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.

הַחֹ֧דֶשׁ הַזֶּ֛ה לָכֶ֖ם רֹ֣אשׁ חֳדָשִׁ֑ים רִאשׁ֥וֹן הוּא֙ לָכֶ֔ם לְחדְשֵׁ֖י הַשָּׁנָֽה׃

This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you. (Ex. 12:2)

This is the beginning of the special Torah reading assigned to this Shabbat. The new month of Nissan begins on Sunday at sundown – that’s the month containing Passover, and it’s the first month of the year. Some of us might be thinking: Rosh Hashanah is in the fall, so how is the first month of the year now?! The short version is, we have more than one new year. Actually we have four. The year begins again in the fall; the months begin again in the spring.

Here in the northern hemisphere, spring is a time for new beginnings. And new beginnings aren’t necessarily easy. I think of Louise Glück’s poem The Wild Iris, the way she depicts the new life of a bulb that has pushed its way out of the soil: “the stiff earth / bending a little,” “I tell you I could speak again.” Every bulb that winters over experiences a kind of Exodus from constriction. What a powerful metaphor for us as we prepare ourselves to go free.

Take a lamb, says Torah, and paint its blood on the doorposts. Ibn Ezra (d. 1167) says that was a onetime thing, just for the generation of the Exodus. What’s not onetime is the instruction to feast with bitter herbs and unleavened bread: hurriedly, with staff in hand and sandals on our feet. This is “a Pesach offering to YHVH,” a “festival to YHVH throughout the ages” (Ex. 12:12,14) – the origins of the ritual feast of retelling we know as the Passover seder. 

Intriguingly, Rashi (d. 1105) teaches that the lamb’s blood was meant to be painted on the inside of the doorposts. Abarbanel (d. 1508) agrees: the blood on the doorposts was placed on the inside. Its purpose wasn’t to show something to others, but to remind us of something. Maybe that it’s part of our identity to eat our feast of liberation with sandals on our feet, ready to go. Pesach wasn’t “just” about “them / then” – it is also always about us, here and now.

As we read in the haggadah: בְּכָל-דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לִרְאוֹת אֶת-עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם /  “in every generation one must see oneself as if one had personally gone forth from Mitzrayim.” So what does it mean to see ourselves into this story? One answer is to map it to our personal narratives of breaking forth from stuck places or oppression. Another is to take responsibility for helping others find their way out of painful and unjust circumstance. I think we need both.

Rabbi Toba Spitzer points out that marking our doors is our first collective act toward liberation:

This is the challenge that our ancestors leave for us. We may no longer be slaves, but the world is still far from redeemed, and these questions still echo for us: What are the steps that we need to take on our own journey of liberation? How do we mark ourselves as both oppressed and free? What is the risk that we each are willing to take, to signal the beginning of new possibilities? 

The world is still far from redeemed: that is always true, and this year I know many of us are feeling it especially keenly. Repairing what’s broken in our world is communal work. Just as the building of the Mishkan (the portable dwelling-place for God that our ancestors built in the wilderness) was collective work. And the Exodus from Mitzrayim, the Narrow Place, is always a collective journey. It’s never just about personal transformation; it’s also about community.

Judaism is a communitarian tradition. The highest ideals of Judaism inhere not in any individual practice, but in what we do together: what we do with and for each other, and with and for those who are more vulnerable than we. We “do Jewish” best when we do Jewish together. And that includes seder. As a generous reading of the parable of the four children (and the potential wisdom we can find in each) reminds us, the seder table is big enough to hold our differences. 

Anais Nin writes, “The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Every year, Pesach and the unfolding spring invite us to embrace the risk that comes with opening. We open our hearts (internal) which then impels us to take action (external) – to love the stranger, to invite all who are hungry to come and eat, to pursue liberation for all who are bound. The internal is necessary, but not sufficient.

Were our people ever slaves to a Pharaoh in Egypt? The historical record suggests probably not. But for me that’s beside the point. What matters is that this is the story we’ve been telling about ourselves for well over two thousand years. As Torah reminds us over and over, we know the heart of the stranger because we were strangers in Mitzrayim. And because we know the heart of the stranger, we have an ethical obligation to love the stranger and to help them.

