March 14, 2026
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Parshat Vayakhel-Pekudei
A Remedy for Again
March 14, 2026 – 25 Adar, 5786
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
If you have ever had back surgery, you know what a shlepped-out ordeal it can be. You have back pain. You go to your doctor who wants to try a conservative treatment plan. Pain medication. Then you try heat. Then you try cold. Put your legs up in bed on a stack of pillows. Lie this way, lie that way. Then comes physical therapy. All those appointments. All those exercises. Still have the pain. Then you try the shots. At last, you do surgery. Then comes the recovery. And then therapy. PT. OT. And then please God, at long last you feel hopefully better.
Now, what is worse than back surgery? Answer: a second back surgery. You went through all this rigmarole, all the steps, and then you enjoyed a reprieve from pain. And then, again.
One of the hardest words in the world is again.
There is the pain of getting laid off–and the pain of getting laid off again.
The pain of fighting addiction, of falling off the wagon–and the pain of falling off the wagon again.
The pain of losing a loved one–and the pain of losing a loved one, again.
Most of us will experience the pain of again in our personal lives. And the pain of again is what makes this such a fraught moment on the world stage.
For Israel, it’s not just that sirens are sounding, missiles are falling, buildings are being crushed, routines are shattered and nights of sleep are disrupted. It is that all this happened in June, and it’s now happening again. Sirens sounding again, missiles falling again, buildings crushed again, routines shattered again, no sleep again.
How do we think about the problem of again?
I want to offer you a single idea, an insight about human nature, that comes from the Hebrew language and the Hebrew Bible. The rabbis do a beautiful expansion of this teaching.
Here is the core idea. The single most powerful love in the whole world is a mother’s love. The Hebrew word for womb is rechem. That is the same root as the word rachamim, which means mercy or compassion. Rechem leads to rachamamim, carrying a child in your womb, giving birth to that child, raising that child, leads to a unique bonding between mother and child and therefore to a uniquely empathetic love.
The Hebrew Bible pays maternal love the ultimate compliment. The prophet Isaiah explicitly compares a mother’s love to God’s love: “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.”
What is the beating heart of that beautiful love? Three things:
I see the best in you.
I want the best for you.
I love you as you are.
To love like that, and to be loved like that, is so powerful.
That’s the Hebrew language and the Hebrew Bible. But the rabbis who interpret the Hebrew Bible did a dramatic move. They offered that maternal love is too beautiful to be limited only to mothers. The rabbis imagined that all Jews should see themselves as rachmanim bnei rachmanim, compassionate ones who are the children of compassionate ones. All of us can aspire to love with deep compassion.
Every morning I get to minyan about 10 to 15 minutes late. I am there at 7:10 or 7:15 for a service that starts at 7:00. And I sit every day next to a wonderful woman. All the times I have been late, she never says: where were you? She never says, why are you late? Instead, she always says good morning. Good to see you. And then she always asks: what can I get you for breakfast? Can I get you oatmeal? Or fresh fruit? Or tuna salad? She takes me as I am, without judgment, without critique, without shame, and says: how can I help you have a better morning? How can I help you have a better day? It always feels so helpful and so hopeful to begin my day with this compassionate love.
What does this kind of compassionate love have to do with the pain of again? The answer is everything.
When we are feeling that pain–fired again, addicted again, sick again, struggling again—compassionate love says: I see the best in you. I want the best for you. I love you as you are. Love without judgment, love without critique, love without a sting, how much do we all need that? And the flip is also true. When the people in our lives are suffering with the pain of again, how restorative would it be for us to love them without judgment and with compassionate love?
Which brings us to this war, because Israel and Israelis are suffering with the pain of again.
Let me share with you a story. My Israeli sister-in-law Tzipporit has a cousin who served in a tank in Gaza during the two-year war. He was injured. He recovered. He emerged from his hospitalization determined to live.
Two days ago, on Thursday, he and his bride got married. The family had to improvise the wedding given current conditions in Israel. The wedding had to take place in a venue where there was a bomb shelter. It was hastily arranged, small, informal, and filled with love and joy. The bride wore a simple white dress. The groom wore khakis and a simple white shirt. He wore a kippah Israeli style, the size of a silver dollar. The sun shined. The bride and groom shined. My sister and brother-in-law were there. The general of his platoon and fellow soldiers were there.
That is Israel. That is Israelis. That is the quiet heroism of living daily life lamrot hakol, despite it all. Showing up for each other, even amidst ongoing war, is compassionate love.
What about us? When we encounter the pain of again, what would it look like for us to show our version of compassionate love?
One of the things that we all encounter again and again is difference that creates distance. One of my Sisterhood learners recently shared that she had a social friend who was a very well-educated doctor, on the east coast, who identified himself as passionately pro-life. His stance on this issue felt out of step with most of the people she knew in their intellectual and social circles, and at first, it kept them from a connection.
Then one day she asked him: I’m just curious, you seem so passionate about being pro-life. Can you tell me, where does your point of view come from?
He said, thank you for asking. People seldom ask me. But the reason for my position is simply this: I am adopted. My birth mother gave me up for adoption, which is why I got to live, why I got to know love and get married, why I got to have children, why I got to become a doctor. I am here, I am alive, because my birth mother believed in my right to exist. That is why I feel the way I feel.
This Sisterhood learner still did not agree with him, but she cared enough to understand him, to hear him, to learn how his views emerged from his story. That kind of caring is itself a kind of love.
When we encounter difference that could create distance, can we respond with curiosity, empathy, listening and learning, all of which create the possibility of building a relationship?
Another challenge that so many of us face again and again is running out of time. This week I was with a family whose beloved father and husband is in his final days. The family was reflecting on his life and legacy. One son recalled the time that he called his father, who was a doctor, and say dad, a friend of a friend has a medical challenge. And the father would tell his son, have him call me on my cell at 9:00 tonight. The next day, this friend of a friend told the son: your father spent an hour on the phone with me, at the end of the day, and it was so beyond helpful. That hour of grace, from 9 to 10, happened decades ago, but the compassionate love it surfaced still heals today.
Life presents us all with the pain of again. All of us have our own version of a second back surgery. When it does, can we show up with compassionate love that will make somebody else’s day? Shabbat shalom.