"We are facing a watershed moment where healing from trauma is a generational call. How will we answer it? Will we reproduce old patterns of divide-and-conquer, especially in the face of rising tides of mental health crises and climate change? Or will we re-member and reenvision our interdependence and flow toward collective transformation? The answers, and new questions, are up to us."
-- Jen Soriano, Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing
A friend recommended Soriano's book to me as I began to grapple with the trauma I carry as the daughter of someone who fled the Holocaust. The book is excellent; I recommend it highly. (I'm not finished with it yet, but it's already given me valuable new lenses for understanding not only my own history and its implications, but also the histories of many whom I serve.) This quote jumped out at me this morning -- as we all continue to marinate in what's happening in Gaza and in Israel and in us.
My mother the refugee would have rejected the word trauma. She was lucky, she would have said. Lucky to have escaped Hitler, lucky to have made it here, lucky to live in a country that welcomed Jews (and to witness the birth of Israel) and so are her children, period. And her story still isn't mine to tell -- even though she's been gone for five years. Enough to say simply that she would have rejected this frame altogether. I rejected it for a while, too. I kept saying, "but this is normal."
Of course I used to lie in bed and list what I would take with me if the Nazis returned and we needed to flee. Of course my diary was inspired by Anne Frank's, so someday when somebody tried to wipe out the Jews again, maybe my diary would be a testament to how we tried to persist, just like hers is. Of course when I peel a potato and throw the skin away, I think of family in the concentration camps who would have done anything for a potato peel to add nutrition to the watery soup that was all they had.
(Dear anyone who is about to tell me there are innocents in Gaza who would do anything for a potato peel -- I know. That's heavy on my heart too. It is my very next thought, after remembering my ancestors. And... the readiness to make my words about what I carry in my own body into an opportunity to yell at me about Gaza is part of why this moment is so hard.) Why am I writing about this? Because I know others are struggling with it too. I can't fix it, but I can say: you're not alone.
We're not alone in those constantly-running trains of thought. Most of us who grew up in the shadow of that horror have them. And not all of us would call it traumatic. (Mom certainly didn't.) And yet -- "I lost another friend over Israel and Gaza," someone said to me recently. "I guess I know who I can't ask to hide me, if it comes to that, again." I felt my heart clench as anxiety tried to surge. The internal monologue says, When people hate Jews, it's not safe. Look how much people hate us right now.
A personal essay about coexistence and war, written by an Israeli translator, was retracted this week by literary journal Guernica. Its author translates Arabic poetry into Hebrew and into English. Before the war began she drove Palestinians in Gaza to hospitals in Israel. She seems like the kind of person I would like to know. And yet the hatred and loathing and vitriol directed at her are staggering in their stridency. Like most American progressive Jews, I feel unmoored by the recognition of this loathing.
A week ago I wrote about my hopes for Israel and Gaza. Predictably, what I said made some people angry. I am too hawkish for some, too dovish for others. I keep thinking about a quote from a recent article by Rabbi Jay Michaelson (about what Glazer said at the Oscars): "Admittedly, to many standing in solidarity with Palestine, this can all seem rather milquetoast. // On the other hand, to many in AIPAC and the pro-Israel community, it can seem like a betrayal of the Jewish people." Yep.
If you only take one thing away from this post let it be this: the tears, the nausea, the death-grip of anxiety, the feeling that nothing and nowhere is safe -- these are trauma reactions. And anecdotally, most of us are living with them. Which means it's no small wonder that my whole town has been metaphorically ablaze with feelings of rancor and betrayal over proposed ceasefire resolutions. We're all inflamed like damaged nerves in the body of our community, and pain is spiking everywhere.
Which takes me back to Jen Soriano's book. Soriano writes beautifully about the effects of therapy and somatic work on her trauma and chronic pain. What's the equivalent of that work for a whole people? We keep lashing out: how could any Jew want a ceasefire when [insert reason]? How could any Jew not want a ceasefire when [insert reason]? Our ancestors fled genocide, how can you say that? I want to ask: how often are our responses shaped by unconscious trauma, and what can we do to heal?
Addendum: I was literally finishing this post draft when I got the latest from Jay Michaelson: Israel/Palestine and the Politics of Trauma. Well: as my mother would've said, "great minds run in the same direction." Anyway, go read Jay's post, it's excellent.
How to be universally loathed: insist on not hating.
Cling to driftwood in the ocean of despair.
God is here, too.
The word dehumanization does not belong in poetry.
Some think we're holding the gun,
others think we're in the crosshairs.
The waves bring our words back.
We're using the same sounds
but they mean something different in different mouths.
This week’s Torah portion, Vayak’hel, begins: “וַיַּקְהֵ֣ל מֹשֶׁ֗ה אֶֽת־כּל־עֲדַ֛ת בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל / Moses convened the whole community of the children of Israel…” The word I’m translating here as “convened” is vayak’hel. It’s the same root as the word kahal, community. Moses communified the community. He called the community into being by bringing the people together.