Louise Glück writes, “whatever / returns from oblivion returns / to find a voice.” This year, that speaks to me as a deep truth about recovering from depression, or grief, or any kind of tough time that might feel deadening. I know many of us have felt that, of late. The wild iris’ voice is expressed in its glorious riot of colors. It’s up to us how we express our voice, individual and collective. I believe deeply that the world needs us to use our voice to speak for what’s right.

Earlier this week, masked ICE agents in our own state detained a Turkish graduate student named Rumeysa Ozturk and whisked her off to Louisiana against judicial orders. She was arrested for engaging in “activities in support of Hamas.” As many outlets have reported (from the Guardian to Vanity Fair), the apparent “evidence” of this is that she co-authored an op-ed last year that called on the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel. 

As a Jewish community, we will have all kinds of views on that op-ed. Some of us are appalled by it. Some of us agree with it. Both of those are legitimate Jewish opinions, and I hope we can explore them together with curiosity and kindness, maybe around the seder table!  I read the op-ed, twice, and it is lightyears away from “supporting Hamas.” And the proposition that someone can be imprisoned for writing an op-ed is profoundly chilling. 

Pirkei Avot teaches that we must give others the benefit of the doubt. I believe Jewish values ask us to do this for Rumeysa Ozturk, which means at minimum insisting on due process and compassion for her -- and for everyone. My question is: are there places where our reluctance to give the benefit of the doubt becomes a kind of hametz, the pride and puffery of stale stories or unhelpful ego, which we would do well to discard before Pesah?

I spoke recently with one of you who is struggling to figure out how to approach Passover this year given everything unfolding around us. Pesach is about freedom, they noted, but this year many of us don’t feel particularly free… or safe. I told them I draw strength from knowing we aren’t the first generation of Jews to celebrate Pesach in a time of constriction or fear. All we can do is turn to our texts and traditions, and remember that we’re not alone. 

The mitzvah most-often repeated in Torah is to love the stranger, precisely because we know what it’s like to be one. This is a deep spiritual truth. Because we’ve known tight places, we have an ethical obligation to free the bound. So as Nissan begins, let’s be like our ancestors. Let’s write a note on the inside of our doorposts about who we intend to be. Let’s take the risk of blooming – and may our flowering lead to the fruits of compassion and justice for all. 

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.)

Doikayt is a Yiddish word
central to Buddhist teaching:
"right here, right now."

Wait, that's wrong.
The definition said Bundist.
Labor unions, not zazen --

build better wherever we are.
Justice is the promised land
we may never reach.

But the mystics are right too.
When we're fully here, God
is in this place.

When I'm paying
continuous partial attention
to three different news apps

or biting back responses
to someone wrong on Facebook
I'm not really here.

But last night my son
danced with his double bass
and the headlines all fell away.

At shul the other night, someone mentioned doikayt, Yiddish for "hereness." I knew the word, but wanted to know more about its origins, so I resolved to look it up when I got home. I did, and promptly misread the first line of the definition. That's what sparked this poem. 

I love the idea of Buddhist doikayt, though.

For more on doikayt, and its origins in Yiddishist / diasporist labor circles, see Jewish Word | Doikayt: the Jewish Left is Here. For a more personal take, try this short instagram post from poet Aurora Levins Morales, including gorgeous art by Wendy Elisheva Somerson created for Morales' book Rimonim. 

I also love these words from poet Melanie Kaye / Kantrowitz, "Doikayt means Jews enter coalitions wherever we are, across lines that might divide us, to work together for universal equality and justice."

That dovetails with something I've been thinking (and writing) about a lot lately: how do we build coalitions toward justice across lines that might divide us when we are so divided as a community around Israel / Palestine? 

(And, relatedly: when we are turned against each other, who benefits? When we are busy with anger at one another, what opportunities for tikkun do we miss?)

Collaborating with members of Bayit's liturgical arts working group has become an integral part of my spiritual practice in recent years. As we brainstorm, create, workshop, revise, and polish new art and liturgy together, I feel more grounded in the now and also more ready for whatever is coming.

