Recap of 2025 Scholar-In-Residence Weekend

By Matt Liebman, Chair of Adult Education Committee

Earlier this month, we hosted Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin, our Scholar in Residence. The weekend was well attended and highlighted by the Brotherhood breakfast where over 35 hardy New Englanders braved the cold and snowy conditions to learn about the Jewishness of Bob Dylan's lyrics.

Rabbi Salkin spoke on a plethora of topics this past weekend, from a story about how an Israeli cabdriver taught him a life changing lesson about Jewish peoplehood to the true story behind the audience booing Bob Dylan when he went electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. He made us laugh and he made us think.

Beginning with the story about the cab driver, Rabbi Salkin spoke in his sermon about what it means to be a liberal Jew in America after October 7, 2023. He asserted that American Jews are recalibrating their loyalties and self-perception. Jews have been so focused on the “universal" expressed by Tikkun Olam, that we have neglected our own community and sense of peoplehood, expressed as Tikkun Ha’am, or “repairing our people”. (The title of his latest book.) He stresses that this is a time to “Reboot Judaism” and consider what is meant by Hillel’s message: “If I am not for myself, who am I?”

At the shabbat morning d’var torah, he spoke passionately about a “tale of two walls”. Like the Israelites fleeing Pharaoh and Egyptian armies and confronting the two walls of the Sea of Reeds, Jews today are bumping up between walls on the political left and the political right. He is concerned about the eroding of democratic ideals in our society. Taking lessons from the Holocaust in Germany, and the midrash from the Talmud describing how Rabbi Akiba survived the wreckage of a sinking boat, however, he expressed hope that we are a people that mocks death and will sustain ourselves.

During Torah study, we learned that in the Exodus from Egypt, Moses carried the Bones of Joseph to the Promised Land, He engaged us in the larger meaning of this story, and the many midrashim about the character of Serach, who saved the Bones of Joseph. Our discussion was enhanced by insightful contributions from many of our congregants, who identified the metaphors present in this midrash.

Finally, at the Brotherhood Breakfast on Sunday morning, Rabbi Salkin spoke extensively about Jewish (and Christian) influences in Bob Dylan’s lyrics, from the strong Pro-Israel sentiments in Neighborhood Bully, to recalling the Neilah service on Yom Kippur in Trying to Get to Heaven. The song With God on our Side, is a cynical side swipe at war in general and at Germany in particular. Dylan referenced the Holocaust, or the Shoah, at a time when this was not being done.

This weekend was organized and co-sponsored by the Adult Education Committee, and the Brotherhood. Funding for Rabbi Salkin’s visit was supported by the Adult Education Fund, the Rabbi Lewis Mintz fund and Brotherhood. The Rabbi Lewis Mintz fund focuses on the theme of how Jews have confronted modernity, and we were grateful that Rabbi Mintz was able to attend and contribute to Shabbat services this weekend.

Thank you also to all who contributed, especially to the communications team for helping us get the word out and register so many people, and to Don Hoban and his crew for feeding us on Sunday morning despite 7 inches of snow overnight.

We are sharing these videos of the weekend for five days only. So, if you missed the weekend or want to review one of his presentations, please check them out now!