Be Like Moses: An Empathetic and Impartial Intervener for Justice

This week, we (and the Jewish people everywhere) read Parashat Shemot - and launch into the book of Exodus. The opening chapter-and-a-half covers lots of territory: first, the Israelites become enslaved and oppressed in Egypt, and then a courageous group of women -- both Egyptian and Israelite -- resist Pharaoh's orders. Baby Moses is born, hidden in a basket, and ultimately brought by Pharaoh's daughter to be raised to safety inside her father's palace.

Next, the text fast-forwards a couple of decades, picking up with Moses as a young adult in Exodus 2:11:

וַיְהִ֣י ׀ בַּיָּמִ֣ים הָהֵ֗ם וַיִּגְדַּ֤ל מֹשֶׁה֙ וַיֵּצֵ֣א אֶל־אֶחָ֔יו וַיַּ֖רְא בְּסִבְלֹתָ֑ם

Some time after that, when Moses was grown, he went out to his brothers and looked on their burden.

Rashi, the classical 11th century French commentator, understands that Moses's act of "looking" must have been more than just externally glancing with his eyes. Drawing on the midrash of Exodus Rabbah, Rashi interprets: "He [Moses] directed his eyes and heart to share in their distress." Today, we'd probably use the word empathy to describe the way that Moses paused to notice the distress of others and to allow his own heart to stir him to action. This is a key trait, and one that sets him up well for leadership.

If we were to summarize the story of what happens next, we might recall that Moses observes an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave, kills the Egyptian, and then runs away. This is all true... and yet, it's only part of the story. Interestingly, the section of text that follows contains not one but three distinct examples of how Moses "looks on the burden of others" and then, from a place of empathy, takes action. Here is that text of Exodus 2:11-22, broken into three chunks for clarity about the three separate instances:

Example 1: "He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. He turned this way and that and, seeing no one about, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand."

Example 2: "When he went out the next day, he found two Hebrews fighting; so he said to the offender, “Why do you strike your fellow?” He retorted, “Who made you chief and ruler over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses was frightened, and thought: Then the matter is known!"

Example 3: "When Pharaoh learned of the matter, he sought to kill Moses; but Moses fled from Pharaoh. He arrived in the land of Midian, and sat down beside a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock; but shepherds came and drove them off. Moses rose to their defense, and he watered their flock. When they returned to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come back so soon today?” They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds; he even drew water for us and watered the flock.” He said to his daughters, “Where is he then? Why did you leave the man? Ask him in to break bread.” Moses consented to stay with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah as wife. She bore a son whom he named Gershom, for he said, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land.”"

One of my favorite modern Torah commentators, Nehama Leibowitz, helps to make meaning of this tripartite narrative. (In case you're not familiar with her work, she was a prominent scholar who is famous for having ignited interest in Torah study in Israel throughout the 20th century. She taught at multiple Israeli universities, shared Torah commentary regularly on the radio, and created study sheets about the weekly Torah portion that were subsequently published in a multi-volume work of Torah commentary. She's worth looking up!)

About Moses's three applications of empathy, Leibowitz writes the following (in her volume Studies in Shemot, pages 40-41):

"Moses intervened on three occasions to save the victim from the aggressor. Each of these represents an archetype. First he intervenes in a clash between a Jew and non-Jew, second, between two Jews, and third, between two non-Jews. In all three cases, Moses championed the just cause...

Had we been told only of the first clash, we might have doubted the unselfishness of his motives. Perhaps he had been activated by the sense of solidarity with his own people, hatred for the stronger oppressing his brethren rather than pure justice. 

Had we been faced with the second example, we might still have had our doubts. Perhaps he was revolted by the disgrace of witnessing internal strife amongst his own folks, activated by national pride rather than the objective facts.

Came the third clash where both parties were outsiders, neither brothers, friends nor neighbors. His sense of justice and fair play was exclusively involved. He instinctively championed the just cause... Only when repeated championing of justice brings no reward can we be convinced of the unselfishness of the deed."

Nehama Leibowitz's commentary on this section of text helps to answer the question of why Moses is the one selected for the Torah's greatest leadership role. He is, of course, empathetic, and able to see the suffering of others, as we saw in verse 11. But even more, the verses that follow demonstrate that he is fair and consistent in how he analyzes the world around him. When there is injustice happening -- by anyone and towards anyone -- Moses has 1) the unique ability to see it clearly, and 2) the courage to intervene.

In our world, at this moment -- when we don't have to look very far in any direction to find aggression, oppression, or injustice -- it's easy to feel like we may need to make choices, and decide which fights for justice matter most to us. (For example, do we muster our energy to defend the Jewish community, or to address Jewish in-fighting, or to stand against injustice when we see it playing out in the broader world?) This reading of Moses's rise to leadership reminds us that all of these struggles are interconnected, and our ability to perceive injustice and stand against it anywhere helps us strengthen the muscle to do so everywhere.

This week, may the Torah's three examples of Moses seeing and intervening inspire each of us to cultivate a lens of empathy, to apply it impartially to the world around us, and to speak out and act to the best of our ability, using whatever tools we have at our disposal. May every small intervention we make pave the path towards a world of greater liberty and justice for all. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

A Mixed Blessing

As we say goodbye to 2025, we also prepare to close the book on Bereishit / Genesis. This first book of the Torah contains within it the seeds for all things bright and beautiful, and all things evil crouching menacingly at the door. In other words, it is about the human condition. Ultimately, the story focuses on the family of Abraham and Sarah over four generations, recording faith and courage but also sorrow and strife. 

Again and again the key family characteristic seems to be the necessity of separation. Until finally, at the very end of the book, the family comes back together and forms the nucleus of what Jewish peoplehood means for millennia afterwards. We are composed of tribes with different temperaments and priorities, and still each “tribe” of Jews is connected - by fate as well as by choice. 

There is an aphorism in classic Jewish sources that contains the tiniest of variations: 

Kol yisrael arevim zeh la-zeh - All of [the people] Israel are arevim for each other. Kol yisrael arevim zeh ba-zeh - All of [the people] Israel are arevim with each other. 

What is this arevim? And who cares what preposition we use?

In context, to be arev means to be responsible for each other (morally), or a guarantor for each other (as when co-signing a loan). But the root arev can also mean mixture (by the way, this is the origin of the Hebrew word for evening, erev, when light and dark mix). 

Contemporary teacher Rabbi Reuben M. Rudman explored the significance of that slight variation in meaning, suggesting that “when la-zeh is used, it implies that the members of Klal Yisrael are responsible for each other. Each person is a separate entity who is expected to be a guarantor for the other members of the klal. When ba-zeh is used, it implies that all Jews are “mixed” together to form a single entity known as Klal Yisrael; what each person does affects the destiny of the entire nation.”

The book of Genesis is in part a meditation on the concept of arevut, responsibility for each other, and the peculiar suffering of unhappy entanglement. There are times when going your own way feels like a blessing, rather than enduring the friction of forced connection. But Genesis ends with a trajectory that honors the choice to remain entangled. 

First, Judah explicitly names himself as an arev, a guarantor, for his brother Benjamin (Genesis 44:32), after Joseph as the Egyptian official frames Benjamin and prepares to imprison him. Judah demonstrates the concern and responsibility that so few characters have been willing to take upon themselves, prompting Joseph to reveal himself and reunite with his family. 

And then, near the end of the story and near the end of Jacob’s life, he asks his son Joseph to bring Jacob’s grandsons Menasheh and Ephraim so he can bless them. Jacob deliberately crosses his arms, entangling them, so that the younger child gets the right hand (a sign of privilege usually reserved for the oldest). Despite Joseph’s protest, Jacob affirms his choice. Then “he blessed them that day, saying, ‘By you shall Israel invoke blessings, saying: God make you like Ephraim and Menasheh.’ Thus he put Ephraim before Menasheh” (Genesis 48:20). 

To this day, Jewish parents may bless their children with that language: May God make you like Ephraim and Menasheh. I’ve always felt confused by this choice, because we know next to nothing about them! Except this: The blessing they received included a complicated entanglement. And the blessing they offer us, through the lack of any stories about them fighting, is the possibility of a close and loving relationship nonetheless. 

The Chassidic master Noam Elimelech taught yet a third interpretation of the word arev, which has the additional meaning of “sweetness”. And so, “each person of Israel sweetens and makes pleasant one for the other.” 

Although it is not a traditional secular New Year’s Greeting, I’ll say it anyway: May you have a sweet new year.  

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Joseph and his Coat of Many (Pride) Colors

This Shabbat, Jews everywhere will read the climax of the Joseph story: the literal "big reveal." For the past couple of weeks, the Torah has followed his journey, from braggadocious teenager thrown into a pit by his brothers, through dreams and prison, to Pharaoh's second in command in Egypt. Now, his brothers have come down to Egypt seeking food at a time of famine, and they have passed his goblet test (to see whether they will protect Benjamin, their youngest half-brother/his full-brother). Joseph's identity reveal is an emotional scene -- for both him and his brothers -- as we see here in Genesis 45:1-4 and 14-15:

Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw from me!” So there was no one else about when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. His sobs were so loud that the Egyptians could hear, and so the news reached Pharaoh’s palace. Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still well?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dumbfounded were they on account of him. Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come forward to me.” And when they came forward, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, he whom you sold into Egypt... He embraced his brother Benjamin around the neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck. He kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; only then were his brothers able to talk to him.

Modern Torah scholars have compared this scene to a "coming-out": Joseph carefully tests the waters first before choosing the moment to reveal his true self to his family; the reader waits with bated breath to see how everyone will react to this surprising news; both the characters and the reader experience relief once Joseph's identity secret is out in the open.

But this coming-out aspect of his story is only one of many reasons why the Joseph narrative can be read in terms of queerness. Rabbi Irwin Keller writes: 

"Whether or not he was “gay” as we understand that in our generation, [Joseph's] narrative is a queer one. His role in his family; his role as substitute for his mother and ongoing embodier of her energy; his outsiderness in his family and in Egypt; the bullying he endures; his making good in the Big City; his taking control of his own narrative; and, unlike in a classic hero’s journey, his refusal to return home, instead bringing his problematic family to him, keeping them close but not too close... [In addition,] he wears unusual clothing. He is described as childlike at an age where he should not have been. His beauty is discussed in the text; and in several significant instances there are Hebrew phrases used to describe his appearance, emotion, garb or actions that specifically link him to noteworthy women elsewhere in Tanakh..." (Click here to read Keller's full article on the subject, entitled "Joseph's Womb: Gender Complexity in the Story of Joseph".)

Rabbinic readers of the biblical text also perceived something special in Joseph, in terms of gender and sexuality. In her article "(Gender)Queering Joseph: Midrashic Possibilities for the Torah's Most Extra Child," Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg focuses on Talmudic and Midrashic interpretations of Joseph, including one set of texts that talks about Joseph and his sister Dina having gender transitioned in utero(!), and another cluster that center around Joseph's make-up habits and fabulous clothing ("coat of many colors" can also be read as "princess dress" -- suggesting that perhaps his brothers' bullying had to do with not only their jealousy but also their disdain for his love of drag).

The Joseph story is an ancient one, of course, and it's hard to know how Joseph might have self-identified had he had today's colorful LGBTQIAP2S+ alphabet at his disposal. What I do know is that -- at the same time that we've been reading the Joseph story in our Torah portions over the last couple of weeks -- the queer community here in the US has been very much under attack. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced two proposed regulatory actions that would effectively cut off funding to hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to young people, including a broad swath of "pharmaceutical or surgical interventions." In a separate action, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reportedly sent letters to multiple companies that sell chest binders, warning that they have "misbranded" medical devices. These moves are not yet binding law; still, they feel hateful and cause tremendous harm, regardless of their legality or ultimate enforceability. (A robust fight against these measures has already begun, of course. This week, 19 states have joined together to sue the Trump administration to block the proposed HHS rules, claiming that they are unlawful, and that they threaten access to healthcare for transgender youth, seek to intimidate hospitals and health providers into abandoning their patients or risking their livelihood, and are designed to strip states of their authority to regulate medicine.)

As a Jewish community grounded in core Jewish values, we at Kavana affirm that trans, nonbinary and intersex people are created b'tzelem Elohim -- in the image of the Divine. They -- along with every human being -- are deserving of dignity, respect, and safety. We will strive to build our own community as a place of full inclusion and belonging for people of all gender identities and expressions and all sexual orientations. We will stand in solidarity with the transgender and nonbinary youth who are most directly impacted by these recent actions, and with all who are being targeted by the administration's hateful rhetoric and political actions. (Keshet, an organization that "works for the full equality of LGBTQ+ Jews and our families in Jewish life," has written a Jewish pledge for trans dignity -- click here to take the pledge yourself and/or to learn more about their work. If you're so inclined, you're also invited to submit a public comment about the proposed HHS measures through the Human Rights Campaign, telling the government why this care matters to you and why these rules would hurt young people.)

Returning to the Joseph story: When he reveals his true identity, Joseph comforts his brothers, assuring them: "Now, do not be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me hither; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you." Joseph is accepting of what's happened to him, forgiving of his brothers, and seems to deeply believe that his lifetime has unfolded in accordance with a divinely-ordained plan.

Today, it's hard to know with such certainty that everything will work out for the best in the end, although I do hope that we, too, can find strength in Joseph's reassurance. Meanwhile, though, it is very much upon us to work on behalf of every Joseph -- every young person who doesn't conform to gender expectations and norms, everyone who has ever felt the need to conceal their true identity. May we create a community and a world in which every identity reveal feels as emotionally positive and loving as the story of Joseph coming out to his brothers, and in which every individual can let their true colors shine! 

Ken yehi ratzon (may it be so), and wishing you a Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Tending the Light Within

This Hanukkah, wishing each other happiness comes with an asterisk (thank you to my wife, R. Laura, for this language). As I write, Australian Jews are mourning at funerals for those murdered while welcoming the first night of Hanukkah on Bondi Beach. In our hearts, as well as in our history, Hanukkah wavers between a commemoration of violent struggle (the Maccabees won, back in the day, at least for a while), and a holiday of joyous re-dedication to deeper spiritual truths (as we ma’alin bee-kedushah, elevate in holiness through each new candle on the menorah). 

Even in Talmudic times, this holiday had an asterisk. 

The Sages taught: It is a mitzvah to place the Hanukkah lamp at the entrance to one’s house on the outside (Shabbat 21b).

The guidance is clear. We place the menorah where it can be seen, on the outside of your house. But…what if you live in an apartment or don’t have permission or access to put a menorah outside your building? 

If one lives upstairs, one places it at the window adjacent to the public domain.

Okay, if the goal is for the light to be seen from the outside, just put it in a window. Some of us do exactly that today. We “publicize the miracle.” 

But…what if that feels risky? What if you don’t want to draw attention to your Jewishness? Here comes the asterisk:

And in a time of danger, one places it on the table and that is sufficient to fulfill one’s obligation.

