Caring for the Disadvantaged

Two thousand years ago, Hillel was asked to summarize the Torah while standing on one foot. He responded, “What is hateful to you, do not do to another person.” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a)

Ethics are central to the Torah’s concern and many of its dictates revolve around how we care for one another. It devotes particular concern to how we look after disadvantaged groups. The stranger, widow and orphan merit our concern. Caring for them are seen as divine imperatives.

God proclaims, “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan. If you do mistreat them, I will head their outcry.” (Exodus 22)

Such laws are repeated throughout the Torah. Their observance is viewed not only as barometers of our attentiveness to justice but as measures of our devotion to God. Communing with God is not simply about how heartfelt are our prayers but how our hearts are attuned to the pain of others. The Torah makes clear. The suffering felt by the disadvantaged is heard by God and even prompts God’s anger. Caring for them prompts God’s rewards.

The prophet Jeremiah affirms, “If you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow; if you do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place then only will I let you dwell in this place in the land that I gave to your ancestors for all time.” (Jeremiah 7) Our very survival is dependent on caring for the disadvantaged.

The Bible is concerned with those who live on the edges of society and those who might fall outside the circle of our interest. In biblical times, the stranger is the foreign-born resident who resides in between native-born citizen and foreigner. That in-between status makes them particularly vulnerable to mistreatment and therefore worthy of God’s attention.

The widow and orphan lose the support of family in ancient times. Rather than casting them aside, they become the responsibility of the community. Just because they no longer have family members to care for them does not mean God’s people can forget about their needs. Just because the stranger is not accorded citizenship rights does not mean God’s people can turn away from their pain.

It would be understandable if our Torah lavished all its attention on the Jewish people and ignored the plight of the disadvantaged. It suggests however that those who are privileged to be counted on the inside must care for those on the outside. It directs our people’s compassion to the edges of our concern. Rather than directing our focus within and directing our attention to our own needs, it directs our hearts outward to society’s fringes.

Here is where our devotion is tested. Here is where we learn what God most wants of us.

Hillel concludes, “That is the whole Torah. All the rest is commentary. Let’s go and learn it.”

A Rested Soul Is a Compassionate Soul

In the early 1970’s Princeton University conducted a study of its seminary students. All the students were familiar with the story from Christian scriptures about the Good Samaritan. This tale informs the law protecting people who stop to help strangers.

All the students were told that they had to travel to another building campus where they would be partnered with a fellow student to work on a sermon. They then divided the group into three. The first group was told that they had little time, and they should rush across campus. The second was told that although they were not rushed, they needed to arrive promptly. The third was told that they could take their time and there was no sense of urgency regarding their arrival.

On their way to the other building, all the students confronted a stranger who appeared desperate and in need. Here is what the study revealed. 63% of those who did not feel rushed stopped to help. 45% of the participants who felt slightly rushed stopped. And only 10% of those students who believed that they were running late offered help to the stranger.

There is an ethical dimension to not feeling rushed. There is a need to feeling rested. When we are hurried there feels little time to do anything else. There is little room for others.

The Torah commands, “Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of Lord your God: you shall not do any work.” (Exodus 20)

Shabbat is an expression of our freedom from slavery. Time is a gift given to free people. Judaism sanctifies time. It values time because it restores the soul. Shabbat is a vacation for the soul.

In New York everything seems rushed. We laud efficiency and lament wasted hours and minutes. Time is something to conquer. How often do we complain about the traffic? Time is not restorative. We shout, “Can you believe the airlines? My flight was delayed for two hours.” We can never rest.

Our cellphones interrupt our meals. They intrude in our time with family. How many conversations are interrupted by someone who looks up from their phone’s notification and blurts out, “It’s going to go down to -14° this weekend!” People interrupt others midsentence to share news items. “Look who is mentioned in the Epstein files!” They become distracted from conversations and the person sitting across from them by their Instagram DM’s. Does it really matter when we find out such news (or if we really even need to know all these salacious tidbits)? We will know the temperature on Sunday as soon as we open the door.

We can never relax.

Judith Shulevitz writes, “The Sabbath prefers natural to artificial light. If we want to travel, it would make us walk, though not too far. If we long for social interaction, it would have us meet our fellow man and woman face-to-face.” (The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time)

Perhaps the message, and import, of Shabbat is not so much about its seeming organization but instead about making room for others. There is only one way to discover this. It is about feeling rested. It is often ordinary people, not devout or holy individuals, who help those in need.

