By Chris Kelly
UPDATED: March 1, 2026 at 12:00 AM ET

“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” – from “Mary Poppins” (1964)
Daniel Swartz is a funny guy.
For a rabbi.

As the spiritual leader of a united flock with diverse political perspectives, Swartz must craft his sermons with professional and personal care for differences of opinion, even when comedy is the goal.

I visited the rabbi at Temple Hesed in Scranton on Thursday morning as he prepared to celebrate Purim, a festive, one-day celebration broadly compared to Mardi Gras. Kevin Bowery, of NEPA Quad Racers, was there, too, piloting drones inside the sanctuary.
The whirring of the drones’ propellers seemed sharply out of place for the solemn space, but the effect was just what Swartz was looking and listening for. Technology played a key role in the rabbi’s Purim spiel, which he titled, “A Nightmare Before Purim.”

As we chatted about Saturday’s event, Swartz recalled his recent struggles developing messages for the high holidays.

“I was ordained as a rabbi in 1990,” he said. “This year was the most I ever dreaded coming to Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). It was like, ‘What am I going to say, and who is it going to tick off?’

“I was on a Zoom (virtual meeting) with other rabbis, and it was like, ‘How do we talk about these (divisive) things?,’ and one of my colleagues said, ‘I feel like I’m dancing on razor blades.’ ”
Swartz knew the feeling. He embraced it and the result was one of his most well-received sermons.“I just said to everybody, ‘There is nothing that I could say today that wouldn’t upset somebody and even if I said nothing, that would upset somebody,” he said. “So how do we get past this? How do we model listening to each other?”

Humor usually works. By design, Purim presents a light-hearted opportunity to humorously skewer the powers-that-be. Some children and adults wear costumes and masks and perform skits. Revelers are encouraged to get “a little tipsy” and gleefully mock earthly authorities that are no match for the Almighty. It’s a raucous, religious celebration of the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia as told in the Book of Esther.
Long story short: An evil adviser to a narcissistic king with no impulse control plots the extermination of immigrant Jews, whom the adviser – an immigrant himself – views as subhuman invaders. The king marries a Jewish woman (Queen Esther), palace intrigue brings down the evil adviser and the Jewish people are saved.

The parallels between our current Oaf of Office and the narcissistic, impulsive king in the Purim story are obvious. So are the similarities between the impulsive king’s evil adviser and Trump regime Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who proudly spews his hatred of undocumented (non-white) immigrants. Miller is the grandson of Jewish refugees who immigrated to America in the early 20th century. Irony was invented for bad jokes like Stephen Miller.
The parallels between the ancient Jews in Persia and undocumented immigrants here now are just as obvious, although some stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the glaring similarities. The above are but a few examples of the endless fodder Swartz had to work with.

Portions of Swartz’s Purim spiel were heavily redacted, a cheeky nod to the Epstein files the Trump regime continues to hide in flagrant violation of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Trump himself signed into law.

Invasive data center development also had a star turn in Swartz’s spiel, which seemed especially apt considering Temple Hesed is just over 2 miles from Lake Scranton, which is targeted for daily drainage of millions of gallons of fresh water to cool vampiric data centers.
Swartz is affiliated with the U.S. Data Center Advocacy Hub, a growing coalition of environmental and public interest groups that advocates against the destruction of communities and the environment in service to an “artificial intelligence” industry designed to exploit and replace humanity.  The widespread opposition naturally includes faith leaders called to be good, vigilant shepherds, Swartz said.

“It’s just the same old story of this area, of people coming in, promising things, and people being desperate enough to believe the promises, even though the last 10 promises that they’ve heard have all been bull and a race to the bottom,” he said. “And the thing is, Pennsylvania is sort of designed to be exploited. There’s all these little governments, so you can play this guy off of this guy, and they’re all underfunded and they need help and Harrisburg is sitting and not taking action…”

That may be changing. Relentless public pressure has pushed some elected officials to at least act like they’re taking action. Last week, state Sen. Rosemary Brown, R-40, Middle Smithfield Twp., surprisingly announced her support for a moratorium on data center development and unveiled legislation aimed at restricting data centers to industrial zones. Brown is up for reelection, coincidentally.
State Reps. Kyle Mullins, D-112, Blakely, and Kyle Donahue, D-113, Scranton, jointly sponsored House bills on data centers. Both backed moratoriums. In an open letter, Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan urged Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro to support Chester County Democratic state Sen. Katie Muth’s call for a three-year moratorium on data center development.

Long story short: Until legislation that proactively protects the public interests and natural resources of Pennsylvanians is actually passed, these moves in the right direction are as performative and fleeting as a Purim spiel. Still, the rabbi and I agreed that we must celebrate and promote hope wherever we find it.
“It is a reason to hope that we’re moving in the right direction, and that’s something we can build on,” Swartz said.

In the meantime, it’s no sin to fly drones inside a synagogue and share a few laughs at the expense of narcissistic kings and the evil advisers who indulge their darkest impulses.

Shalom.
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, is a fan of funny rabbis. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Bluesky.
Originally Published: March 1, 2026 at 12:00 AM ET
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