In the wake of the the Gaza ceasefire resolution recently proposed in Williamstown, I’ve had a lot of conversations in the last few weeks with members of the CBI community about whether we feel like one Jewish community, and whether we feel connected with the non-Jewish community around us. And do we need to agree in order to be in community?
Maybe the children of Israel felt like one unified community at this moment in our Torah story. They’d just received the second set of tablets of the Ten Commandments; maybe their shared experience or shared values united them. Or, maybe they came to see themselves as one community through the work of literally building a spiritual home for the Holy together.
But first Moses reminds us that on six days we may work, but the seventh day is Shabbat; on it we kindle no fires. Obviously the plain meaning of the text is that on Shabbat we don’t strike a match, or build a fire, or engage in the “work” of burning things. Even the holy work of building a home for God* (*whatever that word means to each of us) pauses for Shabbes.
Reading this verse this year, what came up for me was the flame of anger and the smolder of fear. I know that many of us are carrying fear these days. Fear about rising antisemitism. Fear about whether public support for Gaza translates into hatred of Jews. Fear about what this year’s Presidential election might bring. Fear about the climate crisis and our planet.
And I know that many of us are carrying anger. Maybe we’re angry at government dysfunction that’s preventing aid from reaching people who desperately need it. Or we’re angry at the terrible realities of humanitarian crisis. Or we’re angry because we feel helpless. All of these are fires in our minds and our hearts and our bellies, usually banked but always burning.
Shabbat is our primary spiritual oxygen mask. And in times like these, we need that oxygen mask more than ever. Can we genuinely take one day a week away from all of those flames? Six days a week those fires may be burning in us, but what if on Shabbat we could put a lid on the flames and seek solace together? That’s one of the spiritual tools that our tradition offers.
Torah goes on to describe how everyone brought items of beauty for the building of the mishkan, the portable dwelling-place for God that we carried with us in the wilderness. Blue, purple, and crimson yarns. Silver and copper and gold. Fine linen and leather and acacia wood. Woven wool, and precious stones. The description is so detailed I can almost feel it.
That’s another spiritual tool: our souls need beauty. There’s beauty in this building, in the warm wood and the bright copper that evoke that mishkan. There’s beauty out our windows, in our giant willow tree and the meditation labyrinth and the hills. Whether it’s via nature, or art, or music, finding beauty in the world isn’t just a luxury. I think our souls actually need it.
And then Torah offers elaborate detail about the construction of the menorah, the golden lampstand at the front of the mishkan. The golden menorah was ornamented like a flowering tree, connecting us with the natural world. It had golden cups to hold oil, shaped like almond blossoms. The flowers had petals and calyxes, the sepals that enclose flower petals.
This golden tree-shaped menorah had seven lights, like the seven days of the week or the seven colors of the rainbow. Some say the menorah symbolized universal enlightenment, or the six branches represent human knowledge and the seventh one in the center represents divine wisdom. Regardless, the purpose of a menorah is simple: it’s there to shed light.
We need community. We need oxygen. We need to put out the smoldering embers of anxiety and despair. We need beauty. And we need light. People talk about conflict generating more heat than light? We need it to be the other way around. In place of the fires of our fears and our conflicts, we need the light of wisdom, the light of insight, the light of hope.
I want to give each of us permission to put on the oxygen mask that is Shabbat. To seek out something beautiful that nourishes the spirit. To take a break from the news and the doomscrolling and the low smolder of anxiety and anger and fear. To seek sources of light. And it turns out that we can maintain these as a spiritual practice during the week, too.
Maybe you know this already: what we feel in our hearts and souls impacts what happens in our bodies. When we marinate in fear or anger, conflict or despair, we can literally become sick. I read a powerful interview with Amy Lin recently in which she notes that acute grief sent her to the hospital with blood clots. And we know that anxiety can manifest in the body as illness.
Many of us know these truths intimately, these days. The horrors of October 7 continue to reverberate as hostages taken that day remain captive. Meanwhile now we also sit with the horrors of humanitarian crisis in Gaza. For many of us, the grief and anxiety feel like a kind of constant low-level poison to our hearts and spirits – and, increasingly, to our bodies.
Our world is full of reasons to feel disconnected or anxious, angry or afraid. But we do not help those who are suffering by letting our grief and anger sicken us. We have to find a way to be otherwise. Torah this week comes to remind us that like our ancient spiritual ancestors we too need community, and we need a break from burning, and we need beauty, and we need light.
Shabbat shalom.
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.)
I usually don't cross-post here to share my "From the Rabbi" columns written for the shul's monthly newsletter. This one is an exception.