Put the iPhone down if not for the day, then at least for the day’s appointed meal.

Become attuned to the soul’s need for rest.

Breathe in the gift Shabbat provides.

And give your soul enough rest to help others.

Borders, Violence and Values

What follows is Shabbat evening sermon following the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and the return of the last hostage Ran Gvili’s body from Gaza.

This week I am thinking about two people whose fate may shape the destiny of nations. One is Ran Gvili and the other is Alex Pretti.

This past Saturday Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA Hospital, was killed by ICE officers while protesting their immigration enforcement operations. And on Tuesday, Ran Gvili’s body was returned to Israel after being held captive for 843 days. I am wondering. Will their deaths lead our nations to change course? And will these coming days, and weeks, serve as opportunities for our countries to look within?

Let us first look at the events in Minneapolis. For the past several months the administration has increased its immigration enforcement, sending heavily armed ICE agents to Los Angeles, Chicago and now Minneapolis. In our own New York area these operations have also increased. From the CVS only a few miles from my home, and where day laborers often congregate, twenty-five people have been deported. One woman was arrested from there and deported, leaving her three young children to fend for themselves. The youngest is two years old. Two young boys, ages nineteen and twenty, were arrested at their scheduled immigration check in and then deported to El Salvador in shackles. They grew up here and have lived in this country since they were ten and eleven. They are alone now in a country that is unfamiliar to them. They have no criminal records and were in fact obeying the law. That is why they went to their check in hearing. One of the boys missed his high school graduation this past Spring. Such stories are far too numerous.

We are a nation of immigrants. My family immigrated here. All of our families immigrated here at one time or another. I doubt every one of my grandparents and great grandparents who left Czarist Russia escaping from antisemitic pogroms had their paperwork in order or even if all of them had any paperwork. We like to think otherwise. We like to believe we followed the immigration laws and people today are not. But that was probably not always the case. My family was running away from terrible evils just like these young boys and their families were fleeing from gang violence.

Although one might believe that a nation of immigrants should be in open to everyone and anyone, and that its gates be wide enough to allow millions and millions entry, this is an impossible dream. It is unrealistic. There must be limits and laws to police a nation’s gates. There must be an immigration bureaucracy. And bureaucracies by their very nature are impersonal and make mistakes. They can sometimes be inhumane.

But we can do much better than we are currently doing. We are a nation of laws. These laws are rendered meaningless unless they protect the weakest and even the stateless. And whether we agree with protestors or not, these democratic laws must also protect the whistleblowing, iPhone filming protestors, who interfere with ICE operations and who even spit and curse at officers or attempt to drive away. Protestors must not be killed. They must not be shot in the back. And they certainly should not be blamed for their own deaths. Immigration enforcement should not look or feel like a military operation. It’s never going to be perfect but certainly should not look like this.

This country is made great by its promise. It is supposed to welcome “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Those words penned by Emma Lazarus and etched on the Statue of Liberty represent what is best about this nation. We always sought to open our doors to those fleeing and seeking to better their lives. I am grateful for the welcome this country offered my ancestors.

We are commanded to love God and love the neighbor. Again, and again the Torah repeats, “Love the stranger.” The Book of Exodus commands, “You shall not oppress a stranger for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23) We know what it feels like. Our history and our tradition demand that we do better by constantly reminding us that we understand what oppression feels like. We know what being called unwelcome is like.

Immigration enforcement should not look like we are defending our borders against hostile enemies. We should very much start worrying when our leaders speak as if those enemies are within and when the borders that define our nation move from the periphery to the interior. This is why ordinary people in Minneapolis are rising up against these ICE operations. They refuse to see their neighbors as their enemies.

Yes, nations are defined by borders. They form the outlines of a state. But it is a dangerous thing, and even a deadly thing, when they are drawn within. Defending these external borders, and policing them, is what nations and their soldiers are expected to do.

On October 7, 2023, Ran Gvili, a member of an elite Israeli police unit was home awaiting surgery for a broken shoulder. When he heard what was happening on the morning of October 7th he put on his uniform and drove to Kibbutz Alumim, a fifty-minute drive from his home. He battled with Hamas terrorists for hours until he was killed. His body was then captured and taken to Gaza where it remained until Tuesday when it was brought back to Israel by the IDF. The operation to retrieve his body involved 700 soldiers, many of whom volunteered for this mission, including some who were on their fifth deployment and others who were injured in battle but nonetheless asked to participate.

