Last night as I was studying Hebrew with my son, a friend texted me to let me know that Israel had attacked Iran. Many of us expect retaliation over Shabbat. None of us know what is coming, and I don’t have wisdom to offer. All I have is this prayer: may the day come soon when the Iranian people, the Palestinian people, and the Israeli people can all live in safety and peace.

* 

This week’s Torah portion, B’ha’alot’kha, takes its name from its first significant word: 

“God spoke to Moses saying, ‘speak to Aaron and tell him, בְּהַעֲלֹֽתְךָ֙ אֶת־הַנֵּרֹ֔ת אֶל־מוּל֙ פְּנֵ֣י הַמְּנוֹרָ֔ה יָאִ֖ירוּ שִׁבְעַ֥ת הַנֵּרֽוֹת׃ / when you raise the lamps at the front of the menorah, the seven lamps will give light.’” (Numbers 8:2) 

When we think of lighting lamps, there’s an obvious verb we’d expect to see: להדלק / l'hadlik, as in l’hadlik ner, “to kindle the lights” of Shabbat. Instead we get להעלות / l’ha’alot, which means to raise or to ascend. It’s the same root as the word aliyah, which is what we call it when someone comes up to the bimah and “ascends” to Torah, symbolically returning to Sinai. 

The other significant words in our verse are words we might recognize: nerot, candles or lights. (In those days they were oil lamps.) Menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum our ancestors crafted for the mishkan / the portable sanctuary, like a seven-branched tree of hammered gold.. Ya’iru, they shine or give light. Two main ideas in this one verse: going up, and shining. 

Torah often speaks in the language of aliyah and yeridah (ascending and descending). When our spiritual ancestors went down to Egypt, Torah called that a descent. Joseph descended into the pit, descended into slavery, descended into Pharaoh’s dungeon… and following him, our ancestors descended into Mitzrayim, “the Narrow Place” of constriction and spiritual servitude.

And when we left Mitzrayim, “The Narrow Place,” Torah calls it an ascent. Literally, aliyah. Going up from constriction to the land of promise. Our spirits rising. As the Psalmist writes, “From the meitzar / the narrow place I called to You; You answered me with expansiveness.” That’s the spiritual move we’re making as a people. From a low place, a stuck place, rising and giving light.

As human beings our souls naturally shine. This is part of what it means to me when Torah says we are made in the image of God: our souls are like sparks from the divine fire. Our life’s work as human beings and as Jews is to repair what is broken in our world, and to let our light shine. In the words of Godspell, “If that light is under a bushel, it’s lost something kinda crucial.”

Our light wants to shine. And… the struggles of day-to-day life can obscure our light. Injustice obscures our light. Prejudice and mistreatment obscure our light. Trauma and loss obscure our light. And as the sages of the Talmud remind us in their teachings about illness, “a prisoner cannot release themself from prison” – we can’t “bootstrap” our way out of life’s narrow places.

But we can lift each other up. That’s why we’re in this life together. בְּהַעֲלֹֽתְךָ֙ אֶת־הַנֵּרֹ֔ת / B’ha’alot’kha et ha-nerot: “when you lift up the lights” – the lights are our souls, and it’s our job to lift each other up so we can shine. Because our souls need to shine, and this broken world needs all the light we’ve got. 

Ibn Ezra explains in his commentary on this verse that this section of Torah comes to teach us that the light of the original menorah in the mishkan shone also at night. In this way it’s the precursor to our ner tamid, the eternal light that shines in every sanctuary. The physical light that’s meant never to go out symbolizes the light of holiness, the light of hope, the light of God.

That’s the divine fire of which each of us is a soulspark. I don’t believe that fire ever goes out. 

Tonight we sang the words of Mi Khamokhah to the melody of the Zulu hymn Siyahamba, “We are walking in the light of God.” In ancient times a golden menorah shone a reminder of that light for our ancestors. Today I think Torah is inviting us to help each other shine that light: to lift each other up, cultivating joy in helping each others’ inner light to shine. 

*

In our morning liturgy we pray, ‘Or hadash al Tziyon ta’ir, “Let a new light shine upon Zion.” I pray for the new light of peace and safety, justice, human dignity, and mutual uplift to shine on the people of Israel, Palestine, and Iran, and on all of us whose hearts feel-together with theirs. And may we all help each other to shine our own light, here in the place where we are.

This is the d'varling I offered at Kabbalat Shabbat services at Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires (cross-posted to the From the Rabbi blog.)

For six years I walked past these words every morning on my way into school. "Teach us delight in simple things." The words were literally foundational, cemented in to the ground beneath my feet.