Dear Congregation Beth Israel members and friends,
As a rabbi I am here to serve everyone in our community. I aspire to be here for you in sickness and in health, in celebration and in sorrow. I have the holy opportunity to learn and to teach, to rejoice and to mourn, and to build community with each and every one of you. I take this covenant seriously, and it is one of the things I love most about the work that I am blessed to do. I will always strive to approach any differences we may have with curiosity and an open heart. And I always want to hear from you about where you are and what matters to you.
Many of you have asked what I think about what’s happening in Gaza and Israel. In a word, I am heartbroken. Every time I pray, these days, I pray with all my heart for a negotiated bilateral ceasefire, return of all hostages, and an end to enmity between Israelis and Palestinians.
Many calls for ceasefire blame Israel exclusively (ignoring the culpability of Hamas), or presume that Israel is a settler-colonialist enterprise with no validity. I don’t hold those views. I pray for a negotiated bilateral ceasefire along with an end to the occupation. I pray for a future in which Israelis and Palestinians can live in safety. I believe that the only way for one people to thrive is for both peoples to thrive.
After Hamas’ horrific incursion into Israel on October 7, I understood that a military response was necessary lest Hamas presume carte blanche to rape and murder Israelis at will. I hoped war would be brief, like the 1967 Six Day war or the 1973 Yom Kippur war (19 days). The vast humanitarian catastrophe we have witnessed in Gaza shatters my heart. So too does the continuing suffering of our Israeli cousins, displaced or grieving or afraid. So too does the fact that, because of the Netanyahu government’s choices, world opinion has pivoted so fiercely toward hatred of Jews and readiness to declare that Israel should not exist.
Until now, I have refrained from saying any of this. In our small community, people hold almost every possible view on Israel and Gaza. I understood it to be my job to keep my yearnings between me and God, in order that I might better serve everyone. I’ve come to think that my silence may not be serving anyone well. Better that I should model emotional authenticity and readiness to be in community across disagreement; that’s actually part of my job as your rabbi. I’ve also come to understand that staying silent about strongly-held beliefs feels like swallowing a little bit of poison every day.
Compassion literally means “feeling-with” or “suffering together.” I feel with Israelis and others who are traumatized by Hamas’ massacre and rapes of October 7, and who are agonizing over the fate of the hostages remaining in Gaza. I feel with innocent Palestinians who are suffering terribly. I feel with the people who are horrified by the scope of humanitarian disaster in Gaza, and who are agonizing over the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian innocents. I feel with the people who say: I’ve never felt this much despair. (Some feel despair because of hatred of Israel. Some feel despair because of Palestinian suffering. I feel with both.) I feel with those who call for a ceasefire. And I feel with those for whom a one-sided call for a ceasefire, without condemnation of Hamas, activates PTSD and epigenetic trauma around antisemitism.
The Psalmist writes, “From narrow straits I call to You; answer me with Your expansiveness!” (Ps 118:5) From these narrow straits I pray for a ceasefire: negotiated, bilateral, in which both sides stop fighting and hostages are freed, in which there are no more rockets out of Gaza or bombs dropped by Israel, in which the fighting genuinely ends starting now. I pray for political and diplomatic engagement in building a new and better future for both peoples. The configuration of whatever comes next is not my area of expertise. Two states? One state? A confederation? I don’t know what will work, and it’s not my job to know.
But it is my job to speak truthfully from the heart in a way that’s informed by my Jewish values. I don’t believe that this war is achieving its stated goals of freeing the hostages, making Israel safer, or ending the ascendancy of Hamas. I see unthinkable loss and harm that will continue to reverberate between these two traumatized peoples for generations. I fear that fighting leads to more fighting, and that these vast numbers of casualties will fuel the next wave of Intifada. There has to be another way, and it has to involve an end to both terrorism and war.
I am not interested in calls from either side to wipe out the other or banish them to some mythical other home. Neither the Israeli people nor the Palestinian people is going anywhere. I deeply admire Hand in Hand (bilingual and bicultural schools that teach in Hebrew and Arabic the narratives of both peoples). I deeply admire the Parents Circle - Family Forum (bereaved Israelis and Palestinians who have chosen coexistence over hatred). I deeply admire Standing Together (a grassroots movement of Israelis and Palestinians working together toward coexistence and peace.) Organizations like these are where I place my hope for a better future.
Jewish values call us to balance ahavat Yisrael (love of our fellow Jews) with v’ahavta l’reakha kamokha (loving the other as ourselves). I grieve Gaza and Israel’s suffering to the best of my broken heart’s limited capacity. I feel with every grieving parent, every orphaned child, and every displaced human being. I recognize the infinite sacred worth of every soul, Israeli and Palestinian alike. I want a better future for both peoples. I fear that this war will not lead there.
