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.

This post is about grief and death and loss and children in Israel and Palestine. If these aren't subjects you can face right now, you might want to scroll on by and skip this one. Take care of yourself.

My heart keeps breaking for Kfir and Ariel, two Jewish children taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7 at ages 9 months and 4 years. Their bodies were returned a few days ago, and forensics confirms that they died by their captors' hands. Everything in me rebels against the mental image of that horror.

I've spoken to so many Jews who feel alone in this. It's unfashionable to care about Jewish deaths, about Israeli deaths. Our hearts get stuck in our throats like a bone of grief every time we see a baby with ginger hair, and it feels like the rest of the world doesn't understand or notice or care.

That is an old groove, carved on our collective hearts by centuries of persecution and Jew-hatred, and it is easy to reinforce that groove now. I am trying to smooth away that groove because I don't want to live in it, but right now I feel like my skin is being sandpapered away, leaving my heart exposed.

There is no good way to make this transition, so I'll just say it bluntly: every Palestinian child killed during this war was someone's family, too. They shouldn't have gone through this either. The death of every child, the death of any child, is an entire world destroyed. Nothing about this is ok.

I know that someone will yell at me for mentioning the suffering of the wrong side. (No matter which side they think that is.) Someone will say, "It's not the same; how dare you mention their losses and ours in the same breath?" I am a mother with a tender heart. I feel all of it. I can't not grieve.

Ariel and Kfir should not have died. Ayman and Rimas, Palestinian children killed in the West Bank this week, should not have died. Children should be able to grow up into the whole of who they will become. Nobody's children should be at risk. This is not the way the world should be, for anyone. 

I don't think any of us should be yelling at each other about what or how we grieve. I wish we could give each other more grace. Living in grief has an impact on both body and soul, and we have all been living in grief for a long time now. Anyone who cares about anyone "over there" is living in grief.

I've been trying to write this post for days. Words usually come easily. Not now. I want a better world, a world of peace and safety for everyone: every Israeli and every Palestinian. I know that we are very, very far from the world as it should be. I can't find the right words. Only the cry of my heart.

המקום ינחם אתכם בתוך שאר אבלי ציון וירושלים

 إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُون

Worth reading:

• On hostages and broken hearts, R. Danya Ruttenberg, Life Is A Sacred Text
• Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas Deserved A Better World, Lior Zaltzman, Kveller
• Navigating through grief and hope for Gaza, Salena Tramel, New Lines magazine, written during the first brief ceasefire

Shabbat morning: I sat down in the sanctuary to tune my guitar. I like arriving early and playing a little bit of music for God. In summer I sing to the birds and the trees and the herbs in our pollinator garden. At this season I sing to the snow-covered landscape. And always to the silent Presence that fills every room when I open myself to notice. On this particular morning my fingers plucked their way to chords that fit a half-forgotten melody. It was insistent in me. It wanted to be remembered.

I sang the melody haltingly to myself. After a few minutes I realized it was Shnirele Perele, a Yiddish folk song I learned 25 years ago from Rabbi Arthur Waskow. I remember tears in his eyes and his voice as he sang it. He was so suffused by fervor for the hope of a better world. He is in his 90s now, still writing contemporary midrash, still working toward a world redeemed that he will surely not see. Then again, these days I don't imagine I will live to see it either. It was easier to feel hopeful then. 

The Yiddish lyrics were written down a mere 125 years ago. They promise that Moshiach will come this very year; that our redemption is at hand. What a fervent prayer that must've been in 1901, after the pogroms that characterized Jewish life in Russia and elsewhere in the late 1800s. (And after the centuries of persecution that preceded those.) Can we even imagine a world without injustice or suffering or hate, a world where we can be who we are as Jews without fear? 

When the first daveners arrived, I taught it to them. We used it as the melody for Modah Ani, our morning gratitude prayer, and for Adon Olam. My subconscious brought it back to me, I decided, as a reminder to lean into the messianic hope inherent in Shabbat. As broken as our world has been over the last week, Shabbes comes to remind us that we can live into the hope for better. Is there any more quintessentially Jewish act than that? Amidst the world's shards, we live in hope.

Shnirele Perele performed by the Klezmatics in Berlin, 2007

Na'aleh L'artzeinu: a simple melody with an intricate story, the musical history of this melody in both Hebrew and Yiddish modalities

Lyrics in Yiddish, English, and transliteration

Coming Soon, a daily April poem inspired by this Yiddish folksong, 2013

This week’s Torah portion contains one of the most visually beautiful passages in Torah. Some compare this calligraphy to brickwork, like the bricks Torah describes our ancient ancestors making for Pharaoh. Others compare it to waves, like the sea we crossed en route to freedom.