I didn't know then that the bronze letters were older than the building. They had been affixed in its prior location in the 1920s, and were brought to the Starcrest campus when the school moved in 1968.

The quilt of ceramic tiles that hangs above them is more eye-catching. The letters wear the patina of age, and the steps are worn from countless generations of polished loafers and saddle shoes.

I can only remember the first verse of our alma mater song in Latin, and even less of the school hymn, "Fight the Good Fight." But "teach us delight in simple things" still comes quick to my heart.

Seeking delight in simple things has become one of my core spiritual practices. It takes effort not to slip over the line from gratitude practice into bypassing, so that's part of my everyday work too. 

But trying to notice what good there is to notice is built-in to who I've become. It doesn't erase the world's brokenness, but on a good day it shapes and changes how I experience whatever comes. 

I spent part of yesterday thinking about this school motto and these front steps, and then I dreamed I was back. "Holy [----], we're kids again," I said to one of my classmates who was walking by.

It felt like one of those dreams where my parents are still alive. And then I wake and it's just a fading memory, like the distant scent of mountain laurel or southern magnolia in bloom. 

The following words
are no longer permitted:
Accessible. Affirming.
Bias. Cultural differences.
Environmental quality.
Inclusive. Mental health.
Prejudice. Trauma.

The new head of FEMA
didn't know America has
a hurricane sesason, but
I'm sure firing
a fifth of the staff
who launch weather balloons
won't matter.

We are also forbidden
from saying anyone is
underserved or vulnerable.
No person in our nation
is vulnerable anymore.
Immigrants and refugees
don't count.

Is hope still
at the bottom of the box
or was it erased
along with clean energy
and safe drinking water
and the history
of the Enola Gay?

These words are disappearing in the new Trump Administration, New York Times [gift link]

"David Richardson, the head of the agency, said he did not know the United States has a hurricane season." Heather Cox Richardson, June 2, 2025. 

Federal Government's Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship, PEN.org. 

Enola Gay Aircraft -- And Other Historic Items -- Inaccurately Targeted Under Pentagon's Anti-DEI Purge, Forbes.com. 

This week’s Torah portion, Bamidbar, begins with an instruction to take a census (Numbers 1:2)  for the purpose of knowing how many soldiers could be called-upon to bear arms. There’s a long list of numbers: from this tribe came this many people; from that tribe, that many. In years past, these verses felt dry and kind of irrelevant. This year they’re landing differently against the backdrop of current news. We’ll come back to them.

In 2008 I spent some time learning in Jerusalem. Some neighborhoods in west Jerusalem are full of rabbinic students in the summer, and mine was one of them. I sublet an apartment on רחוב לינקלן / Lincoln street from a fellow rabbinic student named Marisa James. Marisa and I both became rabbis, and we’re still friends. She lives in the States now. This week, she posted on Facebook about Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar, a mother of 10 and pediatric specialist in Gaza. 

Specifically, R. Marisa posted the names of Dr. Al-Najjar’s nine children killed this week when an Israeli missile struck her house. Her one surviving child, Adam, has undergone surgery with more to come. Her husband, Dr. Hamdi Al-Najjar, is in intensive care with a severe head injury. About this, R. Marisa wrote, “Every single day, an impossible, unnecessary new grief,” noting with sorrow that the killing of Palestinian children makes it easy for Hamas to recruit. 

Every single day, an impossible, unnecessary new grief: that’s how I feel every time I read the news out of Israel and Palestine. 

Peter Beinart, a professor of journalism and a fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said recently that Gaza has become the Jewish people’s greatest spiritual crisis since the Shoah. In the course of that podcast he acknowledges how many of us are activated by use of the word “genocide.” I know I am. When I hear that word, my heart recoils. I still remember the reaction I had the first time someone accused me of supporting genocide because I would not denounce Israel’s existence. I felt defensive and angry and sick and full of grief and fear.  

The fear had a lot to do with my family’s Holocaust history, which I spent a long time processing anew after October 7. The grief hasn’t gone away. How can any of us not grieve what the last few years have brought? I still don’t like that g-word. I don’t like how it is used as a cudgel to delegitimize Israel and Israelis. I don’t like the way that word is used by people who already hated Jews and were just looking for a reason to hate us more. 

And. In recent months the Netanyahu administration has repeatedly proclaimed its intention to wipe out or forcibly remove the population of Gaza, and to claim that land as part of “Greater Israel.” As Rabbi Jay Michaelson notes, this is a new phase in the conflict in which “the stated goal is to exile or eliminate the Palestinian population of Gaza.” What should we call determination to exile or eliminate a population? What would we call it if it were aimed at us? 

And – does it matter what we call it?  

