Please take the time to read this entire article although it’s a bit too long.
I saw Schindler’s List for the first time at the Main Theatre in Royal Oak, MI with my mom and dad when I was 16 years old. I remember the horror, fear, grief and sadness. I remember all the feelings and the immense amount of confusion through it all. While Schindler’s List wasn’t a documentary, it was a true store filled with scenes simply too awful to have been written by imagination. I have no idea what my parents were thinking while they sat next to me during the movie. I have no idea what fears and dread they had, but I have a greater appreciation for them tonight. Ayelet and I just got home from a screening of the movie October 8, and as we sat together for the entirety of the movie, I felt hurt and sadness in the pit of my stomach. I felt dread for her and Galit. I felt pain I still cannot verbalize.
To raise a Jewish child is a gift. Carrie and I have been blessed with two incredible treasures in Ayelet and Galit. Seeing the Shabbat candles reflect in their eyes is a taste of heaven. Watching them dance to Israeli music is something that makes me feel all of the feels. To see them tell our story to each other is something that brings me so much pride. I could go on all day with all my feelings and it would never be the whole story. To raise a Jewish child is not only a gift, it’s also a responsibility. It’s our sacred bond to those who came before us and all those who will come after us. But that’s not the whole story. To raise a Jewish child is to be aware the pains we felt in our lives may very well be passed along to them. It’s to know the fears we had when we were their age may become their fears as well.
I visited Israel for the first time in April of 1996, right after bus bombings began to take over the news. It was right after the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. I remember the fear on that trip of what could happen. I remember seeing the memorials wherever we went. Sadly, the world is not so different today than it was then. I was in college when the second intifada began and I remember being called a murderer for believing in the right of, and need for, a Jewish State.
Things have not changed. The world we hoped to build has not been realized yet. I grieve that Ayelet, and one day Galit, will walk their college campuses and question their Hebrew clothing or their Jewish jewelry. I mourn that they’ll wonder if they should or shouldn’t go to Shabbat dinners and services on their campus because of the fear of being marginalized, or worse, in fear of their safety. Just as Israeli parents have believed for generations that they fought so their kids would never have to, we American Jewish parents stood up for ourselves and built institutions so our kids would have it easier and yet they don’t, and may not in the future.
What’s happening in the world today can never be normalized. It cannot be okay that people stand for the murderers and not the murdered. They stand for the rapists and not the raped. They stand for terrorists and not the terrorized. October 8 was a date on which we, as a Jewish people, together with Israelis, were grieving and filled with fear. It was a day when the murderers were still being found within the borders of the State of Israel. The IDF hadn’t even begun military action to go after the perpetrators, and yet across our country and the world, the demonstrations had already begun. Demonstrations on behalf of the Palestinians and against the evil Israelis and Jews. We hadn’t even responded and yet our friends and neighbors were chanting in the streets for a global intifada and the death of those like us. In truth, the demonstrations weren’t about the defense of Palestinians, they were about hatred of Jews.
For those who haven’t seen the movie yet, please go and see it and be prepared to be horrified and angered. Be prepared to be saddened and to be hopeless. Then prepare to roll up your sleeves and lean into our work: We have a sacred task to be a sacred community of people who love life and never glorify violence or murder. We read ויקהל/VaYakhel this week and the name says it all, we are to be assembled. We are to be assembled, not in violence or hatred, but in love and spirituality. They will hate us, but eventually their fire will be snuffed out because darkness can never survive when light is shining it out of existence.
Ayelet and Galit, I’m sorry you have to deal with the world my generation, and the generations before mine, have left you. I’m sincerely sorry this world isn’t better than the one I was given. I can tell you I’m here, along with our Keilah, to hold you and help you and guide you. We’re here with you and your generation as we continue this beautiful gift of our Jewish peoplehood and faith.
Purim 2025
הדסה/Hadassah was a Jewish girl living in the land of Shushan. Her parents were both dead so her older cousin, almost like an uncle, became responsible to care for her and raised her as his own daughter. When the king was looking to get married again, Hadassah went to the palace to compete for his heart and become the next queen. In אסתר ב:ז/Esther 2:7 we find that הדסה was actually known as אסתר/Esther and this is explained in the תלמוד/Talmud (מגילה י”ג.א). We learn her real name was הדסה but she concealed who she really was and thus went by the name אסתר. The reason for this explanation is that the name אסתר is from the word in Hebrew: סתר which means to keep secret. אסתר was concealing who she really was because she needed to. When she went to the place מרדכי/Mordecai told her not to tell people who she really was and she never told anyone who her people really were.
On פורים/Purim each year we celebrate by concealing who we are through the wearing of costumes. We hide our identities each year in celebration of what אסתר did to save our people. But there’s a problem to this methodology and outlook. We cannot allow ourselves to hide from our identities. We cannot allow ourselves to be obscured from being who we really are. There’s a sense of struggle in what’s being said here: on פורים we celebrate her “hiding” and yet “hiding” is not good. We celebrate the act on פורים because it was a means to an end, the end being that we were saved from certain destruction. Today hiding is doing the complete opposite.
Countless numbers of our ancestors were forced to convert to Christianity under the Catholic Church and they did so externally but remained Jews internally to the best of their abilities. These “crypto-Jews” did all they could to remain loyal to their people and God and over the generations this must have been harder and harder to maintain. They hid then because they had to and today many of the descendants are reclaiming their rightful place amongst their Jewish family. They hid out of necessity and now they live out loud.
The issue today is we cannot continue to hide. In a society that accepts us, we must not reject ourselves. We must do exactly the opposite. Today is not a time to assimilate or to shed our unique heritage. Today is a time to live our Judaism out loud. Today is a time to reject being hidden and instead force the world to see us as we are and as we want to be. פורים is a time to celebrate our overcoming another attempt at our destruction that happened by means of our hiding our true identities, and we can and must celebrate that event. We then need to take off our פורים costumes and, at the same time, remove our secular costumes as well. While antisemitism continues to afflict our people and the world, the answer is no longer to hide who we are but to be clear and aware of our heritage and our people. This פורים let us each commit ourselves to being our best Jewish selves. Let’s see that unlike אסתר, we won’t hide who we are because the Jewish world today doesn’t need us to hide, but needs us to be out and clear about who we are and what we bring to the world.