This is the Song at the Sea, which linguistic scholars tell us is one of the oldest passages in Torah. It’s the origin of the words of “Mi Chamocha,” the song of liberation which we sing at every service: “Who is like You among the gods, Adonai? Who is like you, wondrous and holy?” 

These are the words our ancestors sang upon crossing the sea and escaping Pharaoh. For our mystics, this story is an example of deep inner faith. After all, we walked into the sea not knowing if it would part (and many midrashim suggest that it didn’t part until the last minute.)

In every era we find ourselves walking into the sea hoping it will part. Sometimes this is individual. We each cross challenging seas in our personal lives: a diagnosis, a job loss, a grief. And sometimes it is communal, as in our ancestral story where we all seek safety together.

Torah teaches that a mixed multitude left Egypt. Just so in our day: we are not seeking freedom alone. On the contrary, I believe that the only way to freedom is together. The only way to a better world is together. The only way to a world of greater compassion and justice is together. 

This week our world has felt very distant from compassion and justice. I’ve felt crushed about the shuttering of USAID, which had been providing AIDS medication across Africa, defusing landmines in southeast Asia, and caring for malnourished babies and toddlers in Sudan. 

Some of you may know that my ex-husband Ethan lived in Ghana. I was blessed to travel there with him twice in his years running Geekcorps (“like the Peace Corps, for geeks.”) I only spent a few weeks in Ghana, but it was enough to give me a lifelong feeling of connection.

The people I met in Ghana were amazing: musicians, teachers, traders, digital entrepreneurs and more. And every Western geek I met who spent time in the developing world through Geekcorps came away spiritually transformed (though that’s my term, not theirs.)

The thing is, people everywhere are amazing. And that includes people in every place where USAID worked, all over the world. This funding freeze is catastrophic. Even a 3-month pause will result in 136,000 babies born with HIV. (And HIV is only one of the organization’s concerns.)

I want to note that the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a global health program implemented by USAID in more than 50 countries, was founded 20 years ago by Republican President George W. Bush. I do not see this as a partisan issue. I see it as a moral issue.

The United States spends less than 1% of our budget on foreign aid. For us as a nation it is a minuscule amount. And for many, that tiny amount of money was the difference between famine and food, between having mosquito nets for malaria or retrovirals for HIV and not having them.

I’m ashamed that our country is withdrawing humanitarian aid from people who need it – especially when we can so easily afford to provide it. I asked our reps in Congress to do something, but I don’t know if they can. And then I donated to the Berkshire Food Project.

The best answer I know to the feeling that we are squeezed tight in the narrow straits of injustice is to do something to help someone else. Join our Hesed (Caring) committee and bring a meal to someone who’s sick. Join the hevra kadisha, the group that prepares us for burial.

Or join up with a secular group that is working toward or supporting a cause you believe in. Maybe it’s supporting teachers in an era of book bans. Maybe it’s supporting immigrants and refugees. Maybe it’s supporting vaccination access to help keep our communities healthy. 

I know this may sound pollyanna. It is a drop in the bucket compared with everything that needs repair. But I believe it is how repair happens: each of us doing what we can to help others. Tikkun olam – “repairing the world” – is a Jewish imperative. It is our obligation as Jews.

Our job is to bring repair, and as CNN notes, right now some people are doing everything they can to break things. If you’re feeling a disjunction around that, you are not alone. Of course, many of us feel deeply connected with one of the places in the world that may feel most broken.

Many of you reached out to me in dismay this week over the suggestion that the United States should “own” Gaza and relocate its population. Many American Jewish groups, including the Reform movement, oppose this as ethnic cleansing and not an expression of our Jewish values. 

I’ve also heard a lot of fear that even this suggestion of a plan may jeopardize the ceasefire and put our beloveds at risk. For my part, I still hold out hope for organizations like Women Wage Peace, Standing Together, and Women of the Sun, who are working toward justice and peace.

Whatever our views on Israel and Gaza, I invite all of us to Drawing Through Conflict, a March 9th program organized by our Israel / Palestine Learning Committee, where we will use art to explore our personal relationships with the peoples and places of the middle east. 

I am really excited about this program, and I really hope you will all come. You don’t need to be an artist to participate. No one’s going to try to convince anyone of anything. All of our perspectives are welcome. And we can learn more about each other, with care and curiosity. 

I believe we owe it to each other to support each other as Jews even when we disagree. I also believe we owe it to our secular community to find ways to support those who are vulnerable, even when that means partnering with others with whom we might not agree on everything.