I believe that Jewish values call us to be God’s hands in the world: freeing those who are captive, uplifting those who are downtrodden, and ensuring liberty and human dignity for all. That’s the clarion call of the Exodus story as it echoes in daily liturgy and in the Passover seder we celebrate each year. “All” means all: not just Israelis, and not just Palestinians. Everyone.
We are a long way from that reality. Right now it seems impossible. But hope is central to Jewish life and practice. We are called to embody the hope that tomorrow can be better than today – and to do what we can in service of that dream. I pray fervently for a negotiated bilateral ceasefire and release of hostages, a diplomatic resolution to all conflict, and a future in which both peoples can live in safety and security on that beloved land.
Yours in deep hope –
Rabbi Rachel
Image by Stellalevi.
Content warning: there's a disturbing antisemitic quote in the 9th paragraph.
Maybe it’s because I hang out with a lot of rabbis: I can’t count the number of people this week who sent me a link to the current cover story of the Atlantic, The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending. [gift link] It’s a powerful essay. It has much to say about American Jewish history, liberal democracy, and the resurgence of anti-Jewish hate on both the left and the right.
It raises big questions. Are our safest years over? What if the acceptance we’ve taken for granted as American Jews has been a historical anomaly? What if liberal democracy turns out to be a historical anomaly? Is it all downhill from here? Add to these the current question of: does soaring public support for Gaza necessarily translate here to hatred of Jews?
These questions precipitated a slow-motion anxiety attack that knocked me out for most of a day. Maybe you've had this experience too: chest feeling constricted as though by an iron band, no ability to draw a deep breath, tears coming in waves like a storm system that just won’t quit. The next day the heart and body feel leaden. One's insides ache. It takes a while to “recover.”
That word is in scare quotes because I’m not sure what it means to recover from an anxiety attack when the sources of the anxiety persist. Here we are, five months in to the Hamas-Israel war that began on Shemini Atzeret. It has been longer and more terrible than I could have imagined. I don’t think I know anyone in congregational service who isn’t struggling.
I have congregants on every “side” of this divide, from ceasefire activists to oldschool Zionists. I feel-with all of them: the one who asks, “how can we not condemn indiscriminate killing?” and means Hamas, and the one who asks the same question and means Israel, and the one who says Judaism feels like a burden now because the world uniquely hates us again.
Of course, the end of the golden age of being an American Jew (as Franklin Foer writes about it) isn’t “just” about Israel and Gaza. It’s a bigger picture of social trends, the liberal dream perhaps dissolving, Trumpism and more. But the fact that hating Jews has become acceptable both on the Right and on the Left is a central piece of the sense that an era has ended.
This morning’s email from the Forward included one headline about Israeli hostages invited to the State of the Union, and another about a bar in Utah that refuses service to Zionists, because in today’s progressive understanding people who think Israel deserves to exist are often considered akin to Nazis and white supremacists. The cognitive dissonance is staggering.
A poet-rabbi friend told me recently about a literary magazine now specifying, "No misogyny, no homophobia, no racism, no Zionism." Is this really where we are? Disavow the right of Israel to exist, or be considered as morally repugnant as homophobes and racists? I remember one of the most harrowing lines of Foer’s article:
“Are you Jewish?” one mop-haired tween asks another, seemingly unaware of any adult presence. “No way,” the second kid replies. “I fucking hate them.” Another blurts, “Kill Israel.” A student laughingly attempts to start a chant of “KKK.”
Foer may be right: it’s possible that our best and safest years as American Jews are over. And in a certain sense, so what? In that case we’re like the vast majority of our Jewish forebears over the last few thousand years. When has it ever been easy or safe to be a Jew? The last 50 years, maybe. But 50 years isn’t even an eyeblink in the long span of history.
I used to think that humanity had evolved beyond antisemitism, but that seems to be as false as the white liberal American dream that our nation was evolving beyond racism (a dream in which I also partook, until it came crashing down around us). That doesn’t mean we stop trying. It just means the work ahead is long, and the dream of something like redemption is still far away.
What do we do with these feelings? Well, in a few weeks, we dance with them. We make merry. We celebrate Purim – another story in which someone wanted to wipe us out across an empire. (And we wrestle with the violence at the end of the Purim story. Knowing that we’ve been hated for centuries can damage the soul, and so can revenge fantasies, if we let them.)
Esther has something to teach us this year about the bravery it can take to openly be who we are. To be Jews, even when it isn’t easy. To name the bigotry of Jew-hatred as the cancer it has always been. There is a spiritual lesson here about wresting "light and gladness, joy and uprightness" (Esther 8:16) even from the panicky grip of despair. Even in times like these.
"When Adar enters, joy increases." -- Ta'anit 29a
When Adar enters, my parents wave
from beyond the veil.
They followed each other
out the door and into
the early spring earth.
My mother blazed the trail
like a 1950s movie star
perched on a pretty little horse,
riding into the sunset.
