Monthly Archives: March 2019
Shabbat Tzav: how to Keep that Fire Burning
Shabbat VaYikra: Salaam, Shalom, Peace
We mourn with our Muslim sisters and brothers after the tragedy of the massacre in two New Zealand mosques. This horrific violence is an indicator of a threat that faces us all: the rise of a racist, hateful white supremacist ideology which targets all of us who are deemed inimical to that world. African Americans, LGBTQIA+ people, immigrants, Muslims, feminists, and also us Jews – we are all endangered and we are all called to stand together and strengthen each other. We are witnessing a global resurgence of fascism and white nationalism, and the power of that hate is real, as is the power of the fear behind it, and which it causes. We must not give in to it. We must insist that our elected representatives hold accountable those in our midst who encourage and support hate, and we must ourselves do what we can to give that hate no support, no attention, no opening in our communities.
And even while our hearts are breaking, we are called to hold each other up, and so lift up the power of our mutual respect and support, in defiance of the chaos created by fear. Let us come together to affirm through our acts the belief that a better world is possible. Transformative love is possible. Wholeness is possible: salaam, shalom, peace.
And in the most appropriate form of defiance we know, may we all insist upon a Shabbat shalom.
Shabbat Pekudey, Adar II Begins: Don’t Burn the Day
We need the light of love in hereDon’t beat your headDry your eyesLet the love in thereThere’s bad timesBut that’s OKJust look for love in itAnd don’t burn the day away ((full lyrics here)
Shabbat VaYakhel: Holiness and Desecration
The Tzanzer Rebbe used to tell this tale: a person lost in a deep dark forest searched desperately for a way out. Coming upon another person, the first sighed in relief, “ah, I’m saved! please show me the way out of this forest.” But the other replied, “Friend, I too am lost. Like you, I can only show you the ways I have tried that have failed. Let us join hands and search for the way together.”