When Torah says a mixed multitude left Mitzrayim with us, that means it wasn’t just us. The Exodus was for everyone who was seeking freedom, Jews and Egyptians alike. Maybe that was hard for our ancestors. But we did it anyway, because freedom is for everyone, not just for us.

Literally Mitzrayim means Egypt. But in a bigger-picture sense, mitzrayim is wherever we experience being min ha-meitzar, “in narrow straits.” We are in mitzrayim now. The only way to freedom is together, even when we differ.  It’s our job to help each other cross the sea. 

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

I believe the days are getting longer. I believe this nation can become the land of promise my mother understood it to be. I believe we have obligations to each other. I believe every human being is made in the divine image. I believe in science. I believe fundamentalism damages the spirit. I believe truth matters. I believe everyone should be ethical. I believe hope is a discipline. I believe what I see with my own eyes. I believe vaccines work. I believe we shall overcome someday. I believe life is always better with music. I believe we are stronger together than we are apart. I believe a better world is possible. I believe as a Jew I am obligated to love the stranger. I believe there is more than enough to go around. I believe it takes work not to swing at every pitch in the dirt. I believe I would be a terrible baseball player. I believe no race or gender is superior. I believe there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy. I believe healing the world is everyone’s responsibility. I believe it’s the government’s job to care for all of its citizens. I believe human beings are meaning-making machines. I believe Star Wars Episode IV is the best of the bunch. I believe humanity can be better than we have been. I believe that spring will come. I believe that love matters. I believe it is not incumbent on me to finish the work. I believe I am enjoined to begin anyway.

The hills in my back yard, a few weeks ago. They were still colorful then.

"I lift my eyes up to the mountains. From whence comes my help?" (Ps. 121) I am fortunate enough to live in a valley ringed by mountains. I remember when I moved here, thirty-mumble years ago, and I said that to one of my hall-mates in my dorm. She was from Alaska, where there are real mountains. She graciously refrained from laughing. Compared with Denali, the Berkshires aren't mountains.

To me -- coming from south Texas, where the closest thing I knew to a mountain was Enchanted Rock, the pink granite batholith where the seventh grade once went camping -- these hills are miraculous. Yes, there are actual mountains in west Texas, seven hours away by car. Those didn't feel local to me any more than did Colorado, where we went by plane. It's different to live surrounded by hills.

They cradle the valley. They make the horizon feel like an embrace. I take considerable comfort in that. I watch them change colors over the course of the year. They've just put on their late autumn garb: in the distance they look light purple, with patches of dark green where the evergreens have sway. It's not as dramatic as their early autumn splendor, or summer greenery, but it's still beautiful.

The hills remind me that I am trying to take a long view. Not a geologic view, but a generational one. I suspect the rights to our own bodies that we lost a few years ago will not be restored in my lifetime. A few days ago I saw someone comment online that right now feels like living on the coast and bracing for a hurricane, knowing that it will cause untold devastation, not knowing yet exactly how.

How do I minister when so many are devastated and afraid? How do I help those who are not afraid understand those who are? Sometimes I can't wrap my own mind around the harm that I fear is coming. How do I serve from here? One answer is in trying to take the long view. Humanity will persist, and Judaism will persist, though any one of us might not. I try to sit with that knowledge every day.

"My help is from the Holy Blessed One, creator of the heavens and the earth." (Ps. 121) I think of the old joke: "I sent two boats and a helicopter!" But we are the boats and the helicopter. God helps my heart keep beating, at least for now, but what I do with them are up to me. What can any of us do but keep lifting up whoever we can, rescuing whoever we can, however we can?

Attached to the filing cabinet in my office there is a quarter of a piece of posterboard. On it are the following words: “I want to connect people with God.” I wrote them as my rabbinic mission statement fifteen years ago. I was at a retreat for emerging Jewish and Muslim spiritual leaders, and I was very pregnant, which is how I know exactly when this happened. We were asked to write down one phrase that captured why we were going into this work, and that was mine. 

When I was ordained a rabbi almost fourteen years ago, I received a blessing from Rabbi Jeff Goldwasser for stepping into a lineage of teachers. It begins with Moses on Sinai giving the Torah to Joshua, who gave it to the elders, who gave it to the prophets, who gave it to the men of the great assembly. I received another blessing that day offering a parallel lineage that began with Miriam, sister of Moses – a lineage that was lost in history and then recovered again.