Master Sergeant Gvili was the last of the 251 hostages to return home. The clock counting the days, hours and minutes from that harrowing moment of October 7th displayed in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square stopped counting at 843 days, 12 hours, 6 minutes. I, along with many of my colleagues and friends, took off our yellow ribbons and pins. Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin, and millions of others, took off the masking tape marking the days. Our people let out a collective breath of relief. And then we started wondering, can we begin to find closure?

Gvili’s funeral was attended by thousands. Through sobs and tears, his sister Shira spoke and said, “The forest isn’t the same forest, nice clothes don’t feel the same and schnitzel will never taste the same. All the laughter is gone, and I’m left with only memories, and every motorcycle [Ran loved and collected motorcycles] I see takes me back. And sometimes I smile when I see one, and sometimes it feels like an arrow to my heart.” His mother Talik added a note of defiance, “You, our enemies, tried to scare us, look what’s left of you, and you’ll see what will be left of you.”

Fifty of the 251 hostages were murdered in captivity. Could their deaths have been prevented? A number of cease fire deals were scuttled during the course of these past 843 days, until the current deal was signed almost two months ago. This week the IDF affirmed that approximately 70,000 Gazans were killed. How many were Hamas combatants is still being debated. Gaza’s devastation is unimaginable. 1200 Israeli civilians and 900 soldiers were killed on October 7th and the war that followed. Will we ever be able to heal from October 7th’s traumas?

The vast majority of Israelis are desperate for there to be an independent inquiry about what went tragically wrong on October 7th and in the months and years preceding. They long to learn from the mistakes and missteps that were made. They long to hold their leaders responsible for these failures. There is no way that Israelis find any closure from October 7th’s ongoing pain without a Yom Kippur War like independent inquiry.

At Ran Gvili’s funeral, President Isaac Herzog said, “The nation must now rise to the next chapter of our existence as a people. Rise strong, confident in our way; rise hand in hand, believing in our State of Israel — Jewish and democratic — and guarding it with utmost devotion, as Ran guarded it.”

Nations are defined by borders. And these borders are sometimes defended at great cost. I long for the day when there will be peace rather than violence at nations’ edges. I remind myself. Nations are also defined by values. When borders are invaded our values can also come under attack. The resulting violence tends to drown out cherished values. And when borders are moved from the periphery to the interior violence inevitably ensues and our social cohesion is torn apart. But it does not have to be this way.

Ran Gvili and Alex Pretti were both fighting for their neighbors. They were battling for the nations they love. They were fighting for noble ideals. I am hoping and praying that their deaths will spark a better destiny for our nations. I pray. Let it not be said that they died in vain. May the memories of Ran Gvili and Alex Pretti call us to better lives. May their memories make our nations stronger, less divided and more humane. And let us say, Amen.

Wandering Is the Destination

In an age of Google Maps and Waze we no longer meander. Wandering is not what we do. It is what we read about. With their iPhones in their hands, our children have never experienced getting lost. They are out of touch with their parents and can get to their destination by opening an app or making a call.

And yet the Torah is written through wandering. Our people’s meaning is discovered in its travels. I recall fondly. Some of our best adventures are found when getting lost. It was when we happened into a restaurant that was not on the itinerary or when we wandered into an unintended store and struck up a philosophical conversation with the owner or when we mistakenly took a wrong turn down an unfamiliar street and discovered a Jewish star.

As soon as we escape from Egyptian slavery, we are walking in the wilderness. It is there that the Torah is written. The Torah is not about its promised destination. It concludes before we even arrive. To do so would suggest its meaning is found in our arrival. Instead, it is about the wandering.

In Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit laments the fact that traveling has become less important than arrival. She writes,

The indeterminacy of a ramble, on which much may be discovered, is being replaced by the determinate shortest distance to be traversed with all possible speed, as well as by the electronic transmissions that make real travel less necessary…. I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness.

God makes us walk in circles. Forty years of wandering was always God’s plan. “God led the people roundabout, by way of the wilderness.” (Exodus 13) It is not because the destination is not known. It is instead because the destination is the walking. That is the road to discovery. That is the source of meaning. That is the Torah’s promised land.