Note, this is not about discomfort with one’s Jewish identity. This is about actual danger. Rashi (11th century) suggests that the sages were referring to Persian law that restricted when lamps could be lit, but they were unlikely to search inside the home and find the menorah on the table. And surely there have been other moments in time when Jews brought the light inside to keep themselves physically safe.

The 18th century Chassidic teacher Rabbi Avraham Dov Baer of Ovruch, known as the Bat Ayin, offers a fascinating alternative understanding of what the Talmud is teaching us. 

The Bay Ayin starts by connecting Hanukkah to an archetypal story of generous hospitality:

And this is what the verse says: "And God appeared to Abraham at Elonei Mamre, and he was sitting at the opening of the tent as the day was hot" (Genesis 18:1). Meaning that he was doing the tikkun (the spiritual healing) of the opening (פתח petach) of the tent, and this is a hint to the aspect of the Hanukkah lamp, since its mitzvah is at the opening (פתח petach) of the house (Shabbat 21b), and also his house was wide open (פתוח patuach) to receive guests (see Zohar III:104a). And he was also converting people (see Bereshit Rabbah 39:14). 

There are a number of connections the Bat Ayin is weaving here, referencing various teachings in the Talmud, midrash, and Zohar. Here are the key points:

First, Abraham is at an opening, and keeping it open. 

Second, Abraham is actively receiving people into his community (understood here as bringing in converts). 

Third, this is a tikkun - a spiritual act with great significance for repairing the brokenness in all worlds, including the personal realm, society at large, and even the metaphysical layer of divine light shattered and scattered. 

And fourth, all of this is related to the mitzvah of Hanukkah light, because it too is meant to take place at the petach, where one’s home opens to the world. 

In essence, the Bat Ayin is teaching that when we light the menorah, we are not radiating it outwards but drawing in all that is in need of repair. We are gathering holy sparks, “receiving guests” (hachnasat orchim) and mending the broken experience of the world one person at a time. 

This is the normal mode of Hanukkah, when we open out into the world and do our work of building community in the messy public sphere with kindness and courage. 

The Bat Ayin continues, however: 

A person who is capable of dealing with all the material aspects in the market (read: the messy embodied world) with good intention (kavana tova) so as to raise them to holiness, as we explained above, this is obviously good, and this is the essence of the mitzvah of the Hanukkah lamp being outside. 

But in times of danger, meaning, when one fears to make oneself enter into the external aspects, into the physical things, in order to raise them, because one is not able to conquer one's evil impulse, then obviously one sets it on one's table. This means, be very careful in matters of one’s table: eat and drink in such a way that is for serving God, and not to satisfy one’s cravings, and so one habituates themself in all of the middot (soul traits), cooling the physical appetites, the desire for honor, and arrogance, and perhaps after that one will merit setting the Hanukkah lamp outside, as explained.  

In the world of gashmiyut, the material embodied universe we experience, there are dangers. This Hanukkah, we are forced to reckon with the danger involved in showing up to light a candle on a beach. One version of our story tells us to bring the light inside - or fight fire with fire. Both of these strategies have their place. Sometimes we quietly become Jews at home and citizens in the street. Sometimes we organize politically and even militarily to ensure safety. 

The Bat Ayin adds another dimension, though, reminding us that danger resides not only in the world but in our reaction to the world. 

In his ideal version of Hanukkah activism, we practice a form of hospitality he calls conversion - helping turn what is broken, harmful, and lacking into something restored, beneficial, and whole. He sees Hanukkah as a re-dedication to the spiritual act of transmuting evil into good, chaos into coexistence, misunderstandings into clarity that illuminates. 

But if we find ourselves being swept away by anger, anxiety, hatred, fear, selfish desire, or despair, we will struggle to be of true service to our higher intentions, our kavana. In those moments (and we all have them), there is a danger that we might bring about harm rather than healing in our interactions. So we turn inward, not to hide but to return to ourselves. Alongside tikkun olam, repair of the world, there is tikkun atzmi, personal restorative repair. 

Like Hanukkah, which every year returns us to one lone candle before we increase the light and holiness, we too have cycles of turning inward, strengthening, practicing, “doing the work,” and then opening up once more to the outer world where we have our part to do in the great work of mending. 

Shabbat shalom! And Chag Hanukkah sameach!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Coincidence, Angel or Miracle

This week's Dvar Torah seems to have found me coincidentally... or at least, these specific verses appeared right in front of me at just the right time. I was assigned a Torah reading to learn for tomorrow's Shabbat Morning Minyan, which means that all week I've literally been staring at the same short section of lines, noticing their language and growing curious about them.

Parashat Vayeshev opens at the very beginning of the Joseph story. At the outset of this Torah portion, we learn that Joseph was the most beloved of his father's children and given a special coat as a gift, and see how he recounts his dreams to his brothers in a way that induces anger and jealousy in them. Then, Joseph's father, Israel/Jacob, sends him to go find his brothers who are out pasturing flocks. Here's what the text actually says about the events that unfold in this brief episode (Gen. 37:14-17):

"When he [Joseph] reached Shechem, a man came upon him wandering in the fields. The man asked him, 'What are you looking for?' He answered, 'I am looking for my brothers. Could you tell me where they are pasturing?' The man said, 'They have gone from here, for I heard them say: Let us go to Dothan.' So Joseph followed his brothers and found them in Dotan."

As you may have noticed in this passage, the "man" (Hebrew: "ish") who came upon Joseph in the fields is unnamed and anonymous. He is simply someone who appears in the right place at exactly the right time, and his presence becomes a critical domino in this saga of cascading events. If Joseph hadn't found his brothers in Dotan, they never would have sold him into slavery in Egypt. If Joseph hadn't been sold into slavery in Egypt, he would not have saved his entire family and set into motion the chain of events leading to the Exodus and all of Jewish history. In other words, we owe everything about our identity to this stranger-in-the-field.

Furthermore, you also may have noticed that the interaction between the man and Joseph is a strange one. Joseph never asks for help, never introduces himself, never even describes to this stranger how many brothers he has or what they look like. Traditional Torah commentators have also picked up on these details in the text. Regarding verse 15 above, Rashi (writing in 11th century France) cites two ancient midrashim as proof that the phrase "the man" must refer to the angel Gabriel (click here to see Rashi's comment and those midrashic references). Siftei Chachamim (a 17th century Dutch super-commentary on Rashi) builds upon this idea, noting that "the man" clearly knows too much to be anything other than an angelic being:

"This refers to Gavriel..." Yosef did not say to the man, “Do you know my brothers, and where they are pasturing?” Rather, he said [straight away], “Tell me please, where are they pasturing?” This shows it was an angel, [who assumedly knows]..." (click here to view the whole comment).

I am struck this week by how powerful a tendency it is -- and also, how normal a human experience it is -- to ascribe deeper spiritual meaning to seemingly ordinary or random events. Throughout the centuries, a long line of Jewish tradition supports us in reading this man who appeared in the field just when Joseph needed support as an angel: a being sent by God specifically to guide him to the place where he will find his brothers. Reading the text this way instantly transforms the Joseph narrative from a soap opera-ish human drama to a sacred story about God's hidden presence in the world.

Perhaps it's not a coincidence either, then that Parashat Vayeshev is always read on either the first Shabbat of Chanukah or on the Shabbat immediately preceding Chanukah (as is the case this year). When it comes to Chanukah, this same tendency is front and center! The book of Maccabees records the story of Mattathias and his son Judah who led a rebellion against the Seleucid Empire. Because this rag-tag band of Jewish rebels were so much the underdog, our tradition has long ascribed their military victory as a miracle, and as evidence of God's hand in history. The rabbis of the Talmud extend the miracle theme, spinning a second tale -- the famous one about the cruse of oil that was only expected to last a single day, but instead lasted eight, thus enabling the rededication of the temple (chanukat ha-bayit). Whether we're focusing on the military victory or the story of the oil, Chanukah thus becomes a holiday all about miracles!

I've always had some trouble wrapping my head around utterly supernatural miracles (the kinds that truly seem to fly in the face of the laws of nature), but, I quite love the idea that as Jews, we are primed to see the events that unfold in our lives as evidence of the Divine presence. Perhaps you can think of specific moments from your own life that fit this bill? Maybe, as with Joseph, an unnamed stranger once appeared in just the right place at just the right moment to point you in the direction you needed to go, or maybe in some small moment, a disaster was averted, you saw a "sign," or someone said exactly the words you needed to hear. Who is to say that what happened to you wasn't a miracle, or God's hand, or the angel Gabriel fulfilling a mission in the world?!

On this Shabbat of Parashat Vayeshev, may we find ourselves able to notice the unnamed characters who linger at the edge of our stories, and able to view our lives through miracle-colored glasses. With spiritual openness to the possibility of God's presence in our lives, may we find ourselves pointed in precisely the directions we need to head, in order to bring light into the world and fulfill our destinies.

Shabbat Shalom for today, and wishing you all a happy and miracle-filled Chanukah (beginning Sunday evening),

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Jacob the Fox

Once, when the leopard was making a scornful comparison between himself and the fox, claiming that he had a coat of varying and many-colored spots, the fox replied that while the leopard’s ornamentation was on his skin, his own was in the mind. And truly it was much better to be endowed with cunning brains than with a party-colored skin. 

Plutarch, Moralia (referring to one of Aesop’s fables)

Ya’akov Avinu, our ancestor Jacob, is a real heel. That’s what his name means anyway. He was born “holding on to the heel (ekev) of Esau; so they named him Jacob (ya’akov)” (Bereishit 25:26).  As his story unfolds, his character seems morally tepid at best, and he is downright deceitful and manipulative to many of his closest family members. 

And yet, he is also described as tam (Bereishit 25:27), a word which can range in meaning from “mild-mannered” to “morally perfect”. Ibn Ezra contrasts him to his brother this way: “Esau the hunter was constantly practicing deception, for most animals are trapped through trickery. Jacob was his antithesis, because he was a man of integrity.” 

Given what he know of how Jacob steals birthrights and blessings, manipulates livestock, bargains with God for protection, shows favoritism among his children, etc., it is a little hard to square the text’s assertion of his integrity with the text’s description of his apparently loose association with ethical concerns. 

One of my favorite midrashic attempts to reconcile the term comes from Avot deRabbi Natan, in which they assert that the “integrity” implied by tam means Jacob was born circumcised. He is born with a very specific type of wholeness, in which his body does not require the adjustment of circumcision in order to enter the covenant. When you find interpretations like this in the tradition, you know you aren’t wildly off base thinking the text is hard to understand…

In this week’s parashah, Vayishlach, Jacob yet again turns to a clever and cunning strategy. As his large family journeys to his home of origin, they hear that Esau is coming to greet them with 400 men, and Jacob understandably fears retribution. He devises a scheme of sending waves of gifts, and then splits his camp so that if the bribes don’t work at least there will be some survivors. By the end of this episode, however, “Esau ran to greet him. He embraced him and, falling on his neck, he kissed him; and they wept” (Bereishit 33:4). Although there are some who are ready to read Esau as hiding ulterior motives, the plain sense of the text is that Esau is just happy to see his brother again. He has forgotten old grudges, and only Jacob still carries around the burden of his past behavior. 

What are we to make of Jacob? The 20th century philosopher Isaiah Berlin once wrote an essay in which he explored an ancient Greek aphorism, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” The fox is clever and comes up with many tactics to find its food, while the hedgehog simply rolls into a prickly ball anytime it is threatened. Berlin uses these two animal archetypes to discuss great writers and thinkers, dividing them into hedgehogs who have a single coherent, all-encompassing vision or theory, and foxes, who are more eclectic and willing to engage with and incorporate diverse sources, even when they are contradictory.

Jacob is a bit of a fox, a trickster who evades expectations, a resourceful and clever ancestor. He is only tam on the outside, but within the tents of his mind he holds complexity, possibility, and fluidity. 

He may not always act in ways moral hedgehogs would prefer, but he is also uniquely among the forefathers capable of uniting all of his children (eventually, and tentatively, and still with tension, but truly) such that when we refer to the entire Jewish people, we say b’nei yisrael, the children of Israel/Jacob.

He is the first to bequeath a complex multiplicity rather than an ideological vision’s purity test (which had severed him from his brother Esau, and his father Isaac from his uncle Ishmael, and his grandfather Abraham from his great-grandparents and everyone who came before). 

Each ancestor asks us questions. 
Abraham asks us, What is true? What do you believe? 
Sarah asks us, What is possible that you may have given up on? 
Isaac asks us, What are you willing to sacrifice? 
Rebecca asks us, What are you willing to endure, and why? 
And Jacob asks us, What do you need to do to survive? And, what do we need to do to stay in this family and community together? 

Does Jacob have all the answers? Definitely not. After his night-long wrestling session with the man or angel, he walks away limping, with a new name “Israel (god-wrestler)” that simply reminds him and us that we will always keep wrestling with ultimate questions. But that is the way of the fox, always curious, always clever, carrying the burden of overthinking, and creating eclectic and invigorating communities where the possible is imperfectly practiced. 

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Jay LeVine

What's in a Name: Thanksgiving Torah on Jewishness

As we head into the Shabbat of Thanksgiving weekend, I am feeling grateful for both my Americanness and my Jewishness, despite the fact that neither identity is particularly simple at this juncture in history.

In a box of family photos and artifacts, I recently came across a document that sits at the intersection of the two identities: my great-grandmother Esther's Certificate of Naturalization, from when she became a US citizen. The year was 1931 and she was 30 years old and married by that point, with children who were themselves US citizens. The certificate lists her former nationality as Polish, and her race as "Hebrew."

The term "Hebrew" or "ivri" is one vocabulary word for talking about Jewish collectivity. It goes back to Abraham, who -- when a messenger reports to him about his nephew Lot being taken captive -- is identified in Genesis 14:13 as "Avram ha-Ivri," "Abram the Hebrew." The "ivri" identifier has multiple possible meanings: it certainly could connect to the fact that Abraham is a descendent of Ever (on the genealogical list in Genesis 11). However, it's more commonly understood as meaning "one who crosses over," which refers to Abraham having originally come from the other side of the Euphrates river or -- according to midrashim -- having stood on one side (in belief) while the rest of the world was on the other.  

"Hebrew" was certainly the preferred term for talking about our ancestor's collective identity in the first couple of chapters of Exodus -- as there we find phrases like "Hebrew midwives" (Exodus 1:15), "Hebrew women" (Ex. 1:16), "Hebrew child" (Ex. 2:6) and "Hebrew nurse" (Ex. 2:7) in quick succession. In early 20th century America, "Hebrew" was a racial category used to talk about Jews. However, among the Jewish community, the preferred term would probably have been "Israelite." 

"Israelite" -- or "b'nai yisrael" in Hebrew -- literally refers to the descendants of Israel, and Israel, as we know, is the new name given to our ancestor Jacob in Genesis 32:25-33. There (in next week's Torah portion), Jacob wrestles all night with a mysterious being and in the end is told by this figure: “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel (Yisrael), for you have striven (sarita) with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.” To be an Israelite, then, is to be identified as part of a group that wrestles... certainly with God, and perhaps also with humans.