I was charged with teaching and preaching and accompanying those whom I serve in a way that brings healing and uplifts wholeness. And a few months later I signed a brit, a sacred covenant, with the first of many lay leaders whom I’ve had the privilege of serving alongside. We’ve updated the brit a bit, but it’s still fundamentally the same: I’m here to serve and to lead, to teach and to uplift, to accompany you as a community and as individuals in whatever life brings.

Looking back on thirteen years of service, what I remember most are intimate moments of connection. An unveiling with only a handful of mourners present. A baby naming around someone’s kitchen table. A pastoral visit with someone who was preparing to let go of this life. The big moments matter too, like Kol Nidre this year with the sanctuary packed full, or for that matter Kol Nidre during the first Covid year when we were all sheltering in place at home…

But in the kaleidoscope of images that arise for me, many are from one-on-one or small group settings. My brit is with CBI as a whole community, and yet I most often experience it as a hundred individual little covenants: with you, and you, and you... 

I still want to connect y’all with God. Though these days I always put an asterisk after “the G-word,” as a reminder that if that word doesn’t work for you, you can substitute words that do. Maybe you want to connect with meaning, with justice, with hope. Maybe you want to connect with our traditions, with the generations that came before us and the ones that will come after. Maybe you want to connect with something that endures even when the world feels bleak.

Maybe you want to connect with Torah. With the Five Books, lovingly handwritten in these beautiful two hundred year old scrolls that need our repair. With commentaries on them, and commentaries on the commentaries. With Jewish legal writings, or ethical writings, or poetry, or music – all of those are also Torah, which means all of those point “in” or “up” or “back” to the Source of All creativity, the source of love and justice in this world we’ve been blessed to inherit.

Maybe you want to ask big questions, like, “Why?” and also “How?” Maybe you want to know how to make meaning when life feels full of grief, or how to stay grounded when life feels full of joy. Maybe you want to find meaning in the passage of time, the holiness of the seasons, our changing planet, the waxing and waning moon, the stages of a human life. Maybe you want to know how the world could have changed so much, or why it hasn’t changed nearly enough. 

To be clear, I don’t personally have the answers to all of these questions. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have the answers to any of them. But I know deep in my bones that Jewish tradition does. And I know that I have the best job in the world, because I get to help you find your answers. And because we’re all growing and changing all the time, sometimes the answers that speak to us need to change as we do… which means the work I get to do is literally never done.

The work of spiritual life is never done. The work of becoming is never done. As long as we’re here, we’re growing and changing – or we can be. My covenant with each of you is a promise to accompany you in whatever life brings your way. 

The verses I chanted this morning also speak of a brit, a covenant between Avraham and Avimelekh. There’s an exchange of some female sheep, which is slightly funny because my given name means ewe. Avimelekh agrees that a nearby well was in fact dug by Avraham – which of course our mystics understand both as a physical well that delivered much-needed water, and as a spiritual wellspring for Torah’s neverending flow of wisdom and insight.

And then Avraham plants an eshel, a tamarisk tree. What’s interesting to me is, our sages don’t exactly agree on what the tree represents. The well is clearly both water and Torah, but the tree might represent new beginnings, or maybe deep roots. Tamarisks can grow almost anywhere, making them akin to the Jewish people. Rashi says maybe the eshel was an orchard, or an inn. Both are symbols of hospitality, which is a quality our mystics often attribute to Avraham. 

I love the idea of planting a tree to mark a covenant. To the Board, please don’t worry, I am not planting another tree on our grounds. I saw how much work went into watering our tiny orchard of baby fruit trees! I’m thinking about a metaphorical tree. A tree is a lot like a community, it turns out. Both need deep roots in order to flourish. Both need an outer growing edge that’s open to new ideas and change, and deep inner rings that record and remember. And both offer shelter. 

My blessing for us, at this celebration of thirteen years of service, is this: like Avraham’s tamarisk, may we be shelter for each other when shelter is needed.  May we sink our roots deep into the aquifer of tradition so that our hearts and souls are nourished. And may we bear the many fruits of sacred community, including spiritual authenticity, readiness to take care of each other when times are tough, and readiness to celebrate together and lift each other up.

This is the d'varling I offered at Shabbat morning services at Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires as we celebrated my first 13 years of service (cross-posted to the From the Rabbi blog.)

I want to start the new year by naming the elephant in the room.

This year some of us have been deeply worried about Israel and Israelis. We can’t stop thinking about October 7 and Israeli hostages in Gaza. Maybe we’ve lived in Israel. Maybe we have family or friends in Israel and they know someone who was killed or taken prisoner. Compounding all of that, maybe we feel like the world has turned on Israel, maybe on all Jews. We’re worried about Jews worldwide at increased risk. Every anti-Zionist slogan, or boycott of a Jewish or Israeli business, or campus protest, leaves us feeling like the world doesn’t want us to bring our whole Jewish self to the table. 

