Born to Run! - CHRONICLE Online/The WORD 08/28/25

Weekly On-line Rabbi's D'var-Torah

August 28, 2025

6 Elul 5785

Parashat Shoftim

Happy Birthday, “Born to Run!”

Bruce Springsteen’s signature album was released 50 years ago on August 25 (I’m a little late – sorry!). Although I did not buy it in 1975, it was one of the first albums I owned – and I’m pretty sure that it’s currently sitting in a crate in my mother’s basement (sorry, Mom). Don’t worry – it’s downloaded on my phone so that I can listen to it even when I don’t have cell service.

When I fell in love with that album as a young child, I could never have imagined that I would eventually live in New Jersey – not too far from the places that Bruce sings about in his songs. In fact, I sometimes wonder what – if anything – I understood about his songs when I first heard them all those years ago. Needless to say, when I listen to Bruce’s music today as an adult, as a parent, as a rabbi, as someone who has lived in NJ for 20 years, I hear it differently from how I did then.

And if it’s true for rock ‘n’ roll music, it’s true for other things as well. It’s especially true in the Jewish tradition.

This past week, we also welcomed in the Jewish month of Elul. It’s the last month of the Jewish calendar and that means Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) is not far off. When we start the new year, we will also start the cycle of reading the Torah again back at the beginning of Genesis.

My children often ask me why I like to read the same books over and over, why I like to watch the same movies over and over and why I also like to listen to the same old songs over and over. I think it’s connected to my career choice. It’s just what I do. I turn to the same texts again and again.

It doesn’t matter how many times we have read the Torah. As soon as we finish it, we are obligated to go back to the beginning. We get to see what details we may have missed. We get to look for new layers of meaning. We bring our new experiences to the text and, therefore, read it differently.

So, as we welcome in the New Year of 5786 in a few short weeks, I hope that everyone will re-commit to turning back to some of our traditional texts and see what new lessons they have to offer us at our current stage of life (we have many classes to help you do this!). It will undoubtedly be different from the last time you may have looked. After all, you wouldn’t want to wake up one morning only to realize that you’ve wasted your summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from these streets. Instead, you can jump into our tradition and find out how YOU can make the world a better place.

Shalom,

RAF