Today, our community isn't likely to refer to ourselves as either "Hebrews" or as "Israelites." Since World War II, the dominant terms for describing our collectivity here in America would be "Jews" ("yehudim") or "Jewish" ("yehudi"), and we call our religious tradition "Judaism" ("yahadut"). All of these words stem from the name of Judah (Yehudah), one of Jacob's sons and the father of one of the twelve tribes of ancient Israelites. Eventually, Judah also became the name of the southern Israelite kingdom, which survived even after the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel, and so the surviving people became collectively known as "yehudim." The term yehudim appears many times in the Tanakh, including in II Kings 16:6 and frequently in the book of Esther, where Mordecai is first introduced as "ish yehudi," "a Jewish man."

If you have never stopped to think about what the word Jewish actually means, this week is the perfect opportunity to do so, as this week's Torah portion, Parashat Vayetze, is where we find the birth and naming story of Judah, our namesake.

You may recall the back story: that Jacob has fallen in love with Rachel, but ends up married to her sister Leah as well. In a family drama that features dysfunction and extreme sibling rivalry, the two sisters embark upon child-bearing as though it's a competitive sport. Leah gives birth first, to four sons in quick succession (literally, in four back-to-back Torah verses!). The first three fall into a pattern, where the name given to each new baby is a Hebrew language word-play that underscores her feeling of being unloved and the non-preferred wife (see Gen. 29:32-34):

Leah conceived and bore a son, and named him Reuben; for she declared, “It means: ‘Adonai has seen my affliction’; it also means: ‘Now my husband will love me.’”She conceived again and bore a son, and declared, “This is because Adonai heard that I was unloved and has given me this one also”; so she named him Simeon. Again she conceived and bore a son and declared, “This time my husband will become attached to me, for I have borne him three sons.” Therefore he was named Levi.

The arrival in Gen. 29:35 of Leah's fourth son, however, breaks the tragic pattern:

וַתַּ֨הַר ע֜וֹד וַתֵּ֣לֶד בֵּ֗ן וַתֹּ֙אמֶר֙ הַפַּ֙עַם֙ אוֹדֶ֣ה אֶת־יְהֹוָ֔ה עַל־כֵּ֛ן קָרְאָ֥ה שְׁמ֖וֹ יְהוּדָ֑ה וַֽתַּעֲמֹ֖ד מִלֶּֽדֶת׃

She conceived again and bore a son, and declared, “This time I will praise/thank Adonai.” Therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing.

The name Judah (Yehudah), in other words, is the only name in the set that isn't an expression of Leah's bitterness, but rather of her gratitude. 

Rabbi Shai Held shared a beautiful Dvar Torah on this topic several years ago, which he titled "Can We Be Grateful and Disappointed at the Same Time?" I highly recommend reading his whole essay here, but I'm happy to share this relevant excerpt here:

"Leah is disappointed, and as we have seen, she has every right to be. But she is also grateful -- despite the intensity of her pain, she, too, has her blessings... With the birth of Judah, Leah has discovered the awesome capacity to feel grateful even amidst her sorrows.

A Talmudic Sage makes a surprising, even jarring statement about Leah. Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai says that Leah was the first person in the history of the world who ever expressed gratitude to God (Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 7b). What could this possibly mean? Of course other people before Leah had offered thanksgiving to God... What makes Leah's gratitude unique? What is it that establishes her as the first truly grateful person? It is one thing to be grateful when everything is wonderful, when all of our dreams have been fulfilled and all of our hungers sated. But it is quite another to be grateful when life is complicated, when some of our most cherished dreams have remained painfully unrealized, when some of our yearnings are so intense that they threaten to burn right through us. Leah is the first person to feel and express gratitude even and especially amidst profound sorrow and enduring disappointment. 

Strikingly, the name Leah gives her fourth son, Judah, meaning "I will praise" or "I will express gratitude," becomes the name of the Jewish people as a whole. Who is a Jew? One who discovers the possibility of gratitude even amidst heartbreak. That is why we are given the name that expresses Leah's courage, and her achievement: a Jew is, ideally, a human being who, like Leah, can find her way to gratitude without having everything she wants or even needs."

I love Rabbi Held's assertion that our identity as Jews is fundamentally grounded in Leah's ability to feel and express gratitude, even and perhaps especially when we are also disappointed. Gratitude is not conditioned on perfection.

This feels like a great message to uplift on this particular Shabbat, of Thanksgiving weekend 2025 / 5786.  Here in America over the last few centuries, we have been identified at different times as "Hebrews," "Israelites," and "Jews." The meanings of all three words ring true: we have "crossed over" from one land to another, "wrestled" to get to where we are today, and we continue to follow the example of our foremother Leah, expressing gratitude, even as we strive to help both our people and our country live up to the blessings of their full promise.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Rebekah and Isaac

Rabbi Ellen Bernstein, of blessed memory, writes in her commentary on Shir HaShirim, or Song of Songs, (Toward a Holy Ecology) that “the holiness of the Song lies in its vision of wholeness; the interconnected, inviolable relationships that underly the health of the whole earth. The Song’s gardens - both the woman’s garden and the many floral, forested, fruiting, and perfume gardens are integrated whole systems. They can especially be appreciated when compared to the parched landscapes and the barren women whose stories drive many of the Torah’s narratives…The sumptuous floral landscape of the Song, promising a world that will flourish, diversify, and blossom forever, is a testament to wholeness.”

What a vision! If you read no further, dayenu (it would be enough) - and zil gmor (go learn!), find a copy of the book and study sacred eco-erotic poetry from the ancient Jewish tradition… 

But if you are still reading, let’s turn to the parched landscape of this week’s Torah portion, Toldot, and join our second barren matriarch, Rebekah. 

“And Isaac pleaded with God (l’nochach לְנֹכַח on behalf of) his wife, because she was barren; and God responded to his plea, and his wife Rebekah conceived.” (Genesis 25:21)

At first it seems as if Rebekah is just there, not even mentioned by name until the end of the verse. Isaac prays, God responds, and Rebekah conceives (obviously something else must have happened in that sequence as well). Does Rebekah even want children? In the very next verse she questions the point of her existence during a painful pregnancy!

In the midrash, the rabbis are curious about the word l’nochach, translated as “on behalf,” which usually means “opposite to” or “in front of.” It gets the secondary meaning of advocacy in the sense of someone stepping out in front arguing the case for those behind. In the plain reading of the Torah, Isaac asks for something on behalf of Rebekah, but not necessarily with her consent or for her well being. This is a very narrow and self-interested form of advocacy. 

But instead the ancient rabbis read this word l’nochach as an act of collaboration!

“Opposite his wife” – it teaches that Isaac was prostrated here and she was prostrated there, and he was saying: Master of the universe, all the children that You are giving me will be from this righteous woman.’ She, too, said so: ‘All the children that You are destined to give me will be from this righteous man.’ (Bereishit Rabbah 63:5)

This image is a powerful yet rare example of egalitarian love in the Torah. Isaac and Rebekah, mirroring each other, generate a prayer energy infused with respect, care, and mutuality, thereby opening up new space for life to emerge. Within the midrashic reading of the verse, seeds from the Song of Songs are sprouting. Rebekah and Isaac recognize a lack of wholeness in their lives, but seek to mend it through practices that still emphasize wholeness rather than focus on what feels shattered. If You, God, will be giving us children, we will be each other’s co-parent. We are united, and our interconnection is inviolable. 

And yet, I worry that painting this almost idyllic picture of two saintly people facing adversity with remarkable grace and coordination doesn’t really help us in our own relationships. Whether we want children or not (wholeness can emerge in all sorts of ways), and whether we are thinking about romantic or friend or family relationships, it just isn’t easy to merge action and aspiration in the way that Isaac and Rebekah do. We need a little more insight to learn from our ancestors.

In a contemporary work of midrash by Israeli women, Dirshuni, Dr. Hagit Rafel teaches the verse this way:

This one stood at this angle and prayed, and that one stood at that angle and prayed, but they were not answered because their prayers were separated and weren’t flowing from one wellspring. 

The Holy One saw their sorrow and opened their eyes. 

Isaac and Rebekah stood together, this one facing that one, and this one opposite/advocating for his wife and that one opposite/advocating for her husband. They turned aside their veils and the barriers (mechitza) of their hearts and saw eye to eye. 

Rebekah saw the splendor of Isaac, and also his blemishes…

And Isaac saw his beloved, her beauty and the integrity of her heart, and also her blemishes… They established and accepted upon themselves to live with love, in fellowship, in peace, and in friendship with their blemishes. And their compassion rolled like a wave from this one to that one and from that one to this one. And there are some who say: From that wave of compassion did Jacob (their son) draw strength to roll the stone off the opening of the well (helping Rachel draw water when he first saw her and fell in love). 

How does God answer prayers? Through helping us see each other, our splendor and beauty and also our blemishes. How do we answer God’s prayers? Through befriending our blemishes, and living with compassion. I particularly love how in this midrash what Rebekah conceives isn’t just a child, but a virtuous cycle whereby one of her children acts with compassion and initiates his own flawed-yet-loving relationship many decades later. 

Where do you draw strength from? What ancestral wells (stories, experiences, values, etc.) nourish you? How do you open your eyes and heart to see loved ones in their wholeness? 

Shabbat shalom!

Rabbi Jay Levine

Camels & Kindness

The government shutdown formally ended this week, but it's been the longest one in U.S. history and its effects will be felt for quite some time. Over recent weeks, the administration has tried to use this shutdown to enact permanent reductions in the government workforce and has petitioned the Supreme Court not to fund SNAP benefits so that low-income people can eat; all of this feels callous and cruel. The extreme lack of generosity that is informing public policy -- this impulse not to take care of people, not to pay them, not to feed them -- flies in the face of every religious value we hold dear as Jews and as decent human beings.

At a time like this, with indifference and cruelty having a heyday, we must return to some of our most fundamental, foundational values and articulate them anew. In a previous moment, teaching about the importance of kindness and compassion might have felt trite. Yet, given what's transpired here in America over these last few weeks, lifting up such basic values as these feels like precisely the Torah we need to revisit at this moment.

This week's Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, helps us in this attempt. Abraham, concerned with the continuity of his line, sends his servant back to his hometown to find a wife for his son Isaac. After a long journey across the desert with his camel caravan, the servant arrives in Aram-naharaim and heads to the well outside the city at evening, "the time when women come out to draw water" (Gen 24:11). He then utters a prayer that sets up a test -- one designed to help him identify the right woman. He says to God:

"...Let the maiden to whom I say, 'Please, lower your jar that I may drink,' and who replies, 'Drink, and I will also water your camels' -- let her be the one whom You have decreed for Your servant Isaac. Thereby shall I know that you have dealt graciously (ki asita chesed) with my master." (Gen. 24:12-14)

The camel test is noteworthy in several ways. Many modern commentators highlight the physical feat that it sets up. For example, the Etz Chayim Chumash notes, "A single camel (and here there were 10!) requires at least 25 gallons of water to regain the weight it loses in the course of a long journey. It takes a camel about 10 minutes to drink this amount of water." We can imagine that Rebecca -- the woman who shows up at the well just as soon as the servant finishes uttering these words and indeed not only offers water to the weary traveler but also to his camels -- must have been both physically strong and generous with her time in order to undertake such a Herculean task as hauling some 250+ gallons of water.

In addition, Rebecca's offer to water the servants' camels is also a testament to a set of desirable personal characteristics such as kindness, generosity, and caring for others. These qualities connect her very directly to her soon-to-be father-in-law Abraham, who just chapters before (see Gen. 18, the beginning of last week's parasha) had stationed himself at the opening of his tent in the heat of the day to be able to welcome visitors, and when they arrived, raced around preparing food for them. The hospitality (hachnasat orchim) and kindness (chesed) of both Abraham and Rebecca make her the right choice for ensuring continuity in this first family of avot v'imahot (patriarchs and matriarchs).

As Rabbi David Kasher pointed out in an essay on this parasha a couple years ago, camels appear more times in Genesis 24 than in the whole rest of the Torah put together! Kasher claims a philological (linguistic) connection between the Hebrew word for camel (gamal: spelled gimel, mem, lamed) and the verb ligmol (also gimel, mem, lamed), meaning "giving" or "bestowing" -- as in Birkat HaGomel, the blessing of gratitude recited at the Torah after having survived a dangerous situation. The word chesed -- which also appeared in the servant's prayer as noted above -- and the repeated appearance of camels, together, evokes the famous phrase "gemilut chasadim," "the giving of kindness" --  one of the three pillars upon which the world stands, according to Shimon HaTzaddik in Pirkei Avot. We also pair these words in a slightly different form every time we recite the Amidah, as we call God "Gomeil Chasadim tovim," "the Bestower of Good Kindnesses." 

So, what's the takeaway from this story and all of this word-play? Rebecca is the right wife for Isaac not only because she is physically strong, but also because she is exceedingly kind and generous-of-spirit. As we read the section of Parashat Chayei Sarah in which she draws vast quantities of water from the well in order to care for a dusty traveler and a whole caravan of camels, and when the servant interprets her presence as a fulfillment of God's chesed (kindness, faithfulness, graciousness) towards Abraham, we the readers are left to connect the dots. Rebecca's actions are an echo of Abraham's, and also of the Divine quality of "bestowing kindness."

As descendants of Rebecca, we hold up her kindness towards the servant and his camels as a model for how each of us can aspire to act in the world. Channeling Rebecca's spirit gives us a way to resist the callousness and cruelty that swirl around us right now. When we see people in need of food and water, supplies and clothing, it is our responsibility to feed them and ensure that they have what they need. If the government is not going to do its part, then it is up to us to fill in the gap to the greatest possible extent until we can make change on a governmental level.

There are so many opportunities to embody Rebecca's spirit of "gemilut chasadim" and to "give kindness" to others. For example, this week, you're invited to click here to donate to JFS's SNAP Response Fund to provide grocery gift cards to those in the Seattle community who need them most, or here for more info about the JFS Winter Warmth Drive (complete with an Amazon wish-list which makes it very easy to choose a useful item). This weekend at our High School Program, Kavana teens will be learning about how our Jewish values inform our obligation to help cultivate belonging and community for our neighbors experiencing poverty and homelessness, and next month at our Kavana Chanukah party, we will be collecting non-perishable food and hygiene items for the Queen Anne Helpline (click here and scroll down to view their wish-lists -- please start collecting items now!).

Lastly, Rebecca's spirit of generosity goes beyond what she physically gives, and can be seen through her nobility of character, her hospitality to strangers, and her kindness towards animals. Let us -- each of us -- try to embody her spirit during this week of Chayei Sarah, acting as our kindest, most hospitable, most noble selves in our personal interactions with one another. The small kindnesses we might bestow upon one another matter more than we can possibly know; together, they create a powerful wave of resistance to cruelty, callousness and hatred.