And some of us have been a wreck because of Gaza, the West Bank, and now Lebanon. Maybe we have a familial connection there, or maybe our families are Arab or Muslim. We yearn for a ceasefire; maybe we’ve been standing out for one in the Williamstown roundabout every Friday. Compounding all of that, we feel alienated from the sector of the Jewish community that seems not to feel what we feel. Maybe we aren’t comfortable with Zionism, or maybe with any kind of nationalism, and we wonder how to find home in a Jewish community that doesn’t see this the way we do.

Last night as I was driving my teenager to a rehearsal, we listened to some of an audiobook of Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, his summer reading assignment. The writing is stunning. Every time I heard the narrator offer a "Heil Hitler!" -- entirely reasonable for a book set in Germany during the Third Reich -- I had to make a conscious effort not to shudder. I bit back several comments that wanted to spill out. I don't want to transmit to him my anxiety about Hitlerian echoes in our present day. 

This morning I am in a meeting about coming together to mourn and remember October 7. I have thoughts about the ritual components of such a gathering, but first we have to talk about safety. The national threat landscape. Risk assessment. Would we be safe holding a commemoration outdoors? (Would we be safe holding a commemoration in a synagogue?) Early October is one of the most beautiful times of year here, but we all know we can't protect against a gunman if we're outdoors.

And if we were outdoors, would protestors disrupt our mourning with signs and accusations of genocide as we sing El Maleh for the dead and pray for the return of the remaining hostages? (People shouted Heil Hitler at an Israel-Paraguay soccer match at the Olympics.) Today, on day 300 of the hostages' captivity, Hamas has broken off negotiations with Israel again. Also today: is the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania too pro-Israel to be a VP pick? Trump insulting Jews again is now old news.

This week I keep writing and re-writing a line in what might become my Rosh Hashanah sermon, about how "braced-against" is not a healthy spiritual posture. (It's really not.) Do I have a stomachache from drinking too much coffee, or from the way my insides are tied in knots about the experience of being a Jew in the world today? I know many of you are in this emotional-spiritual place, too. I still wear a kippah in public, but now I wonder who is silently blaming me for Gaza when they see me in it. 

Reading B’ha’alotkha this year, what jumps out at me is Pesah Sheni. God spoke to Moses saying, the children of Israel should make the Passover offering at the appropriate time. Except there were some people who couldn’t make the offering because they had come into contact with death. So they came to Moses and said, what about us? 

Moses asked God, and the answer he received was: anyone who couldn’t observe Passover at the right time, because of an encounter with death or because they were on a long journey, can make the offering at the next full moon. (Num. 9:10-12) In other words: if we miss the appropriate time and place for Pesah, we get a second chance.

We've all regretted something we didn’t manage to do. Maybe it’s something personal: I wish I’d done more to encourage people to vote. Maybe it’s something communal: the conversations we began after last month’s initial Israel/Palestine film screening were amazing, I wish we’d started listening and learning together years ago.

Here come these verses about Pesah Sheni to remind me it’s not too late. If there’s something that will bring us closer to God (remember, that’s what a korban / an offering was, from the root that means to draw near; and if the G-word doesn’t work for you, think Justice, or Compassion, or Truth) we get another opportunity.

Granted, Torah goes on to say that if we could’ve made the Pesah offering at the right time, and for some reason we just didn’t, “our soul will be cut off from our people.” (Num. 9:13) For me that’s a descriptive statement, not a prescriptive one. If we don’t engage in mitzvot or connect with community, we’re going to wind up feeling disconnected. 

So much in modern life can make us feel disconnected. I don't think I need to list those things; I imagine each of us could make our own list. And this year, on top of that, painful divisions in Jewish community around Israel and Gaza have made many of us feel alienated and disconnected in spaces where we most yearn to feel otherwise. 

But Jewish life is predicated on the premise that community matters. And I increasingly believe that figuring out how to be in community even when our views on Palestine and Israel differ is some of the most important work we can do right now – as Jews, as Americans, as human beings. 

Recently I read an interview that Roxane Gay did with the author Lamya H, included at the end of the e-book of Lamya’s memoir Hijab Butch Blues. Lamya says:

“I was lucky enough to be part of a very intentional queer Muslim community…. Not everyone was someone I would be close friends with. But because we were building this thing that was deeply intentional, everyone showed up for everyone else. It’s where I learned a lot of organizing skills, in terms of navigating conflict and being around people whose politics are different from yours, who live in the world in ways that don’t match yours – but who you deeply, deeply connect with, and who become chosen family. Navigating all of those things taught me so much about the value of kindness.”