I think what really matters is how we respond.

So much of what’s unfolding feels unbearable to my soul. As of this writing, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, including, this week, nine of the ten Al-Najjar children. The BBC reports that Gaza’s entire population is at risk of famine. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, is on the record pleading with Israel not to use famine as a weapon of war. Meanwhile Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s Minister of Finance, brags that they are leaving Gaza “as piles of rubble, with total destruction.”

Also unbearable to my soul are recent maps of rocket fire all over Israel, so many incoming projectiles that it’s just a sea of red. And Israeli hostages still in captivity after more than 600 days (and their families, living on tenterhooks). And the murder of two young Israeli embassy employees in DC last week – and all the people online saying they “got what they deserved,” either for being too pro-peace or for working for Israel at all. 

I’m not trying to draw equivalences or compare suffering. I just want to say: if your soul aches, you’re not alone. 

I know that as a Diaspora Jew I need to approach Israel and Palestine with humility. I know I don’t know what it’s like to live there. I try to listen to as many voices on the ground as I can. This week I’ve been reading the words of Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, who says soberly and with grief that Israel is now committing war crimes. And I’m reading Israeli-American Dr. Elana Stzokman, one of many Jewish Israelis now using that g-word, who writes, 

Oct 7 does not justify what we are doing in Gaza. Even the hostage situation doesn't justify it -- all that bombardment and starvation has done nothing to bring back the hostages. Nothing. 

So please stop saying things like, well, the world just hates Jews. It's not that. The world just hates what the Jewish State is doing to 2.2 million Gazans. And the world is right.

Her words drew me up short in their clarity and their grief. 

Of course, some of the world does just hate Jews. We’ve been a convenient scapegoat for the world’s ire for centuries. They blamed us for the Black Plague. They blamed us for the downturn of Germany’s economy after WWI. They blame us today for anything and everything from California wildfires to the hollowing-out of the American working class to the presence of immigrants and refugees in America. Antisemitism is real and it is pernicious. 

And. A lot of people are angry about what they see the Israeli government and military doing in Gaza, and that can be true without antisemitism. (Of course it can also be true with antisemitism.) What’s unfolding in Gaza breaks my heart in part because I love the dream of what Israel could yet be. So do the other Jews whose voices I’ve brought to the table here. Our critique is rooted in love. That, too, is a mitzvah I learned from Torah. (Lev. 19:17)

There are 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians living in that land. Neither people is going anywhere, and anyone who says otherwise is “unserious.” Yes, I know that extremists among each people seek to wipe the other out. But in the words of Awni Al-Mashni of 2 States / 1 Homeland, “What happened on 10/7, and what has happened since – neither negates the fact that there are two peoples on this land, and that both peoples cannot continue on this path.”

I turn and re-turn to Jewish values. Torah calls us to “seek peace and pursue it” – not just to look for it, but to run after it. The Shulchan Aruch says  (Yoreh Deah 250:1) “when there is a hungry person, you must feed them,” and Torah says (Deut. 19:20) that starvation must never be used as a tool of war. (Teachings such as these are the impetus behind Jews for Food Aid for Gaza.) Beyond that, I know that peace between enemies always seems impossible, until it isn’t. 

All of this has been swirling in me as I’ve studied this week’s Torah portion and commentaries. I think about that ancient census. Each of those tens of thousands of people – 46,000 from the tribe of Reuven, 59,000 from the tribe of Shim’on, and so on – was a human being. Each one had parents, maybe children, maybe siblings, maybe friends. This week’s parsha comes to remind us that every one of those souls “counted” – each was an integral part of the whole. 

The death of any human being is the destruction of an entire world. Every human life is irreplaceable. Every death is unbearable – and it should be.  The answer is not to numb ourselves; it’s to work toward safety, justice, and peace for everyone.

Jewish values call us to seek peace. Feed the hungry. Work toward justice. Uplift human dignity. And I think they also call us to stand against the use of famine as a weapon of war, and against exiling or eliminating a population from a land, whatever words we use for it. 

What can we do from here? We can help feed the hungry – I recommend New Israel Fund’s partnership with World Central Kitchen in Gaza, and my rabbinic colleagues on the ground affirm that all donated funds are going directly to food aid. We can support organizations like the Alliance for Middle East Peace, Hand in Hand, Women Wage Peace, and Standing Together. 

And – just as we support Palestinians and Israelis who are working toward a relationship of mutual care, we can do the same here in our community. We can care for each other, and continue our community learning together, even when we may be grieving different sources of pain in Israel and Palestine. If they can reach across their differences, I believe that we can, too. 