People think wandering is aimless. It is antithetical to getting from here to there in the shortest amount of time. They believe meandering is directionless. It is not.

Perhaps this is the Torah’s greatest lesson. Wandering, meandering, rambling are how we find meaning. Let’s get out there and go for a walk—at least when it is not so cold. Let’s leave our iPhones behind and the worries about getting lost for another day and embrace the slow pace of three miles per hour.

Otherwise, life will continue to move faster than the speed of thoughtfulness.

The Moon’s Glow

This week we read of the final plagues visited upon the Egyptians: locusts, darkness and the death of the first born. We learn of our going out from slavery in Egypt. In the middle of this dramatic story the Torah proclaims: “This month shall mark for you the beginning of months.” (Exodus 12) It then offers details about our Passover celebrations.

Why does the Torah interrupt this story with the how-to of a holiday? Why do we need to learn about the calendar as we are gaining our freedom? One can imagine the Israelites saying, “We will get to those holidays when we arrive at the Promised Land.”

It is because marking the holidays are reminders of our history. On Passover we celebrate our going out from Egypt. On Sukkot we mark our wanderings in the wilderness. And on Shavuot we rejoice in the giving of the Torah. The holidays remind us of where we come from.

Our holidays are also expressions of our freedom. Slaves do not control their own time. They live by the schedule of their masters. The Israelites days were ruled by the Egyptian calendar not their own. One of the first steps in our liberation was to have our own calendar. Our taskmasters’ calendar was governed by the sun. The Hebrew calendar is dictated by the moon. Our calendar must be different than that of our oppressors and tormentors.

Its difference serves as a reminder of our freedom.

The Hasidic master, Sefat Emet, adds, the moon, unlike the sun, waxes and wanes. It almost disappears and then grows bright when it is a full moon. So too the Jewish people go through cycles of prosperity and suffering. When times are dark, the full moon brightly illuminating the nighttime sky reminds us that there are brighter days ahead.

Look up at the sky.

At least once a month you can gain a measure of hope in the full moon.

Garner hope from the moon’s glow.

In the Face of Hate, Love Being Jewish

On Thursday protestors outside a Queens synagogue shouted their support for Hamas. And on Saturday, Jackson Mississippi’s only synagogue was destroyed by an arsonist. Nearly every day we are confronted by antisemitic hate. And every week we read of hate-filled attacks.

Jackson’s mayor, John Horhn, offered words of support after Saturday’s arson and said, “Acts of antisemitism, racism and religious hatred are attacks on Jackson as a whole and will be treated as acts of terror against residents’ safety and freedom to worship. Targeting people because of their faith, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation is morally wrong, un-American and completely incompatible with the values of this city.”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani responded to Thursday’s protest and said, “The rhetoric and displays that we saw at the demonstration are wrong and have no place in our city. Chants in support of a terrorist organization have no place in our city.”

And while I am grateful that these mayors rightly labeled these acts as wrong, their words feel inadequate. We are too afraid to be mollified. We don’t know from which direction the next attack might come. We begin to ask ourselves, “Is this street safe? Will our town protect us?” Words of support feel too late. It seems as if we are being squeezed between hate mongers on the right and Hamas sympathizers on the left. Like the Israelite slaves our “spirits are crushed.” (Exodus 6)

How many days can we read of such attacks? How many times can we watch as our streets are filled with hate and venom?

Antisemitism has accompanied us throughout our history. In fact, Jackson’s Beth Israel synagogue was bombed by the KKK in 1967. It was rebuilt then and it will be rebuilt now. (If you would like to support these efforts visit bethisraelms.org.)

At times antisemitic hate was ferocious in its deadliness. Every Jew carries these wounds. My grandmother escaped the Cossacks’ rampages. Others survived the Holocaust. Some recall how their families fled from the Spanish Inquisition. Every Jew carries these traumas. We worry if our generation will be swallowed up by another murderous rampage. Such pains have lain dormant. Until now.

Few are old enough to remember such antisemitic attacks. For the majority of us it was the stuff of history books and religious school lessons. It happened over there, but never here. It occurred then but not now. When it did happen here and now, as at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, we thought it to be an aberration. We did not want to believe that history was once again bending toward hate.