Wishing you a Shabbat of generosity, kindness, and all that is good,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

In a Bind

This week we read “The Binding of Isaac” (Akedat Yitzchak), one of the most enigmatic ethical puzzles in the Torah. That rabbinic name for the story brings us right to the point of moral tension. Abraham, on God’s orders, has brought his son Isaac up a mountain, and has bound him in preparation for ritual sacrifice. A heavenly voice ultimately stops him from going through with it. But even though the two walk away from the scene alive, the binding haunts them and later readers through the ages.

Each character evades easy understanding: 

Why did Abraham not argue for justice like he did earlier regarding Sodom and Gomorrah? 

What’s the deal with Isaac???? Was he tricked? A willing participant? A child or a grown son?

And most perplexingly, why did God tell Abraham to do it, and then why did God stop him from doing it? What was the point of it all? 

We are left in a bind, unable to resolve the contradictions neatly. 

Surely Abraham can’t be the one that God “singled out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of God by doing what is just and right” (Genesis 18:19), and also be a father who “picked up the knife to slay his son” (Genesis 22:10). And yet he is. 

And even if we lean towards hearing God’s command as requiring faith above ethics, or alternatively as demanding ethical condemnation, we struggle to resolve God’s initial directions with the later change of mind. Does God want this, or not? 

For me, the story resists resolution because it is illustrating through a graphic and memorable parable an enduring tension in human ethics, one that cannot (or should not) be fully resolved: the tension between purpose and survival, and more abstractly between universalism and particularism. 

The moral tension in the story does not resolve around the problem of one human killing another (there are other stories exploring that subject), but around the problem of sacrificing one’s own family in pursuit of ideology. God puts Abraham in a no-win situation. He has to choose to follow the voice of his purpose or ensure the survival of his family and future, but he cannot choose both. 

Ultimately, God seems pleased that Abraham chose purpose, but also aware that although ideas never die, only living people can carry them forward. God tells Abraham, “All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants, because you have obeyed My command” (Genesis 22:18).

In this one sentence, the strange bind of Jewish community emerges. We have a universal purpose (if vague), and a distinct and particular need to survive as ourselves, as people who carry forward the covenant between God and Abraham. Our job as Jews is to bring survival and purpose into balance. 

Although this moment in time for Jews in America feels exhausting and complicated and fraught and fraying in so many ways, we have a fascinating opportunity to hear “out loud” the essential tension of Judaism and take ownership over our part in the ongoing conversation. We are in an akedah moment. 

How many of us feel like we must choose between what we think is right and who we are related to (maybe in a literal and immediate sense, or in a looser tribal sense both ethnically and politically)? 

Some hear God’s initial call of moral purpose, and are willing to sacrifice their familial ties for the sake of what they think is right.

Some hear the voice telling Abraham to stop, and furiously denounce anyone who would threaten Isaac, the survival of the Jewish people. (This voice was particularly loud regarding New York in recent weeks…)

The disagreements seem sharper than a knife. But we have two ears, and capacity to hear both voices. Most of us, I think, continue to feel bound up in our complex Jewish family, and are doing our best to navigate how to live up to our Jewish ideals and protect actual Jewish lives, even as we may have wildly different readings of reality. 

I believe complete polarization fails the test of an akedah moment. Abraham and Isaac walk down the mountain separately, and they appear not to exchange words again. It is possible that centuries from now, history books will document the emergence of a schism, and dedicated practitioners of various religious communities will ponder with difficulty how we could have all understood ourselves as klal yisrael, one Jewish whole, when it was obviously the foment of now fully independent communities and traditions. This has happened before in Jewish history. There was a time when Christians were still a Jewish sect. 

But that’s not what happens in the Torah’s story of the akedah. When we invoke Abraham and Isaac today, they are both our ancestors. We must somehow internalize rather than externalize the poles of purpose and survival if we are to carry on together in any meaningful sense.

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Long Story Short: Abram and Sarai's Time in Egypt

Over the last few weeks, I've been enjoying the show Long Story Short on Netflix -- it's probably the Jew-iest cartoon I've ever seen! The show features the many colorful characters in the dysfunctional Schwooper family, delving deep into their relationships with one another, their personal decisions and professional lives. To me, the most compelling and interesting aspect of it is that each episode takes place across two different years, such that the story-arc of every installment follows the characters across the decades from childhood to adulthood, the content tied together thematically. (The New York Times review of the show, published this August, referred to this as "time travel, family style.") This structural frame enables creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg to probe how the themes, tendencies or conflicts that manifest in an early chapter of the characters' lives tie into what's to come later, thus linking the personality quirks and odd (and usually comical) situations that manifest later in adulthood to key developmental moments. My brain has enjoyed the puzzle of trying to figure out how the disparate narrative pieces fit together, and understand what makes this family tick.

This week's Torah portion, Lecha L'cha, does something similar with the story of Abram and Sarai's time in Egypt. Here is the short story in its entirety, from Gen. 12:10-13:1:

There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. If the Egyptians see you, and think, ‘She is his wife,’ they will kill me and let you live. Please say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may remain alive thanks to you.”

When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw how very beautiful the woman was. Pharaoh’s courtiers saw her and praised her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s palace. And because of her, it went well with Abram; he acquired sheep, oxen, asses, male and female slaves, she-asses, and camels.

But Adonai afflicted Pharaoh and his household with mighty plagues on account of Sarai, the wife of Abram. Pharaoh sent for Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me! Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her as my wife? Now, here is your wife; take her and begone!”

And Pharaoh put agents in charge of him, and they sent him off with his wife and all that he possessed. From Egypt, Abram went up into the Negeb, with his wife and all that he possessed, together with Lot.

This narrative has generated lots of commentary, not least because similar "wife-sister narratives" appear an additional two times in Genesis (see chapters 20 and 26). Classical commentators -- always seeking to smooth out the Torah's text and reconcile inconsistencies -- struggle to understand why Abram, held up as a moral exemplar, would have lied about this relationship; some of them argue that Sarai was, in fact, his half-sister. Using a very different historical-critical lens, scholars have read this text against the backdrop of Ancient Near Eastern mythology; as the Jewish Encyclopedia explains, the purpose of this patterned story "is to extol the heroines as most beautiful and show that the Patriarchs were under the special protection of the Deity." And over more recent decades, feminists like Phyllis Trible (who died this month at the age of 92 - click here to listen to an NPR remembrance) have called these stories "texts of terror," noting that the patriarch makes his wife a mere pawn in negotiations; contemporary feminist midrashim seek to restore Sarai's voice.

For me, as I re-encountered this story about Abram and Sarai this week, the one piece that jumped out at me most is the degree to which the language, details and arc of this narrative prefigures the Exodus story. Some of the specific connections I noticed include: 

• a famine in the land, which sends Abram down to Egypt (the same will happen in three generations with Joseph and his brothers),

• the text's emphasis of a character's great physical attractiveness, and a near-miss sexual encounter (here, between Sarai and Pharaoh; later, with Joseph and Potiphar's wife),

• affliction and plagues upon Pharaoh and his house,

• the "take her and begone" ending (reminiscent of Pharaoh's ultimate release-under-duress of the enslaved Israelites).

Overall, this text tells a very similar story to the grand Exodus narrative, but in miniature: a quick version of our ancestors going down to Egypt, getting ensnared there, relying on Divine intervention to get out, and ultimately being restored to freedom. 

Lest you think it's too much of a stretch to argue that the family narrative of Genesis is aware of the larger national story to come in Exodus and consciously foreshadowing and setting it up, I also present to you two verses from later in this same Torah portion of Lech Lecha -- Gen 15:13-14 -- that come as God reasserts the covenant with Abraham, promising to be his shield (magen) and to make his offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky: 

And [God] said to Abram, “Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years; but I will execute judgment on the nation they shall serve, and in the end they shall go free with great wealth.

That more explicit reference supports my claim: that the text of our parasha purposefully points the reader towards the Exodus story, drawing a clear parallel between these two chapters of our people's history.

As I shared this idea with Rabbi Jay and asked him why he thought the text was connecting dots in this way, he proposed that "maybe the whole point is to train us to see parallels so we can make different choices."

I think Rabbi Jay is right, and his words prompted me to think about the echoes of history that may be ringing loudly in our ears at this particular moment in time. There are, of course, multiple possible antecedents to any moment, and to some extent, this kind of mapping always exists "in the eyes of the beholder." But, to give a couple of recent examples: at the No Kings Rally a couple weeks ago, I saw a number of signs with sentiments like "We want America, not 1930s Germany"; this week, historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote a piece about how the American economic policies of the 1920s -- tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, rebates and tax abatements worth billions -- led to short-term economic growth followed by an enormous stock market crash in late October 1929. "History does not repeat itself, but it does often rhyme," Mark Twain is reputed to have said. In both of these cases, the mapping of the past onto our present may or may not ultimately ring true, as we are still living inside an unfolding story. There is a possibility that these chapters of history will indeed end up "rhyming," and a possibility that they will not... but that depends on what happens next, which is -- at least in part -- up to us.

I hope that Parashat Lech Lecha's story of Abram and Sarai going down to Egypt can serve as a helpful reminder to us, this week, that we have the ability to see patterns in stories and in history and to act with agency. To that end, I hope that EVERY member of the Kavana community who is eligible to do so will cast a ballot before the 8pm deadline in this coming Tuesday's election. Let's listen for echoes, patterns, and rhymes, and then use the tools at our disposal to shape the stories of our lives in the directions of our choosing.

Shabbat Shalom (and if you do happen to watch an episode of Long Story Short, drop me a line and let me know what you think of it),

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Remembering a Luminary of Our Time

The sun rises, and the sun sets… (Kohelet 1:5)

Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: Do we not know that the sun rises and the sun sets? The meaning is, however, that before the Holy Blessed One causes the sun of a righteous person to set, the sun of their righteous counterpart rises. (Bereishit Rabbah 58:2)

As we leave zman simchateinu, Sukkot’s “season of our joy,” a sun has set. I met him only once. 

The last public event I went to before the pandemic shut down society in 2020 was a Tu Bishvat program at a Jewish urban farm in Berkeley. The late winter “new year of the trees” is a minor Jewish holiday, but a major deal for any Jews interested in nature, climate justice, and other earthy attractions. 

At this particular gathering, I felt a tickle of delight in my toes as I met in person, for the first time a grandfather of the Jewish environmental movement, Rabbi Arthur Waskow. I remember how energy and joy and passion radiated from his elderly body. Most of us were in our twenties and thirties, and you could feel the respect and admiration flowing back and forth between him and the younger folks. 

Reb Arthur died on Monday, October 20th. You can read more about him here. And I recommend this interview with Shaul Magid. 

One of Arthur Waskow’s early impacts on the Jewish world was his Freedom Seder, which he wrote after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.

I was not just a spectator to his passionate life and death. I had spent nine years in Washington working day and night against racial injustice and the Vietnam War—behind a typewriter on Capitol Hill; at the microphone on countless college campuses; sitting in unbearably hot back rooms of Convention Hall in Atlantic City in 1964, working alongside Dr. King when he came hobbling on a badly twisted ankle to rally support for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party; marching and sitting-down against the Vietnam War in 1967, at the Pentagon…

On the evening of April 3, Dr. King spoke to a crowd in Memphis: “I’ve been to the mountaintop… And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!” Echoes of Moses. By the next night, he was dead.

By noon the next day, Washington, my city, was ablaze…By April 6, there was a curfew…And then came the afternoon of April 12. That night, Passover would begin…So I walked home to help prepare to celebrate the seder. On every block, detachments of the Army. On 18th Street, a Jeep with a machine gun pointing up my block. Somewhere within me, deeper than my brain or breathing, my blood began to chant: “This is Pharaoh’s army, and I am walking home to do the seder.” (Read the full account here.)

In 1969, he published the Freedom Seder, an activist haggadah, and inspired generations of Jews to make the seder a creative, justice-oriented, faithful-to-the-past, and true-to-the-present ritual. 

Over the decades, Waskow was arrested over two dozen times, including in his 80s protesting ICE. He was known to joke about comparing his arrest count to his number of published books, also over two dozen. 

It feels strange to remember him in the month of Cheshvan, known as the month with no Jewish holidays, when the book I’ve most loved of his is Seasons of Our Joy: A Modern Guide to the Jewish Holidays. Here he collects traditions, poems, and recipes, in addition to explaining the historical and ecological underpinnings of each sacred occasion.  

In honor of this week’s parashah on Noah, check out (and perhaps sing!) Reb Arthur’s rewrite of the Noah’s ark Rise & Shine song. 

A sun has set. But that’s never the end of the story. Look to those who still shine a light for us on the climate crisis, on liberation, on democracy, and on the beauty of Torah. And may each of us do our part to rise and shine until a new day dawns. 

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Back to the Beginning & Back to the Basics

Having moved through the finish line of our fall holiday marathon with Simchat Torah earlier this week, we now arrive at Shabbat Bereishit, where we begin our cycle of Torah anew. The work we have done throughout the holiday season -- to connect ourselves with our community and our people, our tradition and values, and our highest aspirations for our lives in this New Year -- culminates in a great reset.

As we move back to the beginning of the Torah this week, I also want to draw our attention to an important "basic:" one of the most fundamental principles in all of Jewish tradition.

In the earliest chapters of Genesis, God creates the natural world, finishing with the pièce de résistance: the creation of human beings in Genesis 1:26-27:

(כו) וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ וְיִרְדּוּ֩ בִדְגַ֨ת הַיָּ֜ם וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֗יִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּבְכָל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וּבְכָל־הָרֶ֖מֶשׂ הָֽרֹמֵ֥שׂ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃ (כז) וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃

(26) And God said, “Let us make a human in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” (27) And God created the human in [God's] image, in the Divine image, God created [the human]; male and female, [God] created them.

Commentators have spilled lots of ink trying to derive deep truths about God, the universe, and humanity from these two verses, which contain a number of puzzling elements. For today, I simply want to focus on the words I've bolded above -- "et ha-adam" / "the human" (or you could translate it "the earth-being," since the word adam is a play on adamah/earth): the singular individual who is created in God's own image at the beginning, before there are multiple humans ("them") and even before gender differentiation.

The early rabbis wonder aloud why "adam ha-rishon" -- this first human being -- was created singularly. One of the (many) rabbinic texts that answers this question is Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5:

לפיכך נברא אדם יחידי ללמדך שכל המאבד נפש אחת מישראל מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו איבד עולם מלא וכל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו קיים עולם מלא ומפני שלום הבריות שלא יאמר אדם לחבירו אבא גדול מאביך ... ולהגיד גדולתו של הקב"ה שאדם טובע כמה מטבעות בחותם אחד כולן דומין זה לזה ומלך מלכי המלכים הקב"ה טבע כל אדם בחותמו של אדם הראשון ואין אחד מהן דומה לחבירו לפיכך כל אחד ואחד חייב לומר בשבילי נברא העולם...

…Therefore the first human being, Adam, was created alone, to teach us that whoever destroys a single life, the Torah considers it as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a single life, the Torah considers it as if he saved an entire world.

Furthermore, only one person, Adam, was created for the sake of peace among people, so that no one should say to his fellow, 'My father was greater than yours....