We just released a new collaborative collection for Pesach, and it moves me deeply. There's a lot of anxiety and grief here, which speaks from my heart (from all of our hearts.) There's also hope, to which I am clinging as fiercely as I know how. Maybe that's something you need this year too.

Here's one of the pieces I wrote for the offering:

(I'll also enclose it below in plaintext for those who need it in that format -- I know the screencap of the slide isn't readable to everyone.)

You can find the whole collaboration here: From the Depths -- available, as always, both as a downloadable PDF and as slides suitable for screenshare. I hope something here speaks to you in a way that will enliven your seders this year.

Multitude

We are a mixed multitude: some frozen in trauma,

some burning with grief. Each of us carries

at least one image of a child's unjust death

seared into our hearts. How do we walk free?

Tell me the story again of how God said,

"My children are drowning and you sing praises?!"

Every human being is a child of God,

even the ones on the other side.

This year nobody's cup of joy is full.  

Our souls feel as fragile as matzah.

Even if we and our children and our children's children

aren't certain what freedom would feel like, 

maybe we can agree that this state of brokenness

isn't it. I want to believe we can get there from here.

Maybe the only way is as a mixed multitude

holding hope for each other until we can feel it again.

R. Rachel Barenblat

There is no problem, I like to sleep.
When I'm sleeping, it's just dreams:

too many suitcases to carry, or
realizing I packed the wrong clothes

and nothing in this closet fits.
(This airport is too big, I can't find

the right gate, I forgot to turn in
the rental car...) The hum of anxiety

is constant, like a hybrid car singing
its quiet chord, but I know exactly

what I'm nervous about. Small potatoes.
Awake, the shadows are darker.

I know I can't control whether or not
this year's Haman is stoppable.

An image from The Blues Brothers. 

Two news stories are sitting in my consciousness side by side. One is Columbia University losing federal funding and the related plan to deport a Palestinian grad student activist who had a green card. As a Jew, I am deeply troubled by the chilling effects of removing funding from universities that allow certain kinds of protests. I'm even more appalled by the threat of deportation for one's political views. And doing that in our name, as though it made Jews safer? News flash: it does not.

The other story is about the rabbi who was disinvited from speaking at an anti-Nazi rally. (See also Cincinnati rabbi disinvited from rally against neo-Nazis over his support for Israel.) Rabbi Ari Jun believes "that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in some portion of their ancestral homeland." He also believes that Palestinians have that same right to self-determination; opposes settlements, the war in Gaza, and Netanyahu; and dreams of a two-state solution. 

As Rabbi Jun notes, his views are pretty mainstream in liberal Jewish communities, but the organizers of this rally decided he's not welcome. Here's a(nother) progressive organization deciding that a Jew who supports both Israelis and Palestinians is beyond the pale. This kind of thinking is all too common (see Adriana Leigh's I Will Not Hide My Judaism in Progressive Spaces). It makes me sad, it drives a wedge between allies, and it feels deeply counter to what I think the world most needs.

Here's the real kicker, in Rabbi Jun's words:

The topic on which I planned to speak was the importance of building broad, intersectional efforts to fight against the threats of Nazism and white supremacy, despite the differences that might otherwise exist in the groups invited to such coalitions.

The kind of coalitions I am speaking of aren't always comfortable for everyone around the table, but they work. You can’t fight back against existential threats by limiting the number of people who join you. You fight back, successfully, by living within the discomfort of finding allies for specific purposes, even if you know you do not agree with them on all things.

This feels so important to me in this moment of what the Guardian calls the crisis of Trump’s assault on the rule of law. This is an unprecedented time. Things are bad, and I fear they will get worse, for so many communities: for Jews, for Palestinians, for queer people, for people of color, for immigrants and refugees. We need coalition-building. We need to be able to stand together and support each other, even when we don't agree on everything, even when standing together is uncomfortable.