We are unaccustomed to such vitriol and violence. We do not know how to respond.

In 1988, I spent a year serving another Congregation Beth Israel. It was in Clarksdale, Mississippi. I was then in my second year of studies in rabbinical school and flew there once a month to serve this dwindling congregation in Mississippi’s Delta. I had no idea what I was doing or how to be a rabbi, but they welcomed me with open arms.

They were so excited to have a rabbi. On Saturdays I would walk down Clarksdale’s main street and visit all my congregants’ stores. They loved to introduce me to their friends and neighbors. “This is our rabbi,” they would say. And I would demur, “I am not really a rabbi. I am not a rabbi yet.” They would respond, “Shh. You are our rabbi.”

They were proud Jews. They loved being Jewish. They did not hide their identities.

That has always been our response. It remains the only answer we have.

This is the reason we have survived. Despite millennia of antisemitic hate, we did not arrive at 2026 because of the benevolence of one ruler or the support of another leader, it is instead because we held fast to each other and held tight to our Jewish identities.

Love being Jewish.

It is the only answer. It is also the best.

Forgetfulness Leads to Suffering

Our story begins with forgetfulness.

“A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph—lo yadah et Yosef.” (Exodus 1)

Pharaoh imagines the Israelites represent an ever-growing threat. He sets taskmasters over them. He oppresses them. His fears overwhelm him. He envisions the Israelites’ numbers becoming an overpowering mob. He then rules that every male Israelite be killed.

Our story concludes with remembrance.

God notices the Israelites’ suffering. God sees their pain. In Hebrew, the only difference between God’s knowing and Pharaoh’s not knowing is one word. “God looked upon the Israelites, and God knows— vayedah Elohim.”

The medieval commentator Rashi adds, “God directed His heart to the Israelites and did not hide His eyes from them.”

Just as Moses cannot look away from the pain of an Israelite slave beaten by an Egyptian taskmaster, God turns toward their suffering. “God heard their moaning, and God remembered the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” (Exodus 2)

And because of this taking note of their pain, God frees us from Egyptian slavery. We recount this tale every year at our Passover seders. Do we take note of its message?

The root of suffering is forgetfulness. The secret to redemption is remembrance.

If only we can follow God’s example more often than Pharaoh’s.

Blessing Our Children

When our children were young, and now when they return home for Shabbat and holidays, we place our hands on their heads and offer the tradition’s blessing:

May God make you like Ephraim and Menasheh. (Genesis 48)
May God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.
May God bless you and guard you.
May God’s face shine on you and be gracious to you.
May God’s face smile at you and grant you peace.

And here is my confession. The first time, and even the second and third times, we offered this blessing, it felt unnatural and awkward. We did not grow up in homes in which our parents recited these words. Of course, our parents hugged us. Of course, they wrapped their arms around us and said, “We love you.”

This ritual formulation, however, was foreign. And so, when I began saying it, I felt like an interloper. “Who am I to say these words?” I thought. It all felt so strange.

Our children also sometimes protested. They shouted that I was hugging them too tightly. Or that I was messing up their hair. Or as they grew older, they fidgeted suggesting that they were in a rush to go out with their friends. But we persisted. And over time, the tradition’s formula became our words. The ritual became our own.

And here is my worry. People appear to think that saying the tradition’s words or offering such a ritual formulation is what rabbis or cantors are supposed do. It’s not what “regular” people do. Rabbis, and cantors, believe every single word of the prayerbook they read and sing. They feel it in their bones every time they chant “Oseh Shalom.” Of course, they are going to bless their kids! Of course, they are going do what the tradition says they are supposed to do.

But these blessings and traditions are not just mine. They belong to all of us. The priestly benediction is not just mine. It is yours.

And so here is some advice. There is no perfect way to say it or even do it. There is no perfect way of placing your hands on your children’s heads. There is no right way or wrong way. Don’t worry so much about if you are doing it exactly as Jacob did or if you are pronouncing the words correctly.

It is important to have a ritual framework to express love. It is wonderful for children to feel our loving hands on their heads. And it is good to do this at least once a week. So why not make that moment Shabbat evening?

Let go of the worry. Grab hold of the tradition. Make it your own. It may not feel right at first, but over time it may very well become your own.

And it may then become your children’s heritage and birthright.