Also, the human (Adam) [was created singly] to show the greatness of the Holy Blessed One, for if a person strikes many coins from one mold, they all resemble one another, but the King of Kings, the Holy Blessed One, made each subsequent human in the image of the original Adam, and yet not one of them resembles his fellow.

This is one of my favorite rabbinic teachings: such a classic that even if you know it well, it's worth returning to and reconsidering each year as we read this parasha. (Of course, if this teaching is new to you, I commend it to you for learning well and making part of your core-Jewish-values repertoire!)

In our first session of the Kavana High School Program last month, RLO and I had the opportunity to study this text with our teens. (We were talking about what makes a person's life valuable, in preparation for a year of wrestling with some contemporary hot-button/"on the ballot" issues.) The teens studied this Mishnah in chevruta (study pairs), and drew a number of conclusions about what Judaism has to say on the topic of human beings being created "b'tzelem elohim," in God's image. In their own words:

• Every human life has inherent value.

• Destroying a life is destroying a world.

• Each human being should be understood as having been created in God's image.

• God is diminished when a human life is taken.

• Life's value is not measurable - it simply is.

• Uniqueness and human diversity have intrinsic worth.

• Diversity is a tribute to God's awesomeness.

This basic building block of a concept has the potential to be helpful at every level. Rooted in Parashat Bereishit and in the Mishnah's teaching, first, I hope that each of us can cultivate the personal esteem we need to treat ourselves with kindness and compassion, understanding that despite our imperfections, we ourselves are created with a Divine spark in each of us! Second, on a Kavana level, we also aspire to build relationships within our community on this foundation. Hopefully, this manifests in how our partners and community members treat one another, how our educators relate to each child in our youth education programs, how we cultivate effective working relationships among staff and board members, and more. Finally, the fundamental principles derived from the creation of a single human being in God's image should inform how we live in the world and relate to society at large. Right now, some of these "basics" -- like human equality, dignity for all, and the value of diversity -- are under attack here in our American society. Grounded in this piece of Torah, we should feel secure in our understanding of what Judaism calls on us to believe and to do.

I look forward to seeing some of you at the first Shabbat Morning Minyan of this new year tomorrow -- it's exciting to have the opportunity to hear the Torah read from the very beginning! I also look forward to seeing others of you at the No Kings rally afterwards (I'll be walking down to the Seattle Center a bit late, although we also have a group meeting at 11:30), as we march for democracy and human dignity, the same fundamental principles outlined above. And finally, this coming week, we will embark on our year of learning, with the kick-off of youth education programs like Moadon Yeladim and the Middle School Program, and also Adult Ed classes (Rabbi Jay's Mussar group begins next Tuesday night, and I'll be sneaking in Living Room Learning sessions whenever I can this year, including next Wednesday night -- stay tuned for more details in Monday's newsletter). 

Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom, as we move back to the beginning of the Torah and back to the basics together,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Bifocals, Not Binaries

As American Jews, we see time through bifocals. One lens, moving through the Jewish calendar, and another lens tracking the secular common calendar. It is obvious that holidays belong to their respective domain - Rosh Hashanah forever on the 1st of Tishrei, while Memorial Day is always the last Monday in May. 

Personally significant days get more complex. For instance, my wife and son share a secular birthday, but not a Jewish birthday. I also have my grandmother’s yahrzeit in my calendar twice each year, once for each lens. Each of us balances our immersion in American time with our anchor in Jewish time.

Societally significant events also metabolize differently when we revisit them each year because of the tectonic shifts between calendars. Two years ago, Hamas massacred Israeli soldiers and civilians on October 7, which coincided with the holiday of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah (a single day in Israel). As a celebration of the joy of Torah now marred by horrific violence, questions arose: Would we champion a Torah of peace? Apply the Torah’s wisdom on just and necessary war? Find the Torah mute and in mourning?

In 2026, October 7 will fall after the holidays finish, approaching the month of MarCheshvan (the “bitter” month where there are no holidays at all). 

In 2027, October 7 will fall (as it did in 2024) between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, during the Ten Days of Repentance. I wonder what teshuvah looked like last year, and how it might be different two years from now…

This year, however, October 7 fell on the holiday of Sukkot. Which raises another question: What do we see when we look at October 7 from the sukkah? Do we shiver in the cold wind of history, all too aware of how abundance may be harvested one year and wither away the next? Should we insist on zman simchateinu, on times of joy, as necessary nourishment so we can rise to the challenges that face us? Might we see the permeable walls and roofs of the sukkah, and the tradition of inviting in ushpizin, guests, as reminders of our obligations to others and the importance of connection beyond the hard boundaries we instinctively reinforce? 

We also read Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) on Sukkot, and this year a few unusual lines drew my attention (7:16-17). 

אַל־תְּהִ֤י צַדִּיק֙ הַרְבֵּ֔ה וְאַל־תִּתְחַכַּ֖ם יוֹתֵ֑ר לָ֖מָּה תִּשּׁוֹמֵֽם׃ 
Don’t be greatly righteous and don’t become too wise; why should you be desolate?

אַל־תִּרְשַׁ֥ע הַרְבֵּ֖ה וְאַל־תְּהִ֣י סָכָ֑ל לָ֥מָּה תָמ֖וּת בְּלֹ֥א עִתֶּֽךָ׃ 
Don’t be greatly wicked and don’t be a fool; why should you die before your time?

Let’s start with the second statement, which is slightly less controversial. It seems obvious you shouldn’t be wicked. For Kohelet, being wicked and foolish (distinct characteristics with significant overlap) leads to an early death. Or at least, overdoing it can be fatal. Being a little bit wicked is apparently totally fine. 

However, an early midrash clarifies that this teaching reminds us not to slip into fatalism about our ability to change for the better. If we do something wrong, we can’t let ourselves off the hook by considering ourselves bad people now and continuing to do bad people things because that’s just who we are now and there’s no possibility anymore of being good. Being “greatly wicked” is a form of the cognitive distortion of all-or-nothing thinking. What “dies before its time” is the possibility of a new choice once the “all” no longer seems attainable. The riddle of not being too wicked resolves when we know that everyone lives in the gray areas and we are not as stuck in choices, patterns, and circumstances as we think we are. 

Some take the teaching on not being too righteous in a similar vein - strive for balance and moderation in all things. The medieval scholar Abraham ibn Ezra commented: “If you pray from morning until evening and fast and do similar things, you will become desolate, meaning you will depart from the way of civilization/settlement, as do those who become hermits.” 

There is a form of righteousness which leads you away from people. And while a retreat from the mess of being around actual people has its place, our purpose isn’t to be good and alone. The first human’s existence prompted God to say “It is not good for a person to be alone!” (Bereishit / Genesis 2:18). In a surprising way, God sometimes prefers politics (the art of figuring out how to live together without murdering each other) over pure righteousness. 

Looking up from the pages of Kohelet to view October 7, the past two years of war and tragedy for Palestinians and Israelis, and this fragile moment where a cessation of violence and return of hostages seems possible, what do we see? (You may be reading this and seeing something new already that wasn’t there while I was writing. So many feelings are swirling right now around this new deal - a mixture of hope and anticipation, steeling against possible disappointment, a clear awareness that hostages returning home and fewer people dying is a good thing, and uncertainty about what will come of this moment in terms of justice and safety for all people in the region.)

Rabbi Jill Jacobs of T’ruah wrote in a recent letter:

In a world of hot takes and of insistence on ideological purity, it takes humility to say that we don’t know what is going to happen… It’s easy to despair, and to give up. The challenge is to believe that a different world is possible, to draw the blueprints, and to build it little by little.

To build a sukkah, to sit in its vulnerable shelter, and to gaze out at the same old world, is to be offered a new vision, another sort of bifocals that balance humility with chutzpah.

This year, let each day, Jewish and secular, become another anniversary of when we kept our hearts open and our hands busy building a better world together. 

Chag sameach, and Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Freedom is Wild

A few weeks ago, I stood above the Ballard Locks. My two kids and I watched the salmon leap in their enchantingly awkward dance towards home. We cheered them on. But then, the salmon scattered, and a plump seal swam through their midst, looking for what we would learn was probably a fifth or sixth breakfast that day. My son was horrified. “I’m so afraid for the salmon. The seal will eat it,” he said. I looked helplessly towards a nearby nature guide, who calmly and gently said, “The seals and the salmon are in an ancient dance, doing what they’ve always done. The salmon swim home, and the seals eat some of them. The problem now is that because we humans have changed the way back upstream, the salmon have only a small opening to get through, so the seals just hang out there. We’ve made it extra easy for them to snack. But still, it doesn’t seem to be a big problem.” I’m not sure Ami was convinced, but we turned back to watching the age-old performance play on. 

The poet W.H. Auden once wrote some lines meditating on nature, and our strange human place in it.

So from the years their gifts were showered: each
Grabbed at the one it needed to survive;
Bee took the politics that suit a hive,
Trout finned as trout, peach moulded into peach,

And were successful at their first endeavour.
The hour of birth their only time in college,
They were content with their precocious knowledge,
To know their station and be right for ever.

Till, finally, there came a childish creature
On whom the years could model any feature,

Fake, as chance fell, a leopard or a dove,
Who by the gentlest wind was rudely shaken,
Who looked for truth but always was mistaken,
And envied his few friends, and chose his love.

He then rewrites a version of the exile from the Garden of Eden, capturing so much of our human condition in just a few short phrases:

They left. Immediately the memory faded
Of all they'd known: they could not understand
The dogs now who before had always aided;
The stream was dumb with whom they'd always planned.
They wept and quarrelled: freedom was so wild.

Nature is in an intricate dance. All things instinctively know their role, except humans, who have forgotten the steps. Freedom is so wild. Auden suggests that what is so hard for us is precisely the open possibilities of being human. What we celebrate also haunts us, what we struggle with also contains seeds of healing and growth, if we know how to plant and tend to them. 

There is a story I’ve heard which has been transcribed in various versions from different Indigenous American sources. Here is one version:

Inside a cave an old woman is weaving the most beautiful garment ever imagined. But now and then, she has to pause to stir a pot over the fire that’s at the back of the cave. And that pot holds all the seeds of the earth and if she doesn’t go to the back of the cave and stir the pot, the seeds will burn and life itself will vanish from the world.

While she is away, a black dog (or some say a trickster crow) slips in and unravels her weaving, thread by thread until only chaos remains. When she returns, she pauses. Not in anger but in stillness and presence. Then she picks up the thread. And in that thread she imagines an even more beautiful garment, one that didn’t exist before the unraveling. And again she begins to weave. 

Freedom is so wild. We weave the world into order, and then we watch it unravel. We weave the world into beauty, and then an ugly tug undoes the threads. We weave ourselves into better people, then something wicked this way comes and hands us a mirror. We humans, what are we doing? 

-

The prophet Isaiah told a very short story long, long ago, his version of the woman weaving in a cave. Isaiah, whose name means “God will save”, said it this way: 

Ko amar adonai, Thus says God: (Isaiah 45:1)
…
I am God and there is none else (ain od zulati);
Beside Me, there is no god.
I engird you, though you have not known Me,
So that all may know, from east to west,
That there is none but Me.
I am God and there is none else,
I form light and create darkness,
I make peace and create chaotic evil—
I God do all these things. (Isaiah 45:5-7)

It would be comforting to think there is a dog or crow or demon or devil out there, pulling at the threads of God’s creation, but no, Isaiah says, God is One, there is nothing but God, God is in a dance of delight and disaster with Godself, light here, dark there, peacefully complete and unraveling at the same time. 

As Friedrich Nietzche said, “I would believe only in a god who could dance.” 

The Buddhist master Thich Nhat Han taught that we too should see ourselves in a dance with our own natures:

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being attacked by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

We are all of us weaver and unraveler, victim and perpetrator, full of light and carrying darkness, and crucially, inheritors of a key to a door of the heart, the door of compassion. 

---

What I am trying to dance with here, what I’m trying to weave together, is uncomfortable. How do we move through a world of hate and fear while remembering we - and others - are complex, multifaceted humans and groups of humans? How do we stand up for what we think is right without demonizing those who disagree with us? How do we rend our garments in sorrow and then smile at each other? How do we hold dread and delight in the same heart? How do we create necessary boundaries, and how do we soften the severity of our judgment on each other? Political violence, Jewish isolation and internal Jewish fault lines, personal grief, climate disasters. How do we survive the wild freedom of this beautiful and terrifying world together?

One text that has been nestling in my heart for a while orients us towards what we are doing in gathering for Yom Kippur together. The opening line of the prayer Anim Zemirot, which some of you may chant tomorrow early in the morning, says:

אַנְעִים זְמִירוֹת וְשִׁירִים אֶאֱרֹג כִּי אֵלֶיךָ נַפְשִׁי תַּעֲרֹג
Anim zemirot v’shirim e'erog, ki eilecha nafshi ta'arog.
I will sweeten melodies and songs I will weave (e’erog), for to you my soul longs (ta’arog).

While we pray in our woven tallitot, we will weave songs of our soul’s longing. I think it is incredible that in Hebrew weaving and yearning rhyme, e’erog, ta’arog. My restless mind spins and spins on what I can do, when it feels like the world is unraveling. But perhaps the first threads of repair require me to be in touch with my deep yearning, with a vision of a better future. 

The prophet Isaiah gave us a vision of that better future as absurd as it is inspiring. 

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
The leopard lie down with the goat;
…
The cow and the bear shall graze,
Their young shall lie down together;
And the lion, like the ox, shall eat straw.

The seal and the salmon, dancing together as playmates not as predator and prey! Or to use Auden’s words, we humans no longer faking being leopard or dove, but just harmoniously ourselves. Can you imagine a world where people didn’t grasp for power, or punish opponents, or attempt to purge enemies, or where hatred didn’t fester for the other side, or where greed and self-interest didn’t warp the common good? I find it hard to envision, and Isaiah’s absurdity is oddly reassuring - it isn’t that we are failing, exactly, but that we are deep in the midst of the human condition. Every one of us is complicit in being human. 

But here’s what is incredible about being human. Unlike a wolf or lamb, humans have such an incredible range of moral possibility, including the most callous and cruel but also spanning to the most aspirational and soaring and love-oriented dreams any creature could dream. It isn’t Isaiah’s vision of God or the messianic era that draws forth my hopeful yearning, but the fact that this human, so long ago, had the creativity to envision something so beyond what the world has yet experienced. In the face of a compelling picture of despair, Isaiah made a choice to tell us a different story.

And we, in our prayers, in naming our yearnings, shape the story of the year to come.

On Kol Nidre, we wear the tallit because tonight we recite the 13 Middot Harachamim, God’s 13 attributes of compassion. Long ago, high up on the mountaintop, Moses, yearning to encounter God directly, is told no. The fullness of God’s being - the intricate dance of nature, outer and inner - isn’t our ultimate focus. Instead, as the Talmud teaches, God wraps that shining shawl of a tallit around godself and demonstrates to Moses how to pray the words that will open the door of the divine heart, the door of compassion.

