Month: January 2026

The Jewish world has been frozen in time since October 7, 2023. We’ve been reliving the trauma and pain inflicted on our people and our homeland that day ever since. This constant sense of being stuck has been amplified by the rapid growth of antisemitism, by the deafening silence of those we thought were our friends, and by the blaming of the victims for all that happened. We’ve been stuck on October 7, 2023 because we couldn’t move forward without ending what happened on that disastrous day. When the war began, there were two goals: ending the reign of terror by Hamas, and bringing home all the hostages, both alive and dead. To leave even a single person in Gaza would be to fail as a nation, a people, and a family.

Over the time that’s elapsed since October 7, 2023, we’ve cried tears of joy when we witnessed hostages being reunited with their loved ones and cried tears of grief when we watched as loved ones received the remains of their loved ones who had been murdered by Hamas. We, in the Diaspora, cannot begin to imagine the pain and hurt that was forced on our brothers and sisters in Israel. Likewise, we cannot fully appreciate the joy they felt every time a hostage came home alive. Finally, we cannot fully understand the feeling of closure felt by families and by the State of Israel each time a casket was brought back from Gaza. Those caskets ended hopes for a miracle and ended the unbearable pain of not fully knowing what happened to their loved ones.

To bring back our loved ones is a sacred Jewish task and value. When we talk about hostages, we talk about the concept of פדיון שבויים/Pidiyon Shevu’im/Returning of Hostages. This value and sacred trust is a core Jewish way of seeing the world. We will not allow our loved ones to be left in dungeons and be deprived of their freedom. We fight for all Jews to live freely and to be surrounded by those they love. This is a sacred bond that ties all Jewish people of the world together. It is also our sacred obligation that no loved ones be left in limbo. We must do all we can to bring all our loved ones home to be buried with honor. This burial allows the living to gain some sense of closure, and to begin the process of grieving.

We’ve now arrived at our symbolic October 8, 2023 and we’re able to move forward in our collective trauma and grief. This week, the IDF found the remains of the final hostage, Ran Gvilli, in Gaza and brought him home to Israel and to his family to allow them to bury and mourn him. Ran was a hero, a member of the police force that ran into the danger zone. After saving the lives of partygoers fleeing the Nova music festival in Re’im, and defending Kibbutz Alumim from Hamas terrorists, he was killed saving countless other lives. May his memory be for a blessing.

This week, we read פרשת בשלח/Parshat Beshalach and learn of the final moments in Egypt and our departure. There is one sentence that jumps out at me every time I read it:

וַיִּקַּ֥ח מֹשֶׁ֛ה אֶת־עַצְמ֥וֹת יוֹסֵ֖ף עִמּ֑וֹ כִּי֩ הַשְׁבֵּ֨עַ הִשְׁבִּ֜יעַ אֶת־בְּנֵ֤י יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר פָּקֹ֨ד יִפְקֹ֤ד אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶתְכֶ֔ם וְהַעֲלִיתֶ֧ם אֶת־עַצְמֹתַ֛י מִזֶּ֖ה אִתְּכֶֽם׃

And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, who had exacted an oath from the children of Israel, saying, “God will be sure to take notice of you: then you shall carry up my bones from here with you.” (שמות יג:יט)

There are many מדרשים/Midrashim told about this in both the collections of מדרש and the תלמוד/Talmud. The essence of all these explanations is that on the chaotic night we were leaving, משה/Moshe/Moses set out to find the bones/remains of יוסף/Yosef/Joseph. He struggled and finally declared we could not leave before we fulfilled our sacred obligation to יוסף to bring him with us to the promised land. It was at that moment יוסף’s casket exposed itself to משה and he was able to bring him out. The fact that our leader, משה, spent this last night occupied with this sacred work is no accident. We cannot move forward when the past is left unresolved. We cannot leave our people in chains and expect to be fully free. We cannot have our martyrs left in unmarked graves and properly honor our dead. We must make things right. We must bring them home. In fact, it’s safe to say we couldn’t have left Egypt without the bones of יוסף… it was only after we brought him out with us that we were truly able to move forward into the process of becoming a free people and working our way to the Promised Land.

This week, we finally reached October 8. This week we’re started the process of moving forward and beginning to grieve and thus beginning to heal.

Sometimes we have a moment of clarity. It’s a time when there’s a lot weighing on you and you feel nothing is as it should be. That moment when you can finally take a deep breath and “let it go”. That moment is something to be embraced and seen as transformative. We often miss the opportunity. We’re often too dug in and unable to see we can let go of all that’s holding us back. Many of us have had moments where the pain is too intense. The hurt is too real. Many of us have built a narrative where we’ve been wronged and nothing can be done to make it right. These painful moments bury us and make us unable to embrace the reality all around us. It’s hard to accept the world as it is, and not as it should be. It’s hard to move on. It’s hard not to find a sense of closure.