Dad was lost
the minute she left
but he found his way. The last thing
he murmured was, "looking good" --
to my brother? to himself
in the mirror behind closed eyes?
Or maybe to mom, waiting patiently
just outside our field of vision
for him to realize
the water was fine,
he could just
jump in.
We
need
each other
to
make
a minyan
for
kaddish
or Torah
to wash
and dress
the dead
to drape
mirrors
with sheets
to loft
a wedding couple
in their chairs
to heave
a shovel
of dirt
to roof
a sukkah
with cornstalks
to dance
in turn
with Torah
to ask
why this night
is different
to argue
for the sake
of heaven
Do you celebrate
your yahrzeits
like birthdays?
Are you closer to us
at this season
as when planets
as align?
Are you always here
or only when we remember?
When you watch
a funeral
from there
what do you feel?
Did you organize
a welcome party
for the new arrival --
chains of illness
thrown off
like light bedsheets
in the morning
-- and is she already
making art
with steady hands?
Making art. See The Art of Adapting (2018, 9 minutes) and its sequel Tina Epstein - Parkinsons (2023, 38 minutes). Seriously, watch these short films by Christian Ayala; they are well worth it.
Both of my parents died during the lunar month of Adar, three years apart. Yesterday my cousin Tina z"l joined them in whatever comes next. May her family be comforted along with all who mourn.
The editors of the Williams Record asked if I would write an OpEd about last week's Williamstown Select Board meeting, the resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza that was brought to that meeting, and the views of the community I serve on that resolution. Here's a taste of what I wrote:
...Before writing any kind of resolution that aims to speak for the whole Town, I think we need to listen to one another. One of the difficulties in doing so is that we’re often operating with different facts. Not because of disinformation, though there’s plenty of that, but because news from Al Jazeera will be different from news from Ha’aretz, which is different from your Tumblr feed. It can be painful to hear someone who views the conflict through a different lens and is getting their information from a different set of sources, but it’s valuable to learn how to hold multiple truths.
As a Rabbi, I’m committed to the proposition that all of the Jews who live here belong in Jewish community, no matter what path forward we think is the best way to reach a just and lasting peace. This goal requires us to look for places where we can make common cause instead of focusing on the places where we can’t. It’s not always easy, but I think it’s vital...
Read the whole piece here: Creating a resolution that speaks for more of our Town.
God spoke to Moses, saying: Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts;
you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart is so moved.
And these are the gifts that you shall accept from them: gold, silver, and copper;
blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair;
tanned ram skins, dolphin skins, and acacia wood;
oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the aromatic incense;
lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece.
And let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. (Ex. 25:1-8)
In this week’s parsha, Terumah, we bring gifts. Everyone brings something different, and everyone has something to bring. Maybe that’s what makes what we build together a mikdash, a holy place. In English, a sanctuary: a sacred space of protection and care. When we co-create safety, then God can dwell among us or within us. (And as always, if the “G-word” doesn’t work for you, substitute something that does: meaning, justice, compassion, hope.)
וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם׃ / va’asu li mikdash v’shakhanti b’tokham / “Let them make Me a sanctuary that I might dwell within (or among) them.” The Hebrew שָׁכַנְתִּ֖י / shakhanti, “that I might dwell,” shares a root with the name Shekhinah – the Presence of God with us and within us. It’s the same root as the Hebrew word שְׁכוּנָה / shekhunah, neighborhood. The Hebrew אני שוכן / ani shokhein, “I dwell,” is cousin to the Arabic أنا أسكن / ‘ana ‘eskun, “I dwell…”
Torah spends many weeks describing the Mishkan, the portable dwelling place for God that our ancestors built in the wilderness. The story of the mishkan is always also a story about something bigger and deeper. It’s not “just” about the lavish descriptions of blue, purple, and crimson yarns, the hammered gold and copper, the linen and acacia wood. This is Torah’s sacred instruction manual on creating community. Step one: community means everybody.
Torah reminds us that we build community together, each with our own gifts. The holy work of building community comes with some obligations. First off, we have to respect each others’ offerings and perspectives. We have to remember that together we are more than the sum of our parts. And we have to remember that the way to build a home for the Holy, for truth and justice and compassion and hope, is to all be involved in building it together.
And there’s a corollary, which is that everyone has something to give. I’m not talking about donations, though every community needs funds to keep itself going and ours is no exception. I mean the inner qualities we each bring to the table. Passion and perseverance. Kindness and steadfastness. Community-mindedness. Patience. The fire of justice and activism, and the still waters of care and calmness. The community wouldn’t be whole without all of us.
This is an easy platitude that can be difficult to live: especially when we disagree, or when we feel afraid, or when emotions run high. This understanding of community asks us to cultivate curiosity about each others’ perspectives and hopes and dreams, and to resist stereotyping each other or writing each other off. This might sound small, but it’s hugely important. I mean, according to Torah, this is literally how we make space for God in our world.