Adonai Adonai, el rachum v’chanun, O God, all-that-is-was-and-will-be, Creator-of-everything, Weaver and Unraveler, El Rachum v’chanun - be a power of compassion and grace. It is as if God is saying, “I am God of everything, but I want you to invoke me as god of mercy. Tilt me in that direction.” 

Choose, God says. Choose to tilt your nature and Mine towards compassion. Wear your woven garment, your tallit, weave your songs and yearnings together, pray your prayers and let the angel, as a midrash suggests, collect all of the prayers and weave them into a crown for God, a crown of compassion for the creator of all possibilities, both light and dark, a crown for the one who created our ability to choose, and therefore the one who calls us into choice. 

At the heart of the human condition, in the midst of the wild freedom, there is a dance of thread, a dream of what a new and beautiful world can be, and a door always there waiting for us.

Rabbi Jay LeVine
Yom Kippur 5786 - Oct. 1, 2025

From Learned Helplessness to Spiritual Resistance, and From Imutz HaLev to Ometz Lev

Many of you heard Rabbi Jonah’s story on Rosh Hashanah about the chassidic rabbi – Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk – whose students thought that things felt so perfect inside their room that perhaps the moshiach had come and the world had entered a messianic age. The rebbe got up and walked to the window to look out and see, and then came back to the table to confirm that sadly no, the moshiach had not arrived. It still stinks out there. 

Ten days later, I don’t have to peek out the window to tell you that it still stinks out there. I’m thinking, right now, about what’s happened in our country this year, in recent months and weeks and even days. ICE agents with face masks and no name badges are picking people up off streets in arrests that feel more like kidnappings. Political violence and gun violence on the rise - we’ve seen shootings of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, the seder night attack on Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro; the shooting at the Capitol Jewish Museum and just this week a fire and shooting combo at a Mormon church in Michigan. Legislators are being threatened. Trans folks and especially trans kids are also being targeted and scapegoated, each and every day, with access to gender-affirming medical care challenged or removed. Reproductive rights have been rolled back in many states. And don’t get me started about the lies: that taking Tylenol during pregnancy causes autism, that #47 has ended seven wars, that Portland is aflame with protest. This week we saw a meeting of generals, where military aggression is being promoted and the presence of anyone other than white men is being undermined and challenged at the newly named “Department of War.” We’re witnessing the defunding of science and institutions of higher learning, and much of that is being uncomfortably pinned on Jews. Comedians are losing their jobs and restrictions on free press are growing. These are just some of the big flashy stories. And to be honest, it’s hard to know how much these stories are the actual story, and how much they are all distracting smokescreens so that maybe we the people won’t notice all of the money changing hands, and the billionaires who are benefitting while seeds of division are sown for the rest of society to fight over the scraps. The rise of autocratic rule, dictatorship, and fascism is terrifying. 

I am speaking about this on High Holidays, because this is the backdrop we’re all operating in this year and I think it’s important to name it. This is not normal, and it is not aligned with our Judaism. Our job on Yom Kippur is to think about what kinds of human beings we want to be this year, but we can’t consider this in a vacuum, or when everything is perfect, because we live in the real world, and all around us, that real world is a mess.

I can tell you – from the conversations I’ve had with so many of you over the past year, and the past eight months especially – that one place where this community is pretty like-minded is in bristling at the cruelty, the hatred, and the corruption we are witnessing in real time. While some in our community inspire me by their ability to regularly roll up their sleeves, I also know that many of you – like me – are experiencing overwhelm, at least some of the time. When we don’t know what we can possibly do to be helpful, when the world around us feels so out of control, it is human tendency to feel paralyzed, to shut down, to start to tune it all out, to grow discouraged and decide that perhaps our actions don’t even matter at all. 

In the 1960s, scientists first discovered and studied the psychological concept that is today known as “learned helplessness.” They conducted experiments on animals (experiments, I should say, that would never be allowed today because of their cruelty to the research subjects). American psychologist Martin Seligman did his experiments on dogs, who were exposed to unpleasant electric shocks at random intervals. Some of the dogs could stop the shocks by pushing a lever, and they soon learned to do so, but others experienced the shocks at random and had no way to stop them, no matter what they tried. After many attempts, the animals who couldn’t control the shocks stopped trying altogether and simply endured the torture. In part two of the experiment, sometime later, all of the dogs were moved to a new situation where the solution was pretty simple. They were placed in a two-part cage where the dog could escape an electric shock by simply jumping over a low barrier to the other side. The animals that had had the ability to use the lever previously learned quickly to move from one side of the cage to the other to avoid the shocks. But the animals for whom nothing had worked before seemed to have learned that nothing they did could possibly matter, and they gave up even when a way out was right in front of them – literally, they lay down passively and whined or whimpered. This is what psychologists came to term “learned helplessness”: that repeated experiences of being unable to change a bad situation can lead to a deep sense of passivity that carries over into new situations.

This year, given everything that’s happening out there, I believe we are all at risk of succumbing to learned helplessness. With constant exposure to news and social media, with rampant cruelty and hatred on the rise, with attempts to shut down dissent, we are confronted daily with images of crises, injustice and suffering that we often cannot influence. This stream can create the same sense as it did for the dogs that were exposed to electric shocks in Seligman’s lab: that nothing we do matters, which reinforces the sense of disempowerment. And, it’s even worse that to some extent, this is a political strategy – it’s called “flooding the zone,” and it involves overwhelming the media and the public with a rapid, massive barrage of information, controversy and actions. The deliberate deluge is a form of propaganda intended to make it difficult for the public to focus on any single issue or critically analyze events. In other words, to the extent that we’re feeling overwhelm, fatigue, and paralysis, this is because it’s part of somebody’s plan. 

Recently, I read an article by an Israeli doctoral student in cognitive neuroscience named Iddo Gefen. He explains this concept of learned helplessness but then writes (in a very High Holiday connected message): “But even though our brains are wired to fall into feelings of helplessness, they are also wired with the ability to change. This means that even in moments when everything feels out of our control, there are things we can do to push back against that feeling.”

Gefen cites a 2023 study titled “From Helplessness to Controllability: Toward a Neuroscience of Resilience.” It explores how the brain can be trained to resist this state of learned helplessness, and offers practical insights. “...The key to protecting ourselves from learned helplessness is not simply avoiding situations where we lack control, but actively building experiences of control. Even very small steps matter. Choosing a concrete and achievable goal, doing something that has a visible effect, or helping someone close to us can all reactivate these brain circuits. Such actions may not change the world, but they slowly remind the brain that what we do can make a difference.” The way out of helplessness and paralysis is doing.

I want to argue tonight that our Jewish tradition actually beat the psychological researchers to the punch here. Long before 2023 when this particular contemporary study about the neuroscience of resilience was published, and even before the 1960s and Seligman’s naming of learned helplessness, our liturgy encoded into it precisely the kind of building blocks we need to rewire our brains when they are under stress and to build resilience that protects us against the pull of helplessness. Yom Kippur gives us the space and the tools to do the spiritual work to combat the learned helplessness and sense of overwhelm that are so easy to feel in this moment.

In our service tonight, we have completed the Kol Nidre prayer and the Maariv prayers around Shema and the Amidah. As we continue, we will move into the Selichot set - the prayers that are specific to Yom Kippur and which we will repeat multiple times over the coming 24 hours. 

At the heart of these Selichot prayers lie two confessionals. The first, vidui, is a short alphabetic acrostic, listing out actions that we have taken that are examples of sins, or missing the mark – that don’t represent our best behavior. The second list, Al Chet, is a longer alphabetical acrostic, listing what we’re atoning for. Let’s turn to that one - please join me on page 450.

My central argument here is that our observance of Yom Kippur itself can be an antidote to learned helplessness, and that this is helpful Torah for this particular moment. If you’ve ever done any meditation, typically there’s a “return to the breath” that brings you back to center when the mind wanders. Yom Kippur does something parallel, only it returns us to our own bodies and to our own small sphere of control on an annual basis. In doing so, it helps us fight against feelings of powerlessness and overwhelm, and promises us that we do have the power to effect change, first and foremost within ourselves and in our own realms of control.

Skimming through pages 450-453 together, what I want to show you is this: Al Chet is filled with descriptions connecting to body parts! We see that with imutz ha-lev (the sin of hardening the heart), vitui s’fatayim (the idleness of the lips), dibur peh (the speech of the mouth), harhur ha-lev (the scheming of the heart), vidui peh (the confessions of the mouth - aka hypocrisy), chozek yad (the outstretched hand - good when God does it, but an abuse of power when we humans try it), tum’at sefatayim (impure speech), tifshut peh (foolishness of the mouth), lashon ha-ra (evil tongue), netiyat garon (translated haughtiness, but literally the extending or stretching out of the throat), siach siftoteinu (idle conversation of our lips), shikur ayin (translated here glancing lustfully, or literally the lies of the eye), einayim ramot (haughty eyes, or eyes elevated), azut metzach (translated insolence, but literally the strengthened forehead), tzarut ayin (translated pettiness, but more literally the narrowness of the eye), kalut rosh (it says levity, but means lightness of the head), kashiyut oref (stubbornness, or literally stiffness of the neck), ritzat raglayim l’hara (the running of the legs to do evil), t’sumet yad (by being meddlesome, or more literally, the placement of the hand), timhon leivav (confusion of the heart). That was fully 20 examples, and that’s before going to the figurative ones that refer to the human body as a whole… together, my point is that there are a large number of embodied actions (they almost make up the majority of this list). 

What do we do on a day where we want to atone, we want a fresh beginning, and yet we find that so many things in the world around us are beyond our control? The liturgy focuses us squarely on our own bodies – as though to say that if we can’t change the whole world, at least we can change ourselves. This is a lot of human body talk for a day when we make a big deal about ignoring the physical body and its needs – refraining from eating and drinking, from physical comfort or adornment. If this is helpful to you, one way you can think of Yom Kippur is about doing a reboot – a system reset – on the self. We shut down the emphasis on our physical bodies, and instead engage the spiritual dimension.

You heard that list of 20+ items. If I had to generalize, I would say that many of them – the physical body actions and gestures that are categorized as sins, actions for which we human beings need to atone, the things we want to do a lot less of – are about physical strength, lengthening and hardening. Try doing these actions, physically, and you’ll see what I mean: N’tiyat garon - the extending of the throat. Chozek yad - the strong arm. Azut metzach - the tough forehead. Einayim ramot - lifted up eyes. Kashiyut oref - the hard nape of the neck (tense those muscles!).

I leave all of this for you to consider and play with in your minds as you like throughout the day, but I want to take rabbi prerogative now and focus our attention for a moment on a single transition that I think could be read as THE KEY to Yom Kippur. It also happens to be a brilliant pun and word play.

Returning to near the beginning of our Al Chet list, I want to direct your attention to the phrase “v’al chet shechatanu l’fanecha b’imutz halev” (it’s the second line of the prayer). “For the sin we have committed before you through the hardening of the heart.”

Imutz ha-Lev means the strengthening or hardening of the heart – like a calcification. We should be familiar with the concept – although the vocabulary is a little different – from the story of Exodus, when our ancestors were getting ready to leave Egypt and God hardened the heart of Pharaoh (there it’s vayechazek or vayikabed lev paroh). This kind of hardening of the heart implies callousness, an inability to feel empathy, remaining hardened in the face of the suffering of others. In systems of power, like in ones that we can see on display so clearly right now, a hardened heart is mistakenly viewed as a sign of strength, but our Jewish tradition is very clear that this is a big no-no. When, in this year, immigrants were rounded up by ICE and deported to prison in El Salvador to cheers and laughter of some, that was imutz halev. Ditto when the Navy carried out an airstrike on a Venezuelan boat in the southern Caribbean last month, killing 11 people on board. It’s relatively easy to say that those who are carrying out these acts and those who are cheering them on are guilty of imutz halev - that’s easy to condemn. But actually, our tradition also says that we – and here I include myself and probably most of us in this room – may also be guilty of imutz halev for hardening our hearts too much to meaningfully counter them. If we are too beaten down by the system already to feel empathy, to be moved to act by the plight of others (and, again, this is part of the machinery that has been very precisely designed to beat us down and overwhelm us) then we too are guilty of imutz halev, of hardening our hearts.

Returning to neuropsychology and to Iddo Gefen for a moment, first, as I already shared, he says that the key to combatting learned helplessness is not simply avoiding situations where we lack control, but actively building experiences of control. He says: “It turns out that the brain reacts very differently when we have even a small sense of influence over what happens. For example, volunteering with elderly people or adopting a rescued animal are small actions that remind us that what we do can make the world a little better. Experiences of control act like a “vaccine” for the brain. When a person faces a situation where their actions make a difference, circuits in the medial prefrontal cortex become engaged. This part of the brain, which is involved in planning and self‑regulation, quiets the stress signals coming from deeper regions… and over time these circuits become stronger.”

Second, although he doesn’t use this language, he also talks about the importance of acting with kavana, with intention. In his words: “Habits can be useful, but when we are under stress, relying only on automatic responses tends to reinforce passivity. In contrast, pausing to think, analyzing a situation, trying a new strategy, and noticing the link between actions and outcomes strengthens the brain’s resilience. For example, instead of automatically walking past someone who looks lost or is struggling with heavy bags, you choose to stop for a moment, offer directions or lend a hand. This small choice turns an automatic habit into a conscious action and reminds you of your ability to choose and to make a difference. Turning habits into conscious, deliberate actions also engages brain areas involved in planning and self‑control, and over time this practice helps build resilience against the pull of helplessness.”

Back to the liturgy now, we have explored the concept of imutz halev, the problematic hardening of the heart that makes us callous towards others. This is precisely what our rabbis don’t want us to do and to be (and it may be precisely the sin that the prophet Jonah is guilty of, but that’s a conversation for tomorrow).

Instead of imutz halev, the hardening of the heart, our Jewish tradition points us towards a positive kind of strengthening of the heart, and Yom Kippur gives us a chance to get there, and to set ourselves a different heart intention. With the same trilateral root of alef-mem-tzadee, we get the phrase “Chazak ve’ematz” – “be strong and take courage” that Moses said to Joshua three times in this past Shabbat’s Torah portion, Parashat Vayeilech. The concept of “Ometz lev” – literally meaning “strong of heart” – means something akin to courage, and it’s a core soul trait in Mussar. Ometz lev is the quality that Moses’ mother Yocheved and the midwives Shifra and Puah all possess when they decide to go against Pharaoh’s decree and not kill baby boys born to the Israelites – it’s civil disobedience for the good. Ometz lev is the courage that Esther and Mordecai possess when they stand up in defense of their people. In the animated BimBam “Shaboom” videos created by my brilliant friend Sarah Lefton, Ometz Lev is translated “hero’s heart” and I like that translation even better. On Yom Kippur, we remind ourselves that we cannot fall into the trap of imutz halev – hardened hearts – and instead need to strive towards cultivating Ometz Lev – hero’s hearts. This is what we’re asking on these High Holidays when we pray “Hayom T’amtzeinu”: “On this day, give us strength and courage, give us hero’s hearts.

