Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International The Book of Numbers begins, unsurprisingly, by counting. At the opening of Bamidbar (lit. In the wilderness), God tells Moses to take a census of the Israelites: tribe by tribe, household by household, name by name. It is easy to read the moment as administrative. A nation in …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International Men are often taught to treat money as proof of manhood. Not just as a practical necessity. As evidence. Evidence that you are competent, desirable, serious, protective, respectable. Evidence that you can provide, recover, endure. Evidence that your life is moving forward. And if that evidence …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International Shlomo Bardin, the visionary founder of Brandeis-Bardin, famously taught that Judaism is “caught, not taught.” He was right, and also only half right. Judaism is contagious. It travels through melody, gesture, hospitality, rhythm, meals, posture, atmosphere. It gets into a person through the body before it …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International Grief is one of the places where masculinity most often betrays men. Not because men do not feel deeply. They do. But many men are trained to metabolize loss through motion rather than mourning. Keep working. Keep producing. Keep carrying. Keep the face composed and the …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International There is a particular kind of loneliness that can take root inside a marriage not because love has vanished, but because labor has gone unseen. A wife is carrying the schedule, the remembering, the anticipating, the soothing, the cleaning, the planning, the noticing, the recovering, the …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International There is a certain kind of man our culture still knows how to applaud. He is bold. Unfiltered. A little dangerous. He says what others will not say, does what others will not do, and carries himself with the confidence of someone who mistakes impulse for …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International אֵ֗שׁ תָּמִ֛יד תּוּקַ֥ד עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּ֖חַ לֹ֥א תִכְבֶּֽה׃ A perpetual fire shall be kept burning on the altar, not to go out. (Leviticus 6:6 – Parashat Tzav) There is a fire in every man. Sometimes it burns hot with ambition, anger, desire, grief, urgency, or love. Sometimes it burns low, …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International One of my favorite songs is Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” What makes it so good is that the song refuses to wait for a special occasion. No holiday, no anniversary, no skywriting, no chocolate, no dramatic scene in the rain. It is …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International Two words name this double portion: Vayakhel–Pekudei. They don’t sound dramatic. They are. Vayakhel means and he gathered—not that Moses gathered himself, but that the people gathered. Pekudei means these are the records—the accounting of what was built, what was given, what was done, and what can be proven. Vayakhel matters because …
Rabbi Noam Raucher, MA.Ed — Executive Director, FJMC International In Ki Tisa, the Torah interrupts big leadership with small, stubborn truths: you have worth before you produce, limits before you collapse, and creativity before you burn out. It’s not a parashah about becoming impressive. It’s a parashah about becoming whole. Worth beyond productivity – The …
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