We make space for God – for justice, for holiness, for our highest ideals – when we all pitch in to build a community that’s broad and resilient enough to be a home for all of us. That’s our aspiration here. Our Jewish community here is for all of us. You belong here – whether you’re a fourth generation local, or you just moved here; whether you were born into Judaism or chose it yourself; whether your Jewishness focuses you inward or outward.
You belong: whether what brings you through the door is spiritual life and practice, or activism and social justice, or music, or mitzvot, or social life and connections. And you belong no matter what path you think will best bring Israel and Palestinians to a just, lasting, and safe peace. We are a tiny synagogue community. Within our fewer-than-100 members we span the gamut of opinions about Israel and Palestine. I know this because y’all have told me so.
This is an upside of smalltown life. I imagine that in a city, people might self-select to different synagogues. But in northern Berkshire, we’re it. Which means we have to find a way to be in community even when we disagree… even about the big questions, like which tune is the right one for Adon Olam. I’m joking, but I also really mean it. Torah’s whole vision of holy community assumes that we are different, and we figure out how to be there for each other anyway.
I am committed to the proposition that we all belong in Jewish community, and that we owe it to each other to make it work. I believe our diversities are the gifts we each bring to the construction of this sacred community. And I believe that in listening to each other, with openness, humility, and care, we make space for that infinite possibility of transformation that our tradition names as God. When we hold space for our differences, we make community holy.
Torah asks us each to bring our gifts if our hearts are so moved. If your heart moves you to do the work of showing up, I’m here to listen and learn. My ask of all of us, including myself, is: come with curiosity. Assume the best of others. And keep an open heart. Bring your gifts, and appreciate what others bring. That’s how holy community is built: not once, but over and over again, in every interaction. Even when it isn’t easy. Maybe especially then.
I am so glad to be building this community with all of you.
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.)
Rockets launched from XXXX into XXXX since October 7: 10,000
XXXX children killed since October 7: 10,000
Percentage of people who just wrote me off because I opened with XXXX suffering: 50
Percentage of people who just wrote me off because I mentioned XXXX suffering: 50
Residential units in XXXX destroyed or rendered uninhabitable: 65,000
XXXX who have moved back to XXXX: 2
Households in XXXX at risk of starvation: 1 in 4
Percentage of children brought to the ER at XXXX hospital now displaying PTSD: 43
Locations across XXXX where women and girls were reportedly XXXX and XXXX: 7
Witnesses who testified to that: 150
Bombs dropped by XXXX on XXXX since October 7: 45,000
Miles of distance in XXXX underground tunnel network in XXXX: 350-450
Square miles in XXXX: 141
XXXX hostages still in XXXXX captivity: 130
Citizens of XXXX displaced by XXXX and XXXX: 200,000
XXXX displaced by XXXX: 1.9 million
Number of opinions held by any two XXXX: 3
XXXX killed by XXXX since October 7: 20,000
XXXX I personally know who support XXXX: 0
XXXX I personally know: 0
Percentage chance that any two people reading this care about the same set of facts: unknown
I've been struck lately by the realization that part of the reason why we're talking past each other is that we're having entirely different conversations, fueled by entirely different facts. I don't just mean misinformation or disinformation, though God knows there's plenty of that these days. I mean disagreements where each party is working with real facts, but we're getting facts from entirely different sources. Are we reading Al-Jazeera, or Haaretz, or the Jerusalem Post? Are we reading news in English, or in Arabic, or in Hebrew? Which side's suffering is noted in the news outlet we trust, and how much distrust do we feel when presented with the other narrative? How often do we resort to whataboutism? A colleague noted to me a few days ago that people these days are always listening to see whose suffering gets mentioned first -- and if it's the "other side's" suffering, a lot of listeners will mentally check out or write off the person speaking as a supporter of "them," whoever that means. I wrote this poem thinking of Harper's Index (which still exists, it turns out, even though I haven't read the magazine in decades.) Every fact comes from what I consider to be a reputable source (except for the two lines about which readers are ignoring me depending on who they think I support more, which is speculation). I juxtaposed real data, and then blacked it out, making an erasure poem. I imagine that a lot of readers will automatically try to figure out which name or people or term has been obscured: am I making a point about the suffering of these people, or those people? The answer is yes. I'm grieving all of them. I'm grieving all of this. Including the fact that most of us can't have a conversation with someone who sees the situation differently, because we can't agree on which statistics even matter, much less recognize the infinite human suffering behind every number.
Every Monday afternoon at Jewish Journeys, there is a new Hebrew word or phrase of the day. We teach the word in each of our classrooms, and when we convene for Tefilah Time (an interlude of song and prayer between one class and the next) we talk about what each group learned. This past Monday our phrase of the day was tikkun olam, repairing the world.