So as we move through the next 24 hours together, one central image that I hope you’ll reflect on is that we’re moving away from that physical strength that looks like hardening – that looks like military might and machismo, callousness and indifference to the suffering of others. We are actively rejecting the kind of hardening of the heart that would allow us to tolerate this cruelty, and instead, moving towards an emotional strength that is supple and flexible: the strength of bravery, courage, sensitivity, and empathy, and spiritual resistance.

It’s easy to feel that these small actions are not enough, that they are far from changing the world. But, in fact, small actions, starting from the self, can make a huge difference. On Yom Kippur, we remind ourselves that we have the ability to change ourselves, to strengthen ourselves in the ways that we need to be strengthened. And if those actions that grow out of our self work aren’t just decent ones, but very precisely, are the ones that transform imutz halev into ometz lev – that help us move from a hardened heart to a hero’s heart – we have great power indeed. If we can do this as a community and in community, we can begin to transform our society. We know from history that this moment will not last forever. There will be a backswing; there will come again a time where it feels like our society is again getting better and not worse. And Yom Kippur promises us that even if we can’t control everything about what’s happening, we do have the power to hasten that time, starting from our own bodies, our own selves, and our own heart intentions.

And so, as we embark on these Selichot prayers for the first of many times this Yom Kippur, I invite you to use this day to reflect on what is in your sphere of influence, to visualize softening your heart from callousness and then strengthening it again towards empathy, bravery, courage, resolve, and a hero’s heart. On this Yom Kippur, as we look out the window, we know that it is really bad out there. But our tradition reminds us that we cannot despair, lie down and whimper. We have agency, which begins from each of our own spheres of influence, from our own actions, from our own bodies, from what is in our own hearts. This year, let’s really do the work of trying to prevent our hearts from hardening and atrophying, and instead engage our hearts bravely and courageously in acts of spiritual resistance. With intention, with resolve, and in community, we have the power to change ourselves and slowly, collectively, eventually, together we will also change our society for the better.

Gmar chatima tova - and may we all be sealed for a good year - a year of courage and empathy.

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Yom Kippur 5786 - Oct. 1, 2025

Generations: Continuity & Discontinuity

As we embark on the High Holidays tonight, I want to focus us on the theme of generations. 

The Torah portions for this holiday of Rosh Hashanah convey intense anxiety about generational continuity. Tomorrow’s reading begins with this issue: “Vadonai pakad et sarah ka’asher amar, va’ya’as adonai l’sarah ka’asher diber. Vatahar va’teiled sarah l’avraham ben liz’kunav.” “The Eternal took note of Sarah as was promised; the Eternal did for Sarah as had been spoken. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age.” In these opening lines, the text has already set up a central challenge:  Abraham and Sarah are old – will there even be a next generation?! Of course, Abraham goes on to have two sons – Ishmael and Isaac – but the worry about continuity doesn’t stop here. 

The rest of the reading on day 1 centers on how Sarah’s jealousy fuels Abraham’s expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, who end up alone, isolated, and about to die of thirst in the wilderness. And then on day 2, we read the next chapter: Genesis 22, where God commands Abraham to take his second son, Isaac, up to the top of Har Hamoriah and offer him up as a sacrifice there. This is extreme family dysfunction; that the same Abraham who once worried that he would not have a child at all has two of them but almost kills each one, in separate instances! According to a famous midrash, when Sarah hears how Abraham has almost slaughtered Isaac, her soul departs and she dies. And in the chapters that follow, neither Ishmael nor Isaac ever speak to their father again. (Only after he dies do they come back together to bury him.) As we gather on Rosh Hashanah, we are left to reflect on this theme of generational continuity and discontinuity – what it is that we have inherited and what it is that we transmit, and how valuable - and how vulnerable - the chain of transmission is.

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I was first introduced to generational thinking as a lens as a newly minted rabbi. I remember picking up a book called When Generations Collide - a workplace book, soon after I had been ordained in 2004, when it was still relatively new. Two authors, Lynne Lancaster, a baby boomer, and David Stillman, a Gen X-er, made the point that with people living longer than ever and working longer than ever, we found ourselves at a moment with four distinct generations side-by-side in the workplace – more than ever before. To be able to get along well in the contemporary workplace and in the world, they argued, was to understand each of these generations, what they value, and how they function and communicate. 

Today, more than two decades later, I feel the tension between generations even more acutely. Of course, Kavana is a community and not a workplace. When Kavana first launched in 2006, I was 29 years old and didn’t have any kids; my co-founder Suzi LeVine was in her 30s and had two young children. Fast forward 19 years and many of the founders, like the two of us, are now solidly in mid-life in our 40s and 50s. But, over time, as many of you know, this community has continued to attract young adults in their 20s and 30s, and also drawn like-minded adults in their 60s, 70s and 80s, meaning that now the Kavana community spans every possible life stage. Today, we are trying to forge an intentionally multigenerational community made up of 6 distinct generations.

In the book When Generations Collide, the authors are clear that generalizations do not always hold true for every individual, so that’s my caveat too. And yet, the broad brush-stroke thinking they propose can be a helpful framework for looking at big-picture trends and understanding cultural shifts that stem from having different groups of people who have grown up with radically different life experiences. 

Their book terms the generation of anyone born before the year 1945 and the end of WWII “the Traditionalists.” This generation was influenced by figures like Joe DiMaggio, Dr Spock, Alfred Hitchcock, FDR, Ella Fitzgerald, Edward Murrow, Elizabeth Taylor, Betty Crocker and more. Overall, this traditionalist generation is shaped by duty and discipline – they value hard work, patriotism, and loyalty. This generation learned, at an early age, that “by putting aside the needs and wants of the individual and working together towards common goals, they could accomplish amazing things.” And that they have: from winning two world wars to putting a man on the moon. 

Those of you who were born between 1946 and 1964 know, no doubt, that you are “Baby Boomers.” Eighty million strong, this enormous generation was influenced by leaders and cultural icons like Martin Luther King Jr, John F Kennedy, Beaver Cleaver, Gloria Steinem, the Beatles, and places ranging from Woodstock to Watergate. The most important invention of the Baby Boomers’ childhood was television, which influenced this generation’s personality. If the key word for Traditionalists was “loyal,” for the Boomers it might be “optimistic.” The booming postwar economy of their youth contributed to a sense that anything was possible. Between jobs and the GI bill and educational opportunities, Baby Boomers were encouraged to pursue their dreams. At the same time, the sheer numbers of this generation led to competitiveness. So while Traditionalists were willing to accept a military-style chain of command and a community mindset, the Baby Boomers learned to value personal achievement, the challenging of hierarchies, and the power of social change. 

Gen Xers are next, born 1965-1980, which places me squarely inside this generation. Influenced by the likes of Madonna and Michael Jackson, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, OJ Simpson and more, Lancaster and Stillman write: “With the explosion of twenty-four-hour media and tabloid journalism, Xers saw almost every role model of their time indicted or exposed as someone far too human to be a hero.” The same was true of institutions during our formative years, from the presidency and the military to the Catholic church and corporate America. It’s no wonder my generation is known for its skepticism and distrust of institutions. Gen X came of age along with the rise of cable TV, VCRs, video games, Palm Pilots, cell phones and the PC. And we’re also the generation of latch-key kids and children of divorce, of AIDS, of kidnapped kids’ faces on milk cartons. The bottom line: my generation is known as being resourceful and independent. [I’ll throw in an aside here, that it’s no wonder that Kavana – this skeptical-of-the-traditional-synagogue-model community, with a scrappy, can-do start-up ethos – was born out of a meeting-of-the-minds of mostly Gen X founders!]

Who’s next? Gen Y, more commonly known as the Millennials. As the book says: With technology and the media blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, the people influencing Millennials often seemed larger than life, including Prince William, Chelsea Clinton, Claire Daines and Leonardo DiCaprio, Kurt Cobain, Barney, the Backstreet Boys, Venus and Serena Williams. Technology moved into people’s pockets, and millennials can brag about being able to go for a joyride on the information superhighway. But, Millennials were also raised with the fear of the gun violence of Columbine. The benefit of the optimistic, idealistic Boomer parenting style for Millennials is that they feel empowered to take positive action when things go wrong – they are savvy, collaborative, and have a strong social conscience.

Since this book came out over two decades ago, two new generations have come onto the scene. I myself have children who fall into both of these categories.

First, there’s Gen Z - born roughly between 1997 and 2012. This is the first digitally-native generation that grew up with the internet and smartphones, making them adept at using social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube for information, entertainment and shopping. These young adults are growing up in a time of radical uncertainty - between school shootings and the Covid pandemic and an awareness of the challenges facing our planet. As a result, this diverse generation is  already known for their pragmatic problem solving, anxiety, skepticism of traditional institutions and authority, radical inclusivity, and calls for societal change. 

Last but not least, although they are still quite young, Gen Alpha includes those individuals born since 2010 - the children of our community up to about age 15. Even more than Gen Z, they are highly technologically-savvy “digital natives,” exposed to screens from the earliest age. They are racially diverse, and also are growing up with an increased awareness of social justice issues, including attacks on DEI, and with climate change as a given - leading to their concern for environmental sustainability. For Gen Alpha, the Covid-19 pandemic hit during their formative years - disrupting school and creating social isolation. They are still growing but seem to be quick learners and entrepreneurial, so we’ll see what the coming years bring.

So here we are, at Kavana, trying to put together a Jewish community made up of all six of these generations, consciously, intentionally. 

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This summer, Kavana conducted a community survey, to help us inform upcoming strategic planning work. There was high interest in building multigenerational community – with about ¾ of respondents rating it as a high priority. And when we asked “What ideas do you have for increasing multigenerational connection?” the answers flowed in fast and furious: offering multigenerational challah baking and meals and classes, involving older adults in B’nai Mitzvah, or (one of my personal favorites) starting a Kavana adopt-a-grandparent program. But, the workplace tensions that Lancaster and Stillman flagged decades ago pose real challenges in community building as well, and in the Jewish community, we have some unique tensions.

In his podcasts over the past couple of years, I’ve heard Ezra Klein lay out eloquently how these different generations of Jews view Israel. He argues that a long-standing consensus is breaking down in the American Jewish community. As he sees it, he chunks the six generations that I just named into three cohorts of American Jews with fundamentally different experiences of Israel:

1. First, there’s an older generation – which he defines as Baby Boomers and older – who were shaped in their formative years by events like the Holocaust and Israel’s early wars, including the Six-Day War in 1967 – which felt like an almost messianically euphoric victory! This group tends to view Israel fundamentally as a vulnerable haven for vulnerable Jews, focusing on its history as a place of refuge.

2. Second, he names a “straddle generation” of Xers and Millennials – into which Ezra Klein places himself, as do I – which grew up knowing a militarily and politically strong, nuclear-armed Israel that benefited from unwavering support from the U.S. This generation in the middle was taught to see Israel as a place of refuge, but also witnessed the occupation of Palestinian territories and the complexity of two violent intifadas.

3. Third, he talks about a younger generation (Gen Z, for sure), which has primarily known an Israel with Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right Jewish-supremacist government at the helm, an Israel that is an occupying power. Having come of age in the era of ubiquitous social media, the conflict has loomed large for this younger generation; they are far less connected to the memory of a vulnerable, early Israel or to its founding ideals. 

As Klein has pointed out, there was a consensus among much of the American Jewish community, but this consensus is currently collapsing, its pillars having now cracked. A two-state solution no longer feels like it’s on the horizon, or even possible. The idea that “what’s good for Israel is good for the Jews” is no longer widely accepted, especially by younger Jews who see Israel’s actions as compromising, rather than ensuring, their safety. And the relationship between Anti-Zionism and antisemitism has become a source of contention in the American Jewish community, with large communal institutions such as Federation doubling down on the equation of the two, even while younger Jews are vocally protesting against the Israeli government and are increasingly critical of Israel in general. Klein describes all of this as having created a fraught environment, particularly within families, where shared assumptions about Israel have vanished, but so far, there’s nothing yet to replace them with. All of this makes for a tense political landscape within American Jewish life… and then we see this playing out in concrete terms, for example in the New York City mayoral election around the figure of Mamdani. The “establishment” Jewish community is afraid of him – in an Aug 2025 poll, 58% of Jewish New Yorkers said they believe the city will be less safe for Jews under if he becomes mayor. And yet, he has the support of over ⅔ of voters ages 18-44. 

It goes without saying that these past couple of years have been incredibly hard ones for the American Jewish community – between October 7th’s attacks on Israelis, and the devastation and horrors still unfolding in Gaza, violence in the West Bank, the plight of the hostages, and with the rise of politicians here who are claiming to combat antisemitism while simultaneously, cleverly, using it as a tool to attack higher education, free speech, democracy, and to manufacture division and fear. With all of this swirling around us, it’s no wonder that the American Jewish community is filled with tension and infighting. Israeli historian Yuval Harari has spoken about how he understands this moment in which we find ourselves as a watershed moment in Jewish history – perhaps the biggest one since the destruction of the second Temple by the Romans – presenting us with what he terms “a spiritual catastrophe” for Judaism itself. I see establishment institutions drawing red-lines that effectively cut off the younger generations from Jewish life – almost like Abraham exiling and threatening to kill his children. I see some younger Jews refusing to be in conversation with anyone who doesn’t agree with them and doesn’t use the same vocabulary – cutting off contact the way that Ishmael and Isaac never spoke to their father again. I hope that Kavana can be the exception to the dysfunction all around us; that here, we might be able to build a multigenerational Jewish community in a more thoughtful, intentional way – a model community – where we put these generations into conversation with one another, even around the tough stuff.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am to be part of this community, in particular. Kavana has attracted deep thinkers, including so many people who don’t fit so neatly into any of the boxes I’ve just laid out. We know that individuals’ personal backgrounds matter a great deal in shaping perspectives, and as a whole, that this is a community filled with people who are willing to seek out nuance and acknowledge complexity; we believe in making both-and statements, and are capable of holding multiple truths side by side. 

That doesn’t mean that the task of being in community together feels easy, though, even here. In the same Kavana survey I referenced before, among the many questions we posed, one asked specifically: “Since October 7th, has anything shifted for you? (Please check all that apply.)” This was followed by a number of tick-boxes with a wide range of options – for example, I feel greater attachment to Israelis, I feel greater attachment to Palestinians, I actively seek out news, I actively avoid news, and more. And there were a few high level takeaways that jumped off the page right away from our survey data: 

1. First, and most statistically notable, was that only 10% of survey respondents ticked the box that said “No change - my political beliefs have stayed the same since October 7th.” This means that fully 90% of our community members view themselves as having shifted politically or moving or being in flux over these last two years. That’s huge! Our views are changing and evolving in real time.

2. Second, 70% of our respondents checked the box that said: “I am more concerned about antisemitism, in the US and around the world.” This is also huge. As a community, we are operating right now from a place a fear, and really feeling our own vulnerability.

3. The third highest vote-getter, with just over half of respondents agreeing to it, was the statement: “I feel more confused, uncertain and torn.” 