The moment you have clarity, and the ability to choose to keep going in one direction or to reverse course, is a moment we’ve all had many times in our lives. It reminds me of the traveler in the poem by Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken, who stands at a crossroads and must choose which path to walk down. Will it be a path of continued hurt and resentment, or a path of courage and change? “Pharaoh’s courtiers said to him, ‘How long shall this one be a snare to us? Let those involved go to worship the ETERNAL their God! Are you not yet aware that Egypt is lost?’” (שמות י:ז) When Pharaoh’s servants say these words to him, they’re from a point of clarity and exasperation. They’re saying to him “give up… it’s over”.  They’re pointing out what everyone aside from Pharaoh knows. It was time for him to let go and yet he couldn’t. We know why he couldn’t. God had hardened his heart and made it impossible for him to move on and let us go. God had done so because Pharaoh was irredeemable and because he was a foil to teach the world about the evil of slavery and abuse and degradation of other people.

Each of us would do well to recognize the advantage we have over Pharaoh because our hearts are not hardened. We have the ability to look with clarity and see that we can change and do things differently. We can look and see that we don’t need to be the way we are or to be stuck in our situations. We can move forward and we can move on. The recipe is to never allow ourselves to harden our own hearts and to see there’s a way past the way we feel.

This is all against the backdrop of a bigger situation than the psyche of each of our daily lives. We’re living in a time when another pharaoh is being asked to let people go. The Iranian people are demanding a better tomorrow. A tomorrow where they’re not a pariah nation. A tomorrow where their kids can be raised in a society that’s the proud descendants of people who gave the world incredible gifts in science, mathematics and philosophy. A tomorrow where girls can be seen and heard and not ignored. A tomorrow where there is hope. A tomorrow where the riches of their nation are spent on building rather than destroying. That’s what they are protesting and asking to be released from.

Over the last number of years there have been too many protest movements in Iran to count. They continue to chip away, but unfortunately not to break the resolve and inability of the Ayatollahs to let go and give up. Their hardened hearts are filled with a hunger for power and a thirst for destruction. They’re nurtured by their false sense of having been wronged and their need to do undo these perceived wrongs. They refuse to hear the words of Pharaoh’s servants that all is lost and that it’s time to give up. We, as a world, must not let this happen. We, as a world of builders, must prop up those who stand up to them and work to defeat them. Thus, they will be freed from their tyranny.

We’ve seen what it’s like to stare down the choice of keeping up a fight or letting go. To let go is liberating, not only for us, but those around us as well. The same is true in the realm of the world stage. It’s time to see that all is lost and to let them go so we all can be free.

Happy 2026. I hope you had a great winter break and that any trips you may have taken were good and meaningful. In 2020, when we were preparing to read פרשת שמות/Parshat Shemot, our family had a life-changing moment we weren’t expecting. We received a call from our social worker that a baby girl had been born in Orlando, and she was to be our daughter. We found it profound that the weekly פרשה/parsha/portion was שמות, which is when we learn of the first ever adoption, the adoption by Pharaoh’s daughter of משה/Moshe/Moses. When we named Galit, we named her after relatives (please forgive our Ashkenazic naming tradition) and after her story. Galit means wave, and the waves משה’s basket floated over safely delivered him to a loving home. Batya (בתיה) means daughter of God and is the name of Pharaoh’s daughter. Thus, we have our daughter Galit Batya.

Later in this week’s פרשה, we witness the miracle of the burning bush. משה remarks to himself that he needs to turn to look at this incredible thing, a bush that was enflamed but would not burn up. The wow moment משה encountered at this sight is something we all hunger to achieve. We all want to be amazed. We all want to be struck by awe. Sometimes we are aiming too high and need to recognize that the amazement was there all along. In the case of the burning bush, it was an ordinary bush on fire. In the desert it wouldn’t have been uncommon for bushes to catch fire. It took an astute משה to stop what he was doing and take notice of the bush that was engulfed in flames.

The miracle of the phone call. The miracle of Galit coming into our lives. The miracle of people caring for children they will not parent. The miracle of the people who work to place the babies and make families. These miracles happen all the time and we don’t always recognize them. Each of us needs to stop on a regular basis and see the miracles in the world around us. We need to see that our lives are miracles. We need to see that when we stop and appreciate the beauty and majesty of creation, we’ll be better able to recognize miracles in our midst.

Happy Birthday Galit, our second miracle.