It’s an apt phrase to be focusing on this week. This week’s Torah portion is called Mishpatim, which means Laws or Judgments. Torah speaks here about freeing slaves, and and about who’s responsible when somebody’s ox gores somebody else. Torah urges us (again) not to wrong the stranger. And here we also find a verse that shapes the Jewish view of abortion.
In this week’s Torah portion we read (Ex. 21:22) that if two men fight and one of them pushes a pregnant person and a miscarriage ensues, the person who caused the damage is fined. Fined, not put to death. Torah does not treat the causing of a miscarriage like manslaughter or murder, which in ancient times would have demanded the death penalty.
Later Jewish jurisprudence holds that the life of the pregnant person is paramount. Once the head has emerged and the baby draws first breath, it is considered an individual life. But a fetus begins as “mere water,” in Talmud’s terms. When there is a conflict between the needs of the fetus and the needs of the person with the womb, the person with the womb takes precedence.
(I wrote about this in greater detail and cited more textual sources last year: Reproductive Justice and the Dream of Sky.)
Since the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization SCOTUS decision, abortion has been restricted or banned in 21 states. Teen pregnancy rates are rising in Texas, which has some of the most restrictive legislation nationwide. Meanwhile, several Texans are suing the state over the trauma and danger in being forced to carry nonviable pregnancies.
I pay particular attention to Texas because I grew up there, and because much of my family still lives there. But there are plenty of other places across the country where the same realities are playing out. Often laws that restrict or ban reproductive healthcare are written and enacted in the spirit of a particular Christian undertanding that “life begins” at conception.
I don’t think any religion’s beliefs about when life begins should be codified in civil law. Beyond that, it’s wrong to force someone into the life-threatening process of carrying a pregnancy. (Is it surprising to hear pregnancy described that way? Here’s more from Harvard Health.) Pregnancy turns out to be really dangerous – especially for low-income folks and people of color.
It’s wrong to deny the inherent human rights and dignity of any human being. Forcing someone into pregnancy is a denial of human rights and bodily autonomy. In that sense it’s akin to our nation’s shameful history of forced sterilization. And like many injustices both historical and contemporary, it lands hardest on people who are already “on the margins.”
The burden of forced pregnancy – physical, emotional, fiscal and more – lands hardest on people who don’t have resources or power, people who may already live with illness or poverty or homelessness. I’m grateful to live in a state where the right to bodily autonomy is honored… and it pains me that so many people across the country can’t take that right for granted.
Meanwhile, those who drove the fall of Roe want to ban abortion everywhere, and anti-choice activists are pushing lawmakers not to compromise for any reason. A national ban would mean that the autonomy we enjoy here would end. But even in the absence of a national ban, it’s intolerable that people in almost half of our country don’t have rights over their own bodies.
All week as I’ve been working on this d’var Torah, I’ve been struggling with the sense that nothing I’m saying here is new. We all know that the fall of Roe has had precipitous and terrible impacts. But it feels important to name these realities, again, and to remind ourselves that we have an opportunity and an obligation to try to help fix what has been broken.
On Monday when I was teaching my students about tikkun olam, I told them the thing I love most about this foundational Jewish idea: our tradition presumes that we have power to make things better than they are. Where the world is broken, we can bring repair… and our tradition teaches not only that we can, but that we must. This is our “job.” It’s what we’re here for.
In the words of “A Prayer for Reproductive Freedom,” shared by the National Council of Jewish Women:
May we find within ourselves the collective will
to create a just society in which reproductive justice –
the holy right to own the personhood of one’s own body,
to have or not have children,
to raise any children in safety and community –
is foundational.
Every time I read this prayer, these lines remind me that reproductive justice isn’t just about my body and my healthcare, though of course those are part of it. It’s also about being able to raise all children in safety and in community. Can we actually imagine a world in which all children’s needs are genuinely met? That’s what real reproductive justice would look like.
What an amazing vision. And since our tradition teaches that learning matters because it inspires us to action, here are two short lists of actions we can take before or after Shabbat to at help protect access to reproductive healthcare for everyone. It won’t get us all the way to justice, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Shabbat shalom to all.
Action items from the NCJW:
I wrote this d'var Torah for #ReproShabbat 2024, an initiative of the National Council of Jewish Women co-sponsored by Women of Reform Judaism and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Cross-posted to the From the Rabbi blog at Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires.
You who fill and surround creation, Who adorned the heavens in time before time
with the sparkling net of galaxies like gems in the sky’s expanse –
You don't need us to make Your name great
throughout the world. It's all we can do
to hold this scant fractal
encoded in our limbs,
our temporary breath.