Roxane Gay responds, “When you engage in community with kindness, it makes it possible to navigate all kinds of terrain, both good and challenging.” I read that and I thought: this speaks to me as a member of a broad Jewish community that’s struggling with the challenge of deeply-held views on Israel and Palestine, all rooted in Jewish values, that don’t align.

This year some of us are grieving what our Israeli cousins are going through, and some of us are grieving what our Palestinian cousins are going through. We may feel that difference keenly. But I believe our hearts are big enough to hold it, alongside the common ground that we all want a better future for our beloveds in that beloved land. 

We all want a better future in this beloved land, too. When I read about the plan for a "post-Constitutional" Federal government or those who want this to be a “Christian nation” – when I think about other rights that we could lose – the stakes feel impossibly high. We need each other in Jewish community now more than ever. 

Which brings me back to this week’s parsha. The Hebrew word mitzvah / commandment is a close cognate to the Aramaic word tzavta / connection. A mitzvah is something that connects us: to God (whatever we understand that to mean), to tradition, to community, to each other, to ourselves. 

Torah’s talking about someone who missed Pesah because they were in contact with death or on a long journey. But Rashi expands that. He says, it doesn’t need to be a long journey that keeps us away from mitzvot and community. Even if we were just right outside the door, we can still seek a do-over. 

Framed in modern terms, we could say: no one’s going to police what’s kept us from the mitzvot, from community, from building a more just world. We might feel like our failure to do these things before disqualifies us from doing them now, but Torah says otherwise. Torah says, re-orient, re-align, and try again. That's the work of teshuvah, which is the work of Jewish life.

In an ideal world, Pesah happens at the full moon of Nisan and sets us on a path toward covenant. “We were slaves to a Pharaoh in Egypt, and God brought us out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm: out of servitude and into holy service, partnering with God in building a more just world.” That’s our core story.

In an ideal world, we’re already on that journey. And if we’re not, it’s not too late to start. It's not too late to welcome the refugee and protect the vulnerable and tend to the climate crisis and uplift human dignity. Like the saying goes about planting a tree: the best time to do it would’ve been then. The next best time is now. 

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.)

A colleague mentioned that they are taking time away because of the particular exhaustion and grief of trying to serve a divided community after October 7. I wonder how many of us can relate to that.

There's the pain of October 7: still reverberating in almost everyone I know, whether we're there or here, no matter what our politics. I don't even want to write about the nightmare of that day.

There's the pain of the war that has followed. I know that it's laughable to speak about that from the comfortable vantage of here. But watching what's unfolding in Israel and Gaza hurts the soul.

I don't want to write about that either. Surely none of us need more words about the horrors of what we're seeing. Even from this distance, the images lodge in our souls like emotional shrapnel.

There's the pain of how people here respond to how other people here respond to events there. There's the pain of communities here torn apart by disagreements about what's happening and why.

Generations and friends, not speaking to each other: furious, betrayed. One says: but why don't they care about Israeli hostages? One says: but why don't they care about Palestinians enduring famine?

It's like they don't even care about [Israeli] [Palestinian] suffering at all. And that becomes its own source of moral injury: how am I supposed to be in community, Rabbi, with someone who...  

I want to say: we are all grieving. Maybe that simple, terrible truth can be our common ground when nothing else feels steady. For all of us, hasn't 5784 been a year of constant, unrelenting grief? 

Amidst all of this, on Facebook a poet friend posts a graphic saying "The aim was always ethnic cleansing." I know who's being accused, and I know that by and large, the poetry community agrees.

I don't say: Whose aim? Are you talking about Bibi and Ben-Gvir, or all Israelis, or all Jews? I don't say anything. I'm not sure I have the resilience to take the emotional hit from the argument.

I do search the phrase, "the aim was always ethnic cleansing." The first hit is BreakThrough News, which has disturbing origins. I wonder whether those who share the meme would care.

There's so much cognitive dissonance. And then there's the constant question: is this metaphorical heartache / metaphysical heartache, or do I need to tuck a nitroglycerin under my tongue?

Spring 1994: the Williams College Elizabethans outside of our tour bus.

Looking back at college thirty years later, the two most formative experiences and communities for me were the Williams College Feminist Seder project (about which I've written before) and the Elizabethans, the madrigal ensemble of which I was a founding member in January of 1993.