I pray with all my might for an end to the conflict and the release of every hostage. I pray for negotiations and diplomacy, for peace and coexistence, for a world in which we count living souls with wonder and rejoicing instead of numbering anyone’s irreplaceable dead. 

This is the d'var Torah that I offered at Kabbalat Shabbat services at Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires (cross-posted to the From the Rabbi blog.)

Light

בְּאור פָּנֶיךָ / "In the light of Your face…"

I know the light of God's face

in how my face shines

when I see yours.

When the song of my heart

finds harmony, that's

the closest thing to wholeness

I know.

-- R. Rachel Barenblat, originally published at Bayit as part of Grant Peace

When I turned to the Shalom blessing in the amidah along with my collaborators in Bayit's Liturgical Arts Working Group, this is the first place it took me. I got caught by the Hebrew phrase  בְּאור פָּנֶיךָ, "in the light of Your face," and those words took me deep into my own heart. 

Our latest collaborative offering is out: poetry, liturgy, and art riffing off of the Shalom blessing in the Shabbat amidah. (This is the 8th offering in a series, and one more is forthcoming.) Shalom, peace, shleimut -- the word means so many different things to each of us.

The closing blessing of the Amidah asks for shalom: peace, wholeness, completion. What does this prayer mean to us today? What does it ask of God – and of us? What does it mean to ask for peace in a time of tumult and injustice? How can we ask for something we may not even wholly understand? This offering arises out of those questions and more. 

This offering turns that prayer in a kaleidoscope and reveals different ways our hearts might shine. Find it here: Grant Peace. 

Winter felt too long.
The world monochrome,
sapped of color.

We were trapped
beneath the heavy ceiling
of cruel news.

What can I wish on?
My heart is a candle,
flickering in the rain.

Hope, be
as unquenchable
as chives --

as effervescent
as dandelions gleaming
in a bed of green.

The trees are leafing out again at last.
Flying little chartreuse flags, crumpled
like wet laundry before they spread
and take up space.

If this were a love poem
I would say, I want you to take up space
and stretch toward the sun, exuberant
as the birds who can’t stop singing.

If this were a love poem
I could say anything at all
and you would know I really mean
all I want is for you to bloom.

If you like this poem, you might also like Texts to the Holy (Ben Yehuda Press).

I had already written a d’varling for tonight, about Aaron’s response to the death of his son and how the silence of those who suffer invites us to respond with care. And then a congregant reached out to me this morning and asked if I could speak tonight about a breaking news story, the FBI’s arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan in Wisconsin, and what our response to this as Jews ought to be. What moral guidance can Torah offer for the world we’re in today?

First let me share a bit of context, and then I’ll talk Torah more broadly. The Department of Homeland Security changed their policies in February to shift the status of certain previously “protected areas” or “sensitive locations” – including courthouses, social service agencies, and houses of worship. These areas used to be legally protected from “immigration enforcement,” and now they are not. Or at least: public spaces within them are not. Private spaces are.

This sparked a lot of conversation among rabbis: if ICE shows up at the door, what is the ethically and legally correct response? The Union for Reform Judaism signed on with many other faith organizations in a lawsuit challenging that rescission of the “sensitive locations” policy. Meanwhile, the National Immigration Law Center’s fact sheet notes, “ICE still needs a judicial warrant to enter any private space, including a house of worship.” 

In the case of Judge Dugan, Rep. Ryan Clancy notes that “ICE did not present a warrant before entering the courtroom; it is not clear whether ICE ever possessed or presented a judicial warrant.” (A judicial warrant is not the same as an “administrative warrant” from ICE.) This sounds to me like a parallel to how things work if ICE comes to a synagogue: they need a judicial warrant in order to enter “private space,” and it sounds like they did not show one.

Courtney Milan, a former clerk for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, explains that the judge is accused of “obstructing” ICE through adjourning the proceedings and allowing the defendant to leave the courtroom through the jury box, “both official acts performed as a judge,” and that “a judge is given enormous discretion as to the operation of their courtroom in order to preserve due process.” The judge doesn’t appear to have done anything that merits FBI involvement.

If her arrest was retaliatory, that seems like erosion of due process. I know many of us are worried about that, especially amidst current tension between the executive branch and the judicial branch. The arrest of this judge comes on the heels of a rise in anti-judge rhetoric and hints of refusal to abide by judicial decision. There have even been claims that the judicial branch is meant to be subservient to the executive. Can Torah help us navigate this?

At the start of Torah we were in Eden, innocent and childlike, all of our needs met by God. In the book of Exodus we went down into Egypt, where we were enslaved by Pharaoh, our agency (and our humanity) denied. Now we are in Leviticus. We’re wandering in the wilderness, learning how to be a mature people with human agency who take responsibility and take care of each other. And that includes the institution of judges to help guide the people.