We praise anyway,
through our generations –
not because You need to hear it
but because something in us shifts
whether we whisper this reminder or shout it to the skies:
You are upwelling, indwelling, holy: the song that sings in us.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יהו''ה, הָאֵל הַקָּדושׁ .Blessed are You, Holy One, God Who is holy
Sparkling net of galaxies. This image is an artist’s rendering of a supercluster of galaxies, from the Smithsonian magazine. Fractal / encoded in our limbs. The four-letter Name of God can be understood to map to the human body: yud is the head, heh is the arms, vav is the spine, heh is the legs. [O]ur temporary breath. R. Arthur Waskow teaches that we speak the Name every time we breathe.
Originally published in Holy / Kedusha, Bayit, Jan. 2024.
*
This liturgical poem is one of my contributions to the latest collaborative offering from Bayit's Liturgical Arts Working Group: Holy / Kedusha. Click through to Builders Blog to see the whole thing. As always, the offering is available both as a downloadable PDF and as slides suitable for screenshare.
Also as always, what we co-created is more than the sum of its parts. Both of the pieces I drafted were inspired by something that someone else wrote or said, and I wouldn't have written either one were it not for this collaboration. This work is one of the most nourishing things I do, and I am grateful.
My parents collected haggadot for Pesach, many of which are now in my library. There is a slim, tattered haggadah from Prague, printed in Hebrew and Czech. A note tucked inside dates it to 1898.
(My mother wasn't sure, in the end, whether it had been a gift from her aunt -- born, like my mother, in Prague -- or something Mom found in a bookstore on one of her visits once the Iron Curtain fell.)
There is one bound in metal with full-color illustrations. There is one that's full of Chagall prints and illustrations alongside the Hebrew text. And there's this one, which just found its way to me:
The cover just says "Haggadah for Pesach."
When I first opened it, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. It's bilingual, Hebrew and English. The texts sketch the story of the Exodus in the traditional way, with quotes and snippets of narrative.
The graphic design is neat. The interior flyleaf has a stylized print of swirls and flowers, cups of wine and bunches of grapes. Vines and flowers and grapes twine around the words on every page.
And then I turned to a page that contained a photograph, and that's when I figured out what makes this haggadah different from all other haggadot. (You had to know I was going to go there.)
The caption reads, in Hebrew and English, "And the children of Israel were fruitful and swarmed and increased," a line from Exodus that appears on the facing page as part of the story of the Exodus.
Something about this photo (the hairstyle on the woman in the center?) reminded me of photos of my parents in the late 40s and early 50s -- and also of photos of those I grew up calling halutzim.
I flipped to the first page, and found an explanation. Here it is in English. (You can find the Hebrew version here on Flickr.) The haggadah turns out to be from 1954, the year my parents married.
What an artifact. Oh, those capital letters on the New Exodus and the Ingathering of Exiles! It feels soaked in hope, the way baklava or teiglach are soaked in honey or knafeh soaked in rose water.
Like many in their generation (they were young children when the Holocaust began), my parents believed completely in the dream of Israel -- as they believed completely in the dream of America.
In written instructions for her funeral, my mother asked for "America the Beautiful" and "Jerusalem of Gold:" for the nation that took her in, and the Jewish state she felt privileged to have lived to see.
Mid-century graphic design... and photo.
This haggadah makes me wistful for the optimism my parents felt both about Israel and about the U.S. -- even as I know that the stories they held dear aren't the whole story about either place.
It's a complicated knot of feelings: missing my parents deeply, and remembering where we disagreed, and feeling grateful that they aren't here to see some of what's unfolding today both here and there.
A haggadah is a ritual object, not a history book, though this one feels steeped in history. And that history feels sharp with heartbreak, as it has every day since Shemini Atzeret / Simchat Torah.
Had Gadya - a parable in song about all the nations who've tried to destroy us.
In Hebrew the name מִצְרָיִם / Mitzrayim is both a place (Egypt) , and a state of being. The root connotes narrowness or constriction. It's the same root as in the word tzuris, suffering or sorrow.
All of the people, and peoples, who love that land are in a Narrow Place now. I keep returning to lines from Psalm 118: "From constriction we cry out to You; God, answer us with Your expansiveness!"
Imagine a future where all the peoples of that place can flourish side by side in mutual safety and human dignity. Where is the Moshe, the Musa, who could lead the way to that Land of Promise?
Dear Most of the Internet:
this is not the Superbowl
or the World Cup, so
wash the face paint off
your social media accounts.
Sit down with one of "them"
face to face, knees touching,
and listen to their losses.
Then do it again, open heart
becoming bruised like a peach.
This is called compassion:
feeling-with, the center
of feeling we call the heart
constantly vulnerable.
I don't want to hear anything
from people who mourn
only one set of children.
Likewise if your answer is
"get rid of all of them,"
go to the back of the line
and think about your choices.
Is your status update helping?
If not, go wash the dishes.
Or send a condolence note
to someone in your community
who just lost a parent. Or
practice on Duolingo
and get one word closer
to understanding
someone different from you.