For all four of my years of college we sang together -- if memory serves, for six hours a week? We held concerts. We piled ourselves and our luggage into a school van and drove all over the Northeast (and some of the Mid-Atlantic) bringing our blend of "madrigals and sundry chansons" and geek humor.

I sang with them for a year after college, even though I'd already graduated, because I lived here in town and why not? (The same was true of the Feminist Seder, where I participated for a post-graduate year too.) Every so often we hold reunions, where we catch up and hang out but mostly we sing.

Through the Elizabethans I discovered just how much I adore harmony, and polyphony, and the shared purpose of body, heart, mind, and spirit that make music real. We start as individual beings with notes on a page. And if we do it right, we become -- and co-create -- more than the sum of our parts.

Spring 2024: the Congregation Beth Israel choir at Tu BiShvat.

A few years ago a new member joined my congregation and asked if I were interested in CBI having a choir. We've had pick-up choirs off and on over the years, and I liked the idea. But we were entering a pandemic and there was no way to sing together safely at that point, before there were vaccines.

Eventually we started singing masked and outdoors at a distance. In time we started singing indoors, starting with simple rounds. (I remember remarking, "we'll never sing Rossi, but that's ok" -- Rossi being a just-post-Renaissance Jewish composer whose work I had sung with the Elizabethans.)

Adam, our director, wrote a setting of the prayer Ahavat Olam that was right at our proximal zone of development. With his encouragement, we started stretching a bit. We learned Shabbat repertoire and High Holiday repertoire. We offered a concert one year at Yom HaShoah; another at Tu BiShvat.

Over the last six months, as the world has turned upside-down, we've continued singing together every week. We're preparing for a Shavuot concert featuring Jewish music from the last several hundred years titled "This, Too, Is Torah" -- celebrating the revelation that flows into our world as song.

Adam's Ahavat Olam has become easy. We learned a Rossi Bar'chu a while back, and we're learning a gorgeous Rossi setting of Psalm 146 right now. I love its many voices and moving lines and gorgeous harmonies. We learn Sephardic melodies and modes as well as Ashkenazi ones. Old music and new.

I love about choral singing the same thing I love about community writ large: together we are more than the sum of our parts. We are all needed, and we all work to make space for everyone's voices. Together we make something beautiful, even sometimes ineffable, that none of us could make alone.

Thirty years ago I never thought I would be fortunate enough to get to be a rabbi for a living -- to do the holy work of serving God and community as my actual job. And I certainly never thought I would be lucky enough to have something akin to the Elizabethans in the synagogue that I'm blessed to serve.

Two other founding members of the Elizabethans live in town -- a therapist, and a librarian -- and both sing in my shul choir now. That brings me extra joy, though I've come to feel connected with all of my fellow singers: the ones I've known for decades, and the ones I've met through the choir itself.

Harmony itself may be the deepest form of prayer my heart knows. Meeting every week to make harmony with others is such a gift to me. Especially during this heartbreaking year of war in Israel and Palestine, and divisions across American Jewish community, harmony matters to me more than ever.

If you are local and you sing, you are welcome. (Learn more: Music at CBI.) All are welcome to attend This, Too, Is Torah at 3pm on June 9 (just please RSVP on that webpage so we know who's coming.) And to my fellow choir members: thank you. Singing with you is one of my life's greatest joys. 

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.

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

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.)

The Song at the Sea is one of the oldest poems in Torah, and its beauty in the scroll is like nothing else. Some see brickwork, an echo of the labors of slavery. Some see waves rolling in and receding, a reminder of how the sea parted and then rushed back in. The waves, in turn, evoke the midrash about Nachshon ben Aminadav who bravely stepped into the waters and began walking forward. When the waves reached his lips, that’s when the waters parted. This is a story about taking a risk and making a leap of faith toward a better life. 

Every displaced person, asylum-seeker, and refugee could tell us that story. Emerging from circumstances most of us can scarcely imagine, they step into the waters. The act of fleeing home speaks of a situation so dire that staying put is no longer a viable option. In the words of poet Warsan Shire, “No one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark. You only run for the border / when you see the whole city / running as well.” No one flees unless home is a Narrow Place so tight and terrible that fleeing becomes the best choice.

One of my favorite teachings about crossing the Sea comes from Rabbi Shalom Noach Berezofsky, also known as the Slonimer Rebbe. He writes that there are three levels of emunah, "faith" or "trust": the emunah of the heart, the emunah of the mind, and the emunah of the body, and the highest of these is the emunah of the body. That surprised me; I expected mind to be considered “higher.” Nope. He says when we feel emunah in our bodies, then the divine presence dwells in us, and that is when we become able to sing the Song at the Sea.