שֹׁפְטִ֣ים וְשֹֽׁטְרִ֗ים תִּֽתֶּן־לְךָ֙ בְּכל־שְׁעָרֶ֔יךָ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יְהֹוָ֧’’ה אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ נֹתֵ֥ן לְךָ֖ לִשְׁבָטֶ֑יךָ וְשָׁפְט֥וּ אֶת־הָעָ֖ם מִשְׁפַּט־צֶֽדֶק׃

You shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice. (Deut. 18:19)

Torah tells us that we should appoint judges and officers to govern the people with justice. Torah also tells us (a verse or two later) to pursue justice with all that we are. We might see shoftim v’shotrim, “judges and officers,” as somewhat akin to today’s division of government into coequal branches who together govern with justice, but it doesn’t occur to Torah that the shotrim might decide not to listen to the shoftim, e.g. that the judges and the rulers might be at odds. 

Art by Steve Silbert.

I am envisioning a New Yorker-style cartoon, a line drawing of someone saying, “Don't you wish we lived in precedented times?” (So I asked my friend Steve to draw it.) After the pandemic, the insurrection, and the last hundred days or so of chaos, I think we’re all getting tired of living in “unprecedented times.” But once again, that’s what we’ve got. All we can do is study Torah in search of values and principles to guide how we respond to what’s unfolding around and within us.

In this week’s parsha, Shmini, Torah gives us instructions about what to eat and not eat, and descriptions of the right way to offer the korbanot, offerings / sacrifices. Torah says we have a choice: we can be like Aaron and follow the commandments, or we can be like his sons Nadav and Avihu who died after bringing ‘strange fire.’ Being a free people means claiming our agency to act, and hopefully choosing to act in a way that’s aligned with Torah.

Torah’s mitzvot are addressed to all of us, not just to judges or officials. Use honest weights and measures, don’t cheat people, don’t lie, don’t steal, feed the hungry, love the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: these mitzvot are incumbent on every Jew. And, Torah also has some words about what kind of person should be appointed as a leader, a person in authority – which for Torah was simultaneously a secular role and a spiritual one. 

Torah teaches that a leader should not self-aggrandize. They shouldn’t be too wealthy, or have too many wives and horses, or bring the people backward to the way things were in constricted times. (Deut. 17:15-18) This comes at the very end of Torah. Later the sages of the Talmud and the Jewish legal tradition expound on it further, but the basic principles stand. Judges should be fair and honorable, and leaders should be humble and forward-looking. 

So what should our response as Jews be to today’s headlines – any of today’s headlines? 

There’s a story in Talmud about scholars who disagreed about a matter of Jewish law. One of them even disagrees with the Voice of God offering “the answer” from on high! That scholar quotes Torah back at God, saying lo bashamayim hee – “[wisdom] is not in the heavens, [you’ve given it to us].” And God laughs and agrees in apparent delight. The pinnacle of human development is when we claim our agency to interpret what’s just, and we act accordingly. 

Torah is not in the heavens, and neither is justice. They are ours, to steward and keep. 

This is the d'var Torah I offered at Kabbalat Shabbat services at Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires (cross-posted to the From the Rabbi blog.)

This week’s Torah portion, Shmini, contains the following somewhat shocking vignette. First we read about Aaron bringing forward a korban, a sacrifice or offering, and blessing the people. Afterwards, Aaron and Moses go inside the Tent of Meeting. When they emerge, they bless the people together, and the presence of God appears to all the people. So far, so good.

Then two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, apparently decide to follow suit. Were they so excited at the prospect of divine service that they couldn’t wait until it was their turn? Were they, as some commentators have suggested, intoxicated and therefore making poor decisions? We don’t know. What we do know is, they make an unauthorized offering, and they die on the spot.

Then we get these two searing words:  וַיִּדֹּ֖ם אַהֲרֹֽן׃ / vayidom Aharon. “And Aaron was silent.”

Rashi says that Aaron was rewarded for his silence by hearing the Voice of God speaking to him alone, revealing to him further details of the sacrificial system. Ramban says that he cried out without words, and was then silent. The Sforno says he took consolation in realizing that his sons’ deaths in this manner made them the highest possible “offering” he could give to God. 

Sometimes in the face of tragedy or trauma, in the face of a profound and earth-shaking injustice, the one at the center of the grief may have no words. When one’s whole soul cries out that this is wrong, this isn’t the way the world was supposed to be, there may be no words adequate to that heart’s cry. Not for the person or people most afflicted. 

This year Aaron’s silence feels like an invitation. 