We need to be able to stand together against Nazis. I don't particularly want to stand with those who think either Israelis or Palestinians should be exiled from the land -- I think that's unrealistic, it's "unserious thinking," and it's the opposite of helpful. But in order to push back against Nazis I would gladly link arms with people who hold views I find disagreeable, because the threat of Nazism is too great. I'm disheartened that the organizers of this rally don't seem to share that principle. 

And we need to support the constitutional right to peacefully assemble and protest, even if those protests make us uncomfortable. I am uncomfortable with "From the river to the sea" and "we don't want no two states." But if someone can be deported for political views, then we're back to McCarthyism. There's a reason the ACLU stood up for the rights of Nazis to march in Skokie. No matter how objectionable some views might be, Jews should stand for the right to express them.

Neither of these is the way to combat actual antisemitism or support Jews in flourishing. 

*

Here's the good news I can offer today. On Sunday, a dozen people sat around a table at my synagogue and participated in an autobiographical comics workshop called Drawing Through Conflict, co-led by local Jewish comics artist Anna Moriarty Lev and art therapist Kaye Shaddock. It was part of an ongoing series of opportunities and events organized by a small group of congregants who believe in the importance of learning together about the Middle East even when we might deeply disagree. 

Around that table we did not all share the same views about, or experiences of, Israel and Palestine. Over the course of two hours, as drawing prompts took us deeper, we allowed ourselves to be vulnerable with each other. We wrote and drew and laughed and cried and trusted each other with our stories. Does this "solve" anything in the Middle East? Of course not. But does it have the capacity to impact our hearts, our connections, and our local community? Absolutely. And I believe that matters. 

I recently started rereading High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America by Jessica Harris, which launched a Netflix series of the same name (about which I wrote a few years ago). Once I started rereading it, I remembered there's a second season of the show. In this moment when so many on the right are yelling about how much they hate DEI, I made a conscious choice to turn away from that discourse and to learn more about the roots of Black food and culture in this country.

In the first episode of the second season, "Food for the Journey," Serigne Mbaye serves a plate of akara, black-eyed-pea fritters with a palm oil sauce. He tells the story of visiting Gorée Island (one of the grief-soaked places on African soil from which the slavers set sail.) As slaves were fattened for the treacherous journey to come, they were fed familiar black eyed peas and palm oil. He explains to the hosts of the show that the akara he serves now are a way of honoring that painful history. 

I think of the black-eyed pea fritter recipe I learned from Black Gay Jewish chef Michael Twitty, also a shout-out to the ancestors who brought these ingredients with them across the sea. (I remember the black-eyed pea fritters I ate in Ghana in 1999 outside a very long church service held in half a dozen tribal languages in addition to English.) And I think: refusing to teach or to honor the strength, perseverance, and wisdom of the African American community is so short-sighted and sad.

In another poignant scene, a gentleman named Elvin Shields talks about what it was like to be a sharecropper in the 1940s and 50s. Picking cotton. Growing what food they could. Having to rent equipment from the landowner in order to do their contractually-obligated labor. Having to buy food on credit from the plantation store, and then pay up when the cotton was sold. (Makes me think of today's prison laborers.) And then mechanization came, and they were told on no notice to leave.

All of this was decades after slavery was over. And yet the constricted circumstances, the limited foodstuffs made available at the plantation store, even eventually forced migration -- all of it was still there... right up until the beginning of what we now call the Civil Rights era. (And now it feels like we're fighting again for the same civil rights and human dignity I thought my forebears had secured.) It is both depressing and uplifting to realize how today's struggles dovetail with what came before.

I was also moved by Mr. Benjamin Gaines, Sr. (among the last of the Pullman porters), age 99. He tells a story about an encounter with a white patron who kicked him in the ass, and about how some of the white patrons called all of them "George" (as in George Pullman.) It was an erasure of their identity: a scant step above calling them "boy" (or worse.) He also reminisces about the food the Black chefs made for the staff, and how they had a magic touch that made it feel like home.

The history of human chattel slavery and the long, deep-rooted prejudices that followed makes me so angry and sad. Some elements remind me of the Jewish history that's in my bones and the prejudices we've experienced. I guess it makes sense that I try to understand racism through the lens of antisemitism, which is the hateful bigotry I know best. And -- I also want to honor the celebratory parts of this history. There is triumph here, and artistry, and honor, and beauty. That feels important.