The bottom line is that since October 7th, what this survey is telling us is that members of our Jewish community are in flux, fearful, and confused. So here at Kavana, this is telling me that the work that we have to do is not only about holding people in conversation across political difference, across more right or more left-leaning perspectives. This is a huge indicator that this is a hard time for all of us, and we all need to show up for ourselves and for one another with compassion and tenderness.

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In an episode of Krista Tippet’s On Being podcast a few months ago, guest Jason Reynolds talked about how we might connect across generational difference. He offered that the three keys to forging this kind of connection across difference are humility, intimacy, and gratitude. 

All three of these suggestions feel deeply Jewish to me, and aligned with the work that we are here to do over these High Holidays. Through our prayers, we try to cultivate a sense of humility, a belief that we don’t already have all the answers, which can translate into an openness to asking questions and genuinely caring to hear the answers. During the coming days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we seek out hard conversations, offering apologies and making bids to strengthen our relationships through intimate connection, without judging or chastising. And finally, we extend some gratitude at this time of year – through our memories to the generations that have come before us and whose shoulders we stand on, and to the generations that we hope come after us and without whom a future does not exist for any of us. Older and younger, we need one another. 

In the coming days, my ask of you is simple but hard. Seek out a connection with someone who is of a different generation than you are. Ask genuine questions and listen for real answers. The goal is not to achieve agreement or alignment, but rather understanding, mutual respect, and relationship. For only through multigenerational connections here – modeled small – can we begin to envision a world in which connection across difference is possible. 

We all know that this is a time of polarization, alienation and isolation. The new beginning that Rosh Hashanah represents promises that we have the power to choose a different path. This is the holiday when, at the heart of our services, we will read about ancestors who came oh so close to literally killing the next generation, and younger adults who were so hurt that they cut off ties with older adults. Let’s allow these stories to sink in as cautionary tales, and let’s instead choose connection, compassion, love, and life. 

May we all be inscribed for a new year of blessing and goodness, and may we – whatever our age and generation – learn from one another, appreciate our different perspectives, and together help to usher in a better year, of peace and of hope, in our community and in the world. Shana tova.

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

Moses's Pep Talk for the Ages!

Some of the most reassuring verses in all of Torah are found in this Shabbat's Torah portion, Parashat Nitzavim, and they help to set us up beautifully to welcome the New Year of 5786 next week.

I want to focus us on Deuteronomy 30:11-14, which reads:

כִּ֚י הַמִּצְוָ֣ה הַזֹּ֔את אֲשֶׁ֛ר אָנֹכִ֥י מְצַוְּךָ֖ הַיּ֑וֹם לֹא־נִפְלֵ֥את הִוא֙ מִמְּךָ֔ וְלֹ֥א רְחֹקָ֖ה הִֽוא׃ לֹ֥א בַשָּׁמַ֖יִם הִ֑וא לֵאמֹ֗ר מִ֣י יַעֲלֶה־לָּ֤נוּ הַשָּׁמַ֙יְמָה֙ וְיִקָּחֶ֣הָ לָּ֔נוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵ֥נוּ אֹתָ֖הּ וְנַעֲשֶֽׂנָּה׃ וְלֹא־מֵעֵ֥בֶר לַיָּ֖ם הִ֑וא לֵאמֹ֗ר מִ֣י יַעֲבָר־לָ֜נוּ אֶל־עֵ֤בֶר הַיָּם֙ וְיִקָּחֶ֣הָ לָּ֔נוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵ֥נוּ אֹתָ֖הּ וְנַעֲשֶֽׂנָּה׃ כִּֽי־קָר֥וֹב אֵלֶ֛יךָ הַדָּבָ֖ר מְאֹ֑ד בְּפִ֥יךָ וּבִֽלְבָבְךָ֖ לַעֲשֹׂתֽוֹ׃

Surely, this Instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, “Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?” Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?” No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it.

As these words are spoken, the Israelites stand together on the far side of the Jordan River, ready to cross it and move into the promised land where they are to build a society. Without a doubt, they must feel daunted and overwhelmed by the enormity of the task ahead of them: the crossing over into something new, the uncertainty, the knowledge that they must proceed without their leader Moses (who will die on that side of the Jordan), the complex system of rules he has bestowed upon them (here, collectively labeled "ha-mitzvah ha-zot" -- "this command" or "this instruction"). In the midst of this swirl, what they need most is reassurance that what will come next is not beyond their abilities. And sure enough, Moses delivers, with this pep talk for the ages. 

The need for such a pep talk apparently wasn't a one-time issue, because his message resonates throughout the generations. Many centuries after Moses led the Israelites, the ancient rabbis of our tradition played with these verses, hanging on them a midrash that only seeks to deepen Moses's lesson. Devarim Rabbah (a homiletic commentary on the book of Deuteronomy, typically dated to somewhere around the 5th-8th centuries) 8:3 brings a verse "from afar" to bear on our text: Proverbs 24:7 -- "Wisdom is lofty to a fool; at the gate, he will not open his mouth." The midrash itself wends between that Proverbs verse and Moses's original pep-talk as follows:

"This fool enters the synagogue and sees them engaged in Torah study, and he says to them: ‘How does a person study Torah from the outset?’ They say to him: ‘One reads a scroll; then [one reads] in the Torah scroll, then in the Prophets, and then in the Writings. When one completes the Bible, one studies the Talmud, then halakhot, and then aggadot.’ When he hears this, he says in his heart: When can I possibly learn all this? He returns from the gate; that is, “at the gate, he will not open his mouth.” Rabbi Yannai said: To what is the matter comparable? It is to a loaf that was suspended in the air. The fool said: ‘Who will be able to retrieve it?’ The clever one says: ‘Did someone not suspend it?’ He brings a ladder or a rod and takes it down. Likewise, everyone who is a fool, says: ‘When will I read the entire Torah?’ But one who is clever, what does he do? He studies one chapter each and every day until he completes the entire Torah. The Holy One blessed be He said: “It is not hidden,” and if it is hidden, it is from you, because you did not engage in it. That is, “for this mitzvah.”

In case the midrash feels a little hard to follow, I'll recap it here. It imagines two scenarios, and in both, it contrasts the behavior of a "fool" with that of a "clever person." In the primary one, a fool hears just how much Torah there is to learn -- that there are a whole library's worth of volumes -- and is so overwhelmed by the impossibility of knowing where to begin that he stands silently "at the gate" and fails to learn anything at all. In contrast, the clever person jumps in somewhere (without worrying whether it's the perfect starting point) and studies a small amount of Torah every day; in time, this individual comes to amass a great deal of learning! Embedded inside this metaphor, we see a second image, in which a loaf of bread is somehow magically suspended in the air. The fool is the one who marvels at the spectacle of it but fails to take any action, whereas the clever person "solves" the situation with a ladder or a rod, retrieves the loaf, and is rewarded with nourishment! 

The midrash builds upon Moses's "you've got this!" message with a strong practical recommendation for how to tackle a daunting task. It cautions us about just how easy it is to feel paralyzed when we are in a state of overwhelm. Empowerment comes in breaking down a large task into bite-sized chunks, or in taking the first step towards a potentially helpful tool.

All of this feels like concretely helpful Torah as we move into this final Shabbat of 5785. On a collective level, this past year has been a particularly challenging one for us -- as Americans, as Jews, and as caring human beings in this world. We've watched society backslide in so many ways, and as we stand here at the threshold of a New Year, it feels that we have more work cut out for us than ever! How can we possibly do the teshuva we need to do -- the reflecting, the atoning, the praying -- this year? How can we possibly change ourselves, when we are set in our ways? How can we possibly move our society forward, when our values are under assault and there are just so many obstacles to overcome?! Simply entering into this New Year may feel overwhelming.

Moses's words from Nitzavim offer the encouragement we need to hear right now: that this task is not beyond our abilities, nor is our vision of where we're trying to go -- as individuals and communally -- hidden in the heavens nor beyond the sea. Rather, "the thing is very close to us, in our mouths and in our hearts." As the midrash of Devarim Rabbah helpfully adds, the way to go about stepping across this threshold is just to do it: one prayer at a time, one apology at a time, one connection at a time, one insight at a time, one good deed at a time. 

I hope that this message feels reassuring to you as we move towards these Days of Awe together: that the spiritual work that we do on these High Holidays will be enough, and that we are enough. May we all experience Torah as "very close to us, in our mouths and in our hearts" in this season. And may our small and concrete actions and prayers add up, together, to enough to make a difference in our world!

Wishing you and your loved ones a Shabbat Shalom on this final Shabbat of 5785, and a Shana Tova u'Metuka -- a good and sweet New Year as we cross over together into 5786,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

One Thing I Ask (Psalm 27)

As the winds shift and the seasons change, a little gust lifts up the page of the Great Jewish Book and moves us from text to text, matching each moment in time with its literary-theological partner. 

In the month of Elul, leading up to the Days of Awe, we linger on the words of Psalm 27. Some of us may be most familiar with the verse Achat Sha’alti, often sung to this traditional tune (check out this arrangement for piano and flute, Chava Mirel’s setting, and Aly Halpert’s setting as well).

“One thing I ask of God, only this do I seek
to live in the house of God all the days of my life
to gaze upon the beauty of God, to return again and again to the Holy palace.”

Only one thing, the psalmist asks - and proceeds to ask for many things! The whole psalm is strangely complex. Rabbi and scholar Benjamin Segal describes it this way:

The first half of the psalm bespeaks assurance. The psalmist, while describing the enemy from a distance (from whom will I be afraid), approaching (as evil men come near), preparing (should an army besiege me), and attacking (should war come against me), nevertheless is calm, above all danger, sacrificing and thanking the Lord… Facing all these threats, the psalmist feels the peace of unity, and throughout this first half the reader senses no doubt, no real threat.

How strange it is that the second half of the psalm depicts a world so totally opposite. (Many scholars even conclude that these are separate psalms!) Here we find a desperate search, a constant request, a pleading before the Holy One (“do not hide Your face … do not thrust [me] aside … do not forsake me, do not abandon me”). The author is abandoned by parents and surrounded by enemies. At the apex of this section, the psalmist cries out in agony, with a sentence he cannot finish, for it depicts the worst of all: Had I not the assurance that I would enjoy the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living …. His faith is his sole remaining thread connecting him to the land of the living. If he did not have this faith, then…

But the two psalms are indeed one…Throughout the second half, the reader hears the echo of the central term: One. The psalmist cries out, demands, asks and pleads that his two worlds are one. I, the sufferer, depressed to the ultimate limits, am that same I who trusts, who is safe, who sits in the presence of the Lord.

This Elul perhaps you, like me, move back and forth from bursts of gratitude to bouts of dread, from a calm groundedness to a restless worry, whether about parenting, politics, or just being a person. Psalm 27 offers no answers exactly, but rather a prayer for holding paradox, for internal coexistence of quite different experiences, yearnings, fears, and dreams. 

Last year around this time, Kavana partner Amy Holden was teaching our Middle School Program students and paired students up to create their own interpretation of a verse. When all of the students had shared their verse, she put it all together, into our very own “Psalm 27 as Interpreted by the Kavana Middle School Program Students.” May these words open up the depth and possibilities of the season’s text, and nourish our souls for the year ahead.

When the lord is on my side I have no one to fear.
When people do hurtful actions, it not only hurts the target, but everyone.
Even through great threats and dangers, I won’t be afraid, I won’t shed a tear, just as long as
you stand, stand by me.
One thing I have asked from the lord is to be under protection and to see beauty in life.
When I’m in trouble, he will hide me in his safe space or in a sacred tent. He will hide me and
put me on a rock.
G-d will save us from the enemies, then I will be loyal and thankful forever. I will sing for g-d.
When I ask for you, answer me.
My heart will always seek hope and salvation.
Don’t hide your face far.
If my parents abandon me, you will still be there. God is close to me.
Tell me how to learn from others’ mistakes.
Let me be the better person and less violent than my enemies.
I will see goodness in all of nature!
Have patience, for hope will always come.

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Jay LeVine

Remembering and Forgetting

When you reap the harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, do not turn back to get it; it shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow—in order that Adonai your God may bless you in all your undertakings.Deuteronomy 24:19

The world is filled with remembering and forgettingAs it is with sea and dry land. Yehudah Amichai

Gather round, and listen to a little tale…

Once upon a time, a certain chassid (pious man) was gleaning in his field. As he moved, inch by inch and row by row, it so happened that he forgot one of the sheaves in the field. Some time later, he glanced back. He realized what he had done. And he took off at a run, warbling with joy to find his son! 

He said to his son, “I forgot a sheaf! Go, sacrifice on my behalf a bull for a burnt-offering and a bull for a peace-offering!” (These were the customary ways of expressing gratitude and rejoicing in those days.)

Taken off guard by his father’s enthusiasm, his son replied, “Abba, what makes you want to celebrate the joy of this particular mitzvah more than all the other mitzvot in the Torah?”

The chassid answered, “God has given all the other mitzvot in the Torah to be observed consciously, but this one is observed unconsciously. Were we to observe this one of our own deliberate free will, we never would have the opportunity to do it! But we are told, “When you reap the harvest of your field and you forget a sheaf…” The Torah gave it for a blessing. I’ve been hoping to fulfill this mitzvah for years and years, but only now have I been fortuitous enough to finally forget a sheaf. Only now have I finally let this verse live through me.” 

And so the father, his son, their whole family, and all the community celebrated with enthusiasm and joy a righteous act of forgetfulness. 

(This story is based on Tosefta Pe’ah 3:13.)

I particularly love this story, tucked away within an obscure Jewish text. So much of Jewish practice is about remembering - in fact one of the names for Rosh HaShanah is Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Remembrance, in which we yearn to be remembered by God for good in the year ahead. Memory is key to ritual observance, to divine blessing, and to learning lessons from a difficult and rich history. But in this story, the key to success is to forget!

The poet Yehuda Amichai mulled on this theme in his poem “Remembering and Forgetting.”

The world is filled with remembering and forgetting
As it is with sea and dry land. Sometimes memory
Is the dry land that is firm and founded
And sometimes memory is the sea that covers everything
Like in the flood. And it is forgetting that is the dry land like Ararat…

Why is memory dry land? It gives us the foundations to build our own sense of ourselves on. Personal memories, handed down familial stories, and the mythic memories of a people each inform identity, help us make sense of the world, and move us to certain kinds of actions. To forget sweeps us away from ourselves…

And why is memory the sea that floods? Because memory is malleable. Memory is made, not reported, an alloy of experience and imagination. Memory can wash over reality through post-traumatic reactions flowing from the past, or through our fear of letting go of who we think we are in the face of a changing future. Memory smooths over the varied terrain of truth with a fluid and powerful calm. 

And then forgetfulness can actually return us to a firm foundation of what is, the dry land of Mt. Ararat (where Noah and his family emerged from the ark.) 

In both the story from the Tosefta and Yehuda Amichai’s poem, forgetfulness plays a surprisingly positive role. As we approach the High Holidays, perhaps you will find a new appreciation for the roles remembering and forgetting play in your life. And may both what is remembered and what is forgotten be, as the Torah says, a blessing.

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Jay LeVIne