The silence of suffering invites us to offer care. This is our most basic job as human beings. Whether a phone call, a text conversation, a casserole, a hospital visit: what matters is that we extend ourselves to those silenced by injustice, sorrow, or grief. This doesn’t fix whatever they’re suffering, but it can remind them that they’re not alone. Presence and care matter.

And then we do what we can. Maybe as we support those who are silenced by sorrow, together we can figure out how to support them in action. I think of Candace Lightner, whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver in 1980 and who went on to found MADD. I think of the Parents’ Circle Families Forum, founded by grieving Israelis and Palestinians together… 

In the case of an injustice, someone who’s been unfairly treated or discriminated-against or wrongly accused, we can name the injustice clearly and speak against it. And maybe it’s easier for us to do that when we’re one step removed from the injustice itself. Maybe when we ourselves aren’t impacted, we have more bandwidth and energy to stand up for what’s right.

Aaron stands alone in his silence, but we don’t have to. We can always speak up for each other. We can always care for each other. When times are good we can celebrate with each other, and when times are tough we can uplift and accompany each other. This is what community is for: this is why we are here. That’s the lesson for now that  I find in our Torah portion this week. 

I wrote this for Shabbat services... and then something else caught on fire (metaphorically) and I wrote something entirely different to share at shul. So here's where the parsha took me yesterday. Stay tuned to see where it takes me today.

Yom HaShoah begins tonight at sundown: our collective day of remembrance for the six million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis. Confronted with the pure evil of the Holocaust, my words fail me. If you are looking for a way to remember and to mourn – or to uplift and to honor those who survived – this video archive at Yad Vashem offers both survivors’ video testimonies and historical insights into how and why the Shoah happened. I hope you’ll watch a video or two.

Yom HaShoah arrives every year, and yet for many of us this year feels different than any other. A friend of mine texted me today that her lunch in Northampton might be disrupted because there are reports on social media of planned neo-Nazi activity in town. Two of my younger relatives are seeking my mother’s Czech birth certificate in hopes of securing EU citizenship in case it becomes too unsafe to live in this country as Jews. Neither of these things feels normal. 

Some of us hear echoes of Nazi eugenics in news stories about people with autism who “will never pay taxes,” as though productivity were the measure of a human being’s worth. Some of us feel alarm about our history and our future as diversity initiatives are shut down. And some of us feel chilled by the imprisonment of anyone without due process.

“Never again” is now. The Shoah didn’t begin with concentration camps and death camps: it began with nativism, a worldview that posited strong white Aryans as inherently better than Jews or people of color or queer people or people with disabilities or people with unpopular political views (in those days, Communists), and the dehumanization of those groups. 

As the descendants of a people that against all odds survived Hitler’s extermination attempt, we resist the values that brought it forth. As Jews we stand against nativism, white supremacy, ableism, and derogatory treatment of anyone, including immigrants and people of color. When people (including us) are dehumanized for their identity or their views, it becomes easier to turn away. Instead we are called to metaphorically link arms with other vulnerable communities, and to find strength and purpose in standing together and caring for each other.

I believe that this nation can be a haven for immigrants and refugees, and that the ethical measure of our society is found in how we treat the most vulnerable among us. I believe that our diversity makes us stronger, and that every human being is made in the image of God. And I believe that the best way to honor the memory of those who died in the Shoah, and the memory of those who, trauma-scarred, survived, is to build a world in which we give discrimination no quarter. A world in which all are free to be who we are without fear. 

May it be so, speedily and soon.

This is what I shared with my congregation today (cross-posted to the From the Rabbi blog). It seemed worth sharing here, too. 

The familiar words of the haggadah landed differently with me this year. We speak every year of freedom from Mitzrayim – meaning not only מִצְרַיִם / مصر / literal Egypt, but also more broadly all of life’s narrow places and times of constriction. But this year I’m keenly aware of constriction and lack of liberty in ways that go beyond the metaphorical. 

I think of Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, imprisoned in Louisiana though the State Department found no evidence linking her to terrorism, just an op-ed opposing the war in Gaza and calling for divestment. Or Mohsen Madawi, a green card holder and Columbia student detained this week by ICE at a naturalization interview in apparent retaliation for his activism. 

Both arrests were ostensibly to secure safety for Jews. But along with most of my colleagues, I don’t believe that imprisoning grad students makes Jews safer. I do believe that chipping away at free speech rights and due process makes all communities less safe. And calling their activism “terrorist” cheapens the word and diminishes our capacity to name actual terrorism and antisemitism.