I want to learn more of the history of how (many) white Americans treated African Americans -- and also how Black Americans thrived even amidst hardship, in neighborhoods planted on rocky or even poisoned soil. (Including in Texas.) As a Jewish American I want to come to grips with all of this. Not in a self-flagellating way, but in a way that takes responsibility for my nation's history and my own choices while also lifting up and learning from the beauty of African American wisdom and survival. 

I know a lot of people who have been struggling with feeling hopeless over the last month or so. This book and show are a good reminder that our forebears in the struggle toward justice faced profound difficulties and found a way to survive and even thrive. That might be some of the wisdom we most need right now. At least, it might be some of the wisdom that I most need right now. And I imagine I'm not alone. Anyway: I'm finding some spiritual uplift in watching High on the Hog.

Talmud says, מִשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אֲדָר מַרְבִּין בְּשִׂמְחָה -- "When Adar enters, joy increases." (Ta'anit 21a) Or maybe, "When Adar arrives, we increase our joy."

This may be easier said than done.

In recent years I've struggled with the injunction to rejoice during Adar. My mother died six years ago during Adar I. My father died three years ago during Adar II. (This year isn't a leap year, so we just have one Adar, which means their two yahrzeits are in even closer proximity.) "When Adar enters, joy increases" --? The last few years it's been more like, when Adar enters, stock up on yahrzeit candles.

I'm no longer actively grieving my parents' absence. The loss has become familiar, its edges softening over time. But there are less-personal, more-global reasons to feel like "joy increases" might be facile and tone-deaf. Purim's tale of an evil advisor intent on destroying the Jews for Mordechai's refusal to compromise his values lands differently in a time when many of us feel increasingly unsafe. 

For those of us who are trans or gender-nonconforming, for those of us who work as public servants, for those of us whose lives are connected with any of the many agencies that have already been slashed to ribbons, for those of us worrying about Ukraine, for those of us who are anxious about the apparent dismantling of the American government, this does not feel like a time for rejoicing.

And yet.

"Talmud doesn’t say to be joyful in Adar only in good years, because then we probably would never do it." So teaches R. Irwin Keller in his recent post Telling Purim. Talmud says, this is the time of year to grow in joy, period. Because our souls need it. Because we need to remember that redemption is possible. Because we need to learn to find hope even in a story where God's name doesn't appear.

Because February felt endless -- a terrible month of watching diversity programs, international aid, cancer research, staffing at national parks, Medicare and Medicaid, the Department of Education, and so much more decimated by a guy brandishing a chainsaw and boasting about what he's demolishing -- and it is time to turn away from marinating in grief and claim some agency to lift up our hearts.

Because Purim leads us toward Pesach, as one full moon leads to the next. And Pesach is our annual reminder that freedom from constriction is possible even if we can't begin to imagine how we'll get from here to there. I cannot begin to imagine how we'll get from here to there. But at Pesach as a people we take the spiritual leap into the unknown, and Adar is our spiritual onramp to that journey.

Maybe part of the way we reach freedom lies in Purim's reminder that like Esther, we have to speak out for the freedom and safety of others. Like Mordechai, we have to stand up for what's right, and refuse to bow to those who claim power unjustly. Our freedom and safety are always inextricably bound up with each others'... and this is far from the first time we've faced injustice as a people.

There can be joy in actively embracing our values. There can be joy in standing up for justice, and for the needs of those who are vulnerable, and for what we know is right. It is a defiant kind of joy. It is joy as an act of resistance. Joy that reminds us that no one can take away our humanity, our values, our capacity to care for each other. This is a kind of joy that can coexist with anger and sorrow.

"When Adar enters, joy increases." I'll admit that feels more than a little bit implausible this year. But I remind myself that this isn't the first time in Jewish history that we have struggled to access joy in the face of injustice: not even close. Claiming the capacity for joy and hope even in terrible times is one of our tradition's spiritual tools for surviving those times with our hearts and souls intact.