every person belongs. Even in the chaos of the wilderness, they are reminded: you are part of something larger than yourself.

And perhaps that is what allows them to move forward despite uncertainty. They don’t wait until they have complete confidence. They step forward together first. There is something profoundly Jewish about that. Like Moses himself, rarely do we feel fully prepared to lead, to heal, to forgive, to build community, or to hope again. If we waited until certainty arrived, we might never begin at all.

The wilderness teaches us that faith is often discovered retroactively. We act, and then we understand. We say yes, and then we learn why it mattered. Have you ever heard the word “orthopraxy”? Think of it in contrast to “orthodoxy.” Orthodoxy is about having the “right” or “correct” opinion, and orthopraxy is about having the “right” or “correct” practice.

So this Shabbat, I want to offer us an orthopraxic charge: do not underestimate the holiness of stepping in before you have every answer. Say yes to the meaningful conversation. The act of service. The invitation to community. The opportunity to help carry someone else through the wilderness.

Because sometimes na’aseh is what makes v’nishma possible.

A Legacy in Relationships

Eve Posen1 Comment

This is the d’var Torah I delivered on Friday, May 8, 2026, at Congregation Neveh Shalom.

There are people who come and go from our lives, having just a momentary impact. And there are those who, over time, quietly but steadily shape who we become. If you’re lucky, you can name them because you never forgot them. A teacher who saw something in you before you saw it in yourself. A mentor who nurtured, but also challenged. And if you’re really lucky, that same person is still walking alongside you decades later, bearing witness to the chapters of your story as they unfold.

This week, as we read Parshiyot Behar and Bechukotai, the Torah turns our attention to time that stretches beyond a single lifetime. In Behar, we learn about Shemittah and Yovel, the sabbatical and jubilee years, built-in rhythms that force us to think generationally. The land rests, debts are released, and we are reminded that what we “own” is never fully ours. In Bechukotai, we encounter blessings and consequences tied not just to individual behavior, but to the collective path of a people across time. Together, these portions ask us to consider: what does it mean to live a life that echoes beyond us?

The Torah’s answer is both grounding and demanding. You don’t build a legacy through grand gestures alone. You build it through consistency, through values lived over time, through relationships that endure. “If you walk in My laws… Im bechukotai teleichu” is not about a single moment of faithfulness, but a way of being that accumulates meaning across years and generations.

And that kind of legacy doesn’t happen in isolation. It is shaped through the people who guide us, challenge us, and believe in us.

This Shabbat, we have the extraordinary privilege of welcoming Rabbi Danny Nevins as our Scholar in Residence. For me, this is not just a professional honor; it is deeply personal. Rabbi Nevins has known me since I was 11 years old. He was my rabbi and teacher, the one who stood with me at my bat mitzvah, who guided my family through the grief of my father’s funeral, and who officiated at my wedding. He has been a constant presence across the most sacred thresholds of my life.

This is what leaving a mark on someone’s life looks like. This is what we mean by “legacy.”

It’s not abstract; it’s lived in relationships that span decades. It’s in the investment in another person’s growth. It’s in showing up, again and again, at the moments that matter most. Rabbi Nevins didn’t just teach Torah, he modeled what it means to live it. And whether he knew it or not, he was planting the seeds for my future, and for who I would eventually be here, at Neveh Shalom, in this community.

Has anyone seen the 2016 movie Arrival? Where Amy Adams plays a linguist whose job is to decipher an alien language? What she discovers – spoiler alert, even though it was 10 years ago – is that humans, just like the aliens, are capable of seeing time as one big picture rather than as linear. They just have to learn the language.

In a sense, that is the invitation of Behar and Bechukotai: to see our lives not as isolated stories, but as part of a much larger unfolding. To ask ourselves: what are we planting, and for whom? What rhythms are we creating that will outlast us? Who are we investing in, not just for today, but for the generations we may never meet?

Here’s the part that might challenge you a bit: legacy isn’t something you leave behind at the end of your life. It’s something you’re building right now, whether intentionally or not.

So be intentional.

Show up for someone consistently enough that they can count on you years from now. Teach something worth remembering. Model the values you hope will endure. Be the person whose presence shapes another person’s story in a way that lasts.

Because one day, someone will stand where you stand and tell the story of who helped them become who they are.

Make sure that story is worth telling.

We Were, We Are

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This is the d’var Torah I delivered at Congregation Neveh Shalom on Friday, May 1.

There’s something disorienting about coming home and realizing you’re not quite the same person who left. The streets are familiar, the rhythms unchanged, and yet, something in you has shifted. Last week, I welcomed Shabbat in the Douro Valley, the oldest demarcated wine region in the world, after having visited the Crypto Jews of Belmonte. I returned from Portugal carrying images I can’t shake: magnificent cathedrals preserved in full glory in contrast to a quiet doorway in Évora with nothing but the faint imprint of a mezuzah. No plaque. No grand recognition. Just a trace. A whisper: Jews were here.

Parshat Emor moves between sacred rhythms and sacred responsibility. We read about the laws governing the kohanim, the priestly class tasked with maintaining holiness in the public sphere. We are given the calendar of our festivals, Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot, marking sacred time in a world that often forgets it. And threaded throughout is a powerful charge: v’lo techalelu et shem kodshi, v’nikdashti b’toch Bnei Yisrael. “Do not profane My holy name, and I will be sanctified among the people of Israel.”

We often understand this as a call to act in ways that reflect well on Judaism, to live ethically, visibly, proudly. But after what I’ve seen, I hear something deeper. Because sanctifying God’s name is not only about what we do when it’s easy or celebrated. It’s about what we carry when it’s hidden, when it’s threatened, or when it could disappear.

In Belmonte, Jews lived as crypto-Jews for over 500 years. They held onto fragments of ritual and identity, often at great risk. The only Hebrew word that endured in their prayers was “Adonai.” Everything else adapted, softened into Portuguese, reshaped for survival. And still, they held on. Before entering the church for their “baptism” they’d recite: “My body enters, but my soul remains sacred for Adonai.” A vow they could recognize and annul if needed on Yom Kippur in their own way. Rabbi Joshua Stampfer described that community as proof that Am Yisrael chai, not as a slogan, but as a fragile, defiant truth.

And now I stand back here in Portland, where we are blessed with freedom, visibility, and community—and I feel both gratitude and responsibility pressing in. Because the truth is, Jewish history does not always leave behind monuments. Sometimes all that remains is an imprint on a doorway. A memory carried quietly across generations.

V’nikdashti b’toch Bnei Yisrael. Holiness doesn’t depend on grandeur. It depends on continuity. So what does that ask of us, here, now?

It asks us not to take for granted what others risked everything to preserve. It’s coming together to pray on Shabbat, or to learn at Aliyah or with our scholar in residence next weekend, or to sit and eat in the Neveh sukkah this fall. Recognize that every time we gather, every time we teach our children, every time we mark time as Jews, we are doing something profoundly consequential.

It asks us to be visible—not recklessly, but intentionally. To place mezuzot on our doorposts not just as symbols, but as statements: we are here, and we’re not going anywhere.

And it asks us to live in a way that honors both the fragility and the strength of our story. To carry forward not just survival, but meaning. Not just identity, but purpose.

As we enter Shabbat together again, the charge is both simple and weighty: don’t let it fade. Be the imprint that endures. Live so that generations from now, whether through grand institutions or the faintest trace, someone will be able to say not only that Jews were here, but that we lived, we gathered, we believed—and we carried it forward.