Or take Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who fled here to escape gang violence, now deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador – which the government now admits was a mistake. The Supreme Court has ruled that the administration must facilitate his return, but the administration now claims there’s nothing they can do (or, want to do)  to bring him back.

As historian Heather Cox Richardson writes, “if the administration can take noncitizens off the streets, render them to prison in another country, and then claim it is helpless to correct the error… it could do the same thing to citizens.” As far-fetched as that sounds, the idea is actually under discussion. (Here’s more on that at NBC and at Reuters.)

The opening prayer in the Reform movement’s Gates of Freedom haggadah celebrates:

Freedom from hatred and freedom from fear

Freedom to think and freedom to speak

Freedom to teach and freedom to learn

Freedom from hatred and fear – when an arsonist attacked the home of a Jewish governor on Pesach, and it’s increasingly unsafe to be trans or gender-nonconforming? Freedom to think and speak – when today some claim the ability to deport people over beliefs? Freedom to teach and freedom to learn – when there’s a push to erase diversity and climate science? 

The festival of freedom feels different to me this year than it ever has before, and I know from our conversations in recent weeks that many of you are feeling these things, too. How can we possibly celebrate freedom in a time like this? I think Jewish spiritual life invites us also to ask the opposite question: how can we not? We need to uplift freedom especially now.

Today, the seventh day of Passover, is the anniversary of the date when we found ourselves face to face with the Sea: the Egyptian army behind us, water ahead, with nowhere to go. Midrash teaches that when Nachshon ben Aminadav stepped into the waters and walked until the waters were up to his mouth, the sea parted and we walked through on dry land. 

Here are two truths that are sustaining me right now. One:

Tradition teaches that we didn’t leave the Narrow Place alone, but rather as part of an erev rav, a mixed multitude. Pharaoh’s daughter came with us. Other people who sought liberation came with us. Torah teaches us that the path to freedom is one that we all take together. I take strength in remembering that we are not seeking liberation and justice alone. 

There’s some enlightened self-interest here. In the words of the CCAR (the association of Reform rabbis), “whenever vulnerable minorities are attacked, Jews will ultimately be vulnerable because we are Jewish.” We know that Jews are safest when everyone’s civil rights and civil liberties are honored; standing up for others helps us too. It’s also the right thing to do.

And two:

I also take strength in remembering that sometimes we will feel caught between Pharaoh’s army and the sea. At those times, the only thing to do is step into the sea, whether or not we feel ready. Pesach is a celebration of taking a leap together, choosing to trust that the world can be different and better than it has been. But we may need to step into the sea without certainty. And that's ok.

The question that keeps coming up for me is: what do we owe to each other? I think our obligation as Jews and as human beings is to stand up for the civil rights and human rights of others. There’s a reason people keep quoting Niemoller’s poem that begins, “First they came for the Communists…” I think we owe it to each other to stand up for our shared human dignity. 

I think we owe it to Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Madawi to stand up for their rights. I think we owe it to Kilmar Abrego Garcia to stand up for his rights. I think there’s a reason Torah tells us 36 times to love the stranger because we were strangers in Mitzrayim. I think this mitzvah, loving the stranger, is one of the core ways we leave Mitzrayim behind.

We’re not alone. And there has never been a better time to reach out to each other, both across the Jewish community and across all our local communities. If you are feeling afraid, know that your Jewish community is here with you. And if you’re not feeling afraid, I hope you’ll reach out to someone who might be, and let them know that you’re here and you’ve got their back. 

This is how we cross the sea: one step at a time, taking a leap of faith together, as an erev rav / a multitude connected across our differences. Our nation has never yet fully lived up to the dream of liberty and justice for all, but that’s all the more reason to keep trying. May our Passover story of liberation inspire us to work toward that sacred dream, for everyone.

This is the d'var Torah I offered at Kabbalat Shabbat services at Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires (cross-posted to the From the Rabbi blog.)

Old magnolia: gaps just the right size
for my dangling legs, a branch to rest a book on.

The seaglass blue of sky over hills
like an embrace from the horizon.

Limestone painted pink at twilight,
rosemary between my fingers.

The light of Shabbat candles
after a brief whiff of struck match.

Singing the alto note in a chord,
holding and held.

For my birthday last month one of my nieces gave me a deck of illustrated cards depicting untranslatable words. I drew a card this morning: querencia.

"Describes a place where we feel safe, a 'home' (which doesn't literally have to be where we live) from where we draw our strength and inspiration. In bullfighting, a bull may stake out a querencia in a part of the ring where he will gather his energies before another charge."

Shabbat. Jerusalem. Harmony. A particular quality of sky. A tree that was chopped down decades ago.

Where are these places for you?

The words of the "blessing for the body," superimposed over an MRI machine.

