What Would Rachel Say?

September 4, 2026/22 Elul 5786/Shabbat Nitzavim-Vayeilech

Hevre/Friends,

On the night of Monday April 11, 2022, I got one of those phone calls we all dread. And in that uncanny way we somehow know that it’s bad news before we even say hello, I knew that call was to tell me that my friend Rachel was dead. 

Rachel’s fingerprints are all over my work as a rabbi and teacher. For over 30 years I hadn’t given a HHDAY sermon she didn’t critique; publish an article she didn’t edit; take a job she didn’t help vet; or make an halakhic decision she didn’t vigorously debate to ensure its integrity. Her feedback was without pretense. She was unvarnished; said it to you straight. If I shared something that didn’t exude excellence, she didn’t hesitate to throw it back at me. But when Rachel Brodie told you that what you just offered was brilliant, which I’m proud to say I heard at least a few times, you knew that you nailed it.

Rachel’s fingerprints are also all over my inner work as a human being. I, like all of you, am on a lifelong search for authenticity and wholeness. Rachel was one of my most trusted guides. For over 3 decades she lovingly and devotedly held a mirror up to me, helping me to see my strengths which I would often doubt, and my weaknesses which I would often deny. Rachel always pushed me to show up in life as my best self.

Rachel was a singular and revered Jewish educator, a teacher’s teacher, and a creative Jewish entrepreneur. She had a fierce, original intellect and a wicked sense of humor. She was sharp-tongued and loving. Prickly and compassionate. She was a devoted Jew and an iconoclast. A traditionalist and an innovator. She modeled how to think and how to act. And she broke every mold in putting it all together. 

While not an ordained rabbi herself, Rachel was my rebbe. And I will always be her hasid; her student. Her life was suddenly, tragically, cut short before she could share the fullness of her spectacular Torah which I try to share in her name whenever I can.

Why am I telling you all this now? Well, Labour Day weekend is here. A holiday for most folks, but literally a day of labour for me. You know what I'm doing. Thinking. Writing. Deleting. Rewriting. Coffee. Lots of coffee. Chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Putting shared feelings, doubts, questions, fears, hopes, dreams, regrets, forgiveness, and gratitude into words that will go into ears that will go into hearts that will touch souls. Lift them up. Sermons. Commentaries. Melodies. Harmonies. Torah honours. Shofar blasts.

Next week is the Stanley Cup for rabbis. The World Series, depending where you live. For me, the Pickleball National Championships. Don't get me wrong. I love this. This is not my job. It's my purpose.

During these weeks, Rachel used to tell me - mincing no words in her sharp, hilarious reviews of my High Holy Day sermons - not to waste time inventing new messages each Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The messages don't change. They're eternally relevant. My job, she reminded me impatiently, is to find new ways to teach the same lessons.

Wise woman. Didn't make her any less fierce a critic.

But what would she say this year? When for the third year running, nothing feels familiar. When a new world dis-order demands messages our generation may never have had to hear. Messages today's rabbis have never have had to teach.

I miss her every day. Especially during this season. What would Rachel teach now?

Brilliant and irreverent, (we had one of those in common) I think she'd make people laugh through the tears they'll shed during these days of remembrance, and days of trembling. I think she'd hand us her trademarked "wide angle Judaism" - not only an expansive embrace of the myriad ways we're finding Jewish comfort and belonging, but a lens wide enough to hold multiple truths; multiple narratives. The nuance and complexity of what it means to be a Jew today.

I think she'd coach us to fight the battles worth fighting and walk away from the ones that aren't. She'd name and condemn the enemies without, and the enemies within. I think she'd grieve the allies we've lost and stay open to the ones we haven't yet met. 

And when it gets hard for me to help hold everyone who's coming apart, she'd make sure I stayed whole.

Labour Day weekend is here. A holiday for most. A day of labour for me. And for Rachel, wherever she is.

Kicking and screaming about how she hates the country, I'll bring her spirit down to the dock, where I do my best work. She'll sit beside me and ridicule my turn of phrase. Roll her eyes at how I could be so pedantic. And then she'll get serious and tell me I've hit on something important. She'll read my drafts. Tear them to pieces. Push me to put them back together.

It’s Labour Day for you, too, Rachel. Let’s get to work.

Shabbat Shalom,

Dini

Watch a recording of Rachel teaching in my 2020 Elul series on Selichot (prayers of repentence) for Speech and for Silence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmzeAo1L1Yo

.