The Slonimer knows that taking a leap of faith changes us. Inertia would be easier. Giving up would be easier. Leaping into the unknown asks just enough bravery to take the first step. In the act of stepping into the sea comes transformation: the capacity to sing a new song. The Slonimer says that when we take the leap of emunah and walk into the water, Shechinah dwells in us – God’s presence is in us, in our very bones.  And that’s what enables us to sing a song of redemption, a song of hope for something better than whatever we knew before. 

Our ancient spiritual ancestors couldn’t sing the Song until they felt emunah in their bones. And they couldn’t feel emunah in their bones until they stepped into the sea. Which means they had to step into the sea before they felt ready. They had to take the plunge without knowing for sure what lay ahead and whether or not the water would part. On a smaller scale, we all have moments like that, on the cusp of change: marriage or divorce, birth or death, choosing a new beginning. There’s a moment when we have to decide to just – step into the sea, ready or not.

In 1939 my grandparents fled Hitler with my three year old mother in tow. I imagine it was the hardest thing they had ever done. When they arrived on these shores, other Jews from Eastern Europe took care of them: helped them find a place to stay, a way to learn English, the help they needed until they could get on their feet. That’s a kind of kindness that can’t be paid back, only paid forward. Even if they repaid every penny (and maybe they did), the repayment couldn’t mean as much to the givers as being welcomed had meant when my family needed it.

How do we pay it forward? To me the answer is painfully obvious: we pay it forward by welcoming the stranger. We pay it forward by meeting the needs of of the displaced person, the asylum-seeker, the refugee. Every Shabbat (or every day) we sing Mi Chamocha, our song of redemption. We need to let that song galvanize us to fuel the song of justice. The song of human dignity. The song of welcome. The song of “Let all who are hungry, come and eat.” The song of “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Each year at Pesach we recount how we fled Egypt after ten terrible plagues with only what we could carry. We eat matzah: the hardtack of slavery, and the waybread of our journey to freedom. For us, that story is symbolic, a metaphor for breaking free from life’s tight places. For displaced people and asylum-seekers and refugees, the Exodus is now. We know the heart of the refugee because our ancestral story – the one we tell at seder, the ritual practiced by 70% of American Jews – is a story of becoming refugees. Our obligations to today’s refugees are clear.

When we fled the Narrow Place, a “mixed multitude” came also, to teach that freedom isn’t just for us. Dignity, justice, and safety aren’t just for us. They are the birthright of every human being. Including asylum-seekers camped at the borders of our nation, and refugees fleeing war and devastation, and parents and children fleeing gender-based violence. During the Shoah, the United States shamefully refused entry to refugees and asylum-seekers – many were then slaughtered. We owe it to their memories to do better now by people in need of safe haven.

It takes profound emunah to step into the sea not knowing if the waters will part. (Or into a rickety boat, or the back of a pickup truck, or trudging on foot…) In our ancestral story, stepping into the Sea opens us to an experience of God that begins to change us from freed slaves into the Jewish people. For 100 million displaced people in the world today, stepping into the Sea is just… reality. Jewish values call us to welcome them with sustenance, and clothing, and homes, and safety, and justice, and dignity, and hope. That’s the song that I think is worth singing.

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

A reporter from The Berkshire Eagle reached out to me recently to ask what I'm speaking / preaching about during this holiday season. I wrote back that the framing of the question is a little bit off for me, since for me as a Jew "the holidays" doesn't mean December, it means the Days of Awe, which happened a few months ago.

I figured that would be the end of it. The article is about what local clergy are saying at Christmastime, I don't give a Christmas sermon, end of story. To my surprise, she read two of my high holiday sermons (Tools for Tough Times and Balancing Life and Death) and then emailed me with more questions. And my words close out the article!

On my Rosh Hashanah teaching:

This year it felt more important than ever to speak honestly about what's broken in the world, not in a way that compounds despair but in a way that brings light to dark places and hope to tough times...

For the second year in a row, at Rosh Hashanah I referenced Mariame Kaba's teaching that hope is a discipline. It's not a feeling, it's not optimism, it's a practice. We create hope when our actions aim toward a little bit more justice and a little bit more love. Facing what's broken doesn't mean we despair. It means we roll up our sleeves and do what we can to build a better world...

On what I'm thinking about now, during thi week of solstice and Chanukah:

...The light of our souls persists, even when — as William Stafford put it — 'the darkness around us is deep.' And we never know how our own light might help others in their times of darkness.

Read the whole article here: Berkshires religious leaders share a holiday message of hope, and a reminder that if your faith feels tired, look toward the light.