There is nothing like a surprise trip to the hospital to remind me that I am not actually in charge. Things at the hospital happen on someone else's timeframe. God's timeframe, maybe. Not mine.

I had forgotten the sounds of the MRI machine: the swish-swish like a distant ocean, the banging and buzzing and thudding. I had forgotten the taste of chewable aspirin, a jolt of childhood on my tongue.

I almost fell asleep in the MRI this morning, I was so tired from being up all night in the ER and the ambulance. I prayed lines from the morning services in my head, accompanied by its soundtrack.

Before anyone starts worrying, I'm fine. As best we can discern, this was a TIA -- a "transient ischemic attack," a clot that had some tangible impacts for a couple of hours and then apparently floated away.

What caused it? That's a bigger question. It's probably related to whatever caused my heart attack in 2022 and my two cryptogenic or idiopathic (aka inexplicable) strokes in 2006... whatever that was.

I guess I'm heading back into a period of investigative diagnostic work. Not my favorite thing, but it gives me plenty of opportunities to practice sitting with the discomfort of not-knowing something. 

And. While I was in the emergency room last night at the first hospital I went to, I was messaging a Facebook friend who is hospitalized on the other side of the country with high-grade lymphoma. 

Since yesterday, I've seen and heard people who are in far tighter straits than I. I don't enjoy not-knowing. But I know how lucky I am to be dealing only with this, rather than with something worse.

I am reluctantly admitting that I will need to scale back my seder preparations. The kitchen will not be kashered as intensively as I would prefer. I will rely on storebought chicken broth for soup.

I will need to remind myself to take things easy for a while, which is not my strong suit. If you see me exerting myself, remind me that my body seems to be saying: slow down. You move too fast.

I think I started sharing Velveteen Rabbi's Haggadah for Pesach on this blog in 2007, though the haggadah existed long before that. Anyway: cue the fanfare, drumroll please: as of 2025, here's an updated edition, version 9. Find it here:

The Velveteen Rabbi's Haggadah for Pesach

The gorgeous cover illustration is by my friend and Bayit colleague Steve Silbert, and his work appears in various places throughout the haggadah. 

There's new material here, including prayer-poems by me and by my fellow Bayit Liturgical Arts Working Group hevre Trisha Arlin, R. David Markus, R. Sonja Keren Pilz, and David Zaslow. And poems written by people I don't personally know, like Amnon Ribak and Linda Pastan. And I added a favorite piece from Marcia Falk's gorgeous Night of Beginnings haggadah, and some wisdom from the new A Quest for Our Times haggadah.

Some pieces appear both in long form and in shorter form. Some pieces appear in several forms (there are six different versions of the Four Children; which one speaks to you this year?) 

Most importantly to me: there's more attention to what freedom asks of us. When I started working on this haggadah for my own use 25 or 30 years ago, I was really focused on the inner journey of liberation. And... in today's world I am keenly aware that freedom comes with obligations to each other and to those who are not free. So there's more of that in here too.

As usual I also fixed typos, improved formatting, and adjusted layout. 

The PDF is available for download and as always, you're welcome to use it as your haggadah, or to intersperse these pages with the haggadah you already know and love, or to intersperse these pages with other readings that speak to you -- make seder your own. 

Again, find it at the Haggadah page at velveteenrabbi.com, or click the link below:

The Velveteen Rabbi's Haggadah for Pesach

May your Pesach be everything you need it to be.

What does it mean this year to celebrate freedom?
What does it mean this year to claim we are free?

Are we free to speak – or only if we hold the “right” opinions?
Are we free to be who we are – or only if we fit a certain mold?

Can we celebrate liberation when innocents are shackled?
When “give me your tired, your poor” seems out of style?

When communities live in fear, Seder’s journey feels hollow.
What does Seder mean this year? What if we don’t feel free?

Sometimes Seder is about hope we don’t yet know how to feel.
We are not the first generation to live Passover in tight times.

We welcomed Elijah to our door during the Crusades.
We sang Seder songs in the Warsaw Ghetto and in the camps.

The world is not yet healed or whole. There is no sign of redemption.
That has never stopped us from building, singing, retelling, yearning.

The way things have been is not the only way the world can be.
It is our covenant to seek greater freedom for all who are bound.

Dr. King knew, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Justice everywhere is our destination. May this seder be our fuel.

Shared with gratitude to my first reader, whose wise suggestions made this better. 

This could be used as a responsive reading at seder. If you do that, I'd recommend having the whole room read the first couplet; that way the whole room is also reading the last couplet aloud.

If this speaks to you, you might also find merit in Bayit's new Passover collection, From the Depths.