Month: May 2026

I still remember, vividly, sitting in the Washington Convention Center and witnessing Alon Ohel come onto the stage and perform the song Superman with the artist who made it famous, Five for Fighting. I had chills then, and when I remember it, I have chills now. This moment was the culmination of many factors: Alon had been an accomplished piano player for several years when he was taken hostage. His mother looked for connection and advocacy and found one part in a picture of him dressed as Superman. His mom connected with Five for Fighting, and he became an outspoken advocate for the hostages and of course Alon Ohel, who was freed last year in the final hostage handovers.

All of these factors brought about this moment, and I had a seat in the room when it happened. This song, Superman, has always been a thought provoking one for me. “I can’t stand to fly, I’m not that naïve, I’m just out to find, The better part of me. I’m more than a bird, I’m more than a plane. I’m more than some pretty face beside a train, And it’s not easy to be me.” The fictional Superman is seen by us as a hero and as someone we can all depend on. But what about his point of view? What if he hated flying? What if he had thoughts and feelings that ran contrary to our projected view of him. Do the people actually know him or do they merely project onto him whatever it is we want and need of him? What if, in fact, it is not easy to be him?

The origin of Superman is in this week’s פרשה/Parshah/Portion: נשא/Naso. This week we learn about a particular category in ancient Israel called the נזיר/Nazir. A נזיר was someone who wanted to be closer to God and as such he took an oath to abstain from many things to gain closeness or to show piety. That’s not the origin story exactly, but it is the beginning of the road to get to Clark Kent and his alter-ego Superman.

The הפטרה/Haftarah for this week is thematically linked to the פרשה by using the נזיר as its hook and then telling the story of the most famous נזיר to have ever lived, שמשון/Shimshon/Samson. שמשון was a man who took a vow to be a נזיר and gained incredible power as a result. His power was derived from his closeness to God and as such he had a weakness (the original kryptonite). His hair needed to be left uncut in accordance with the oath of the נזיר. That’s the origin of the Man of Steel. I wonder what שמשון felt over his lifetime. Was it easy to be him? Was it easy to be a strongman? Was it easy to be filled with such power and such vulnerability?

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. They do all sorts of things for other people. To be a hero means sacrificing something and to help others. To be a hero means to give up some autonomy and hand one’s real “stuff” over to others. To be a hero means to be seen by others as they see the person and not necessarily as the person sees themselves. In the case of the נזיר, there is an additional nuance.  The נזיר, who was already making the sacrifice of the oath and abstaining from certain things, also had to make a sin offering at the end of the time they had vowed to abstain. Our tradition has two ways of seeing this: one positive and the other negative. The two views are seen here:

Positive as explained by the Ramban in his commentary to the תורה:
Until now he was separated in sanctity and the service of God, and he should therefore have remained separated forever, continuing all his life to be consecrated and sanctified to God, as it is said, I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and your young men for nazirites (Amos 2: 11). Thus, Scripture compares the nazirite to a prophet . . . Accordingly, [when he completes the period of his vow and returns to ordinary life] he requires atonement, since he goes back to being defiled by the [material] desires of the world.

The negative is quoted from the תלמוד/Talmud in Taanit 11a and Nedarim 10a:
Samuel said: whoever indulges in [voluntary] fasting is called a sinner. This is in accordance with the view of Rabbi Eliezer Hakappar Berebi, who stated: What is the meaning of the phrase (Num. 6: 11), and make atonement for him, because he sinned against the soul (usually translated as “by coming into contact with the dead”). Against which soul did he sin? We must conclude that it refers to denying himself the enjoyment of wine. From this, we may infer that if one who denies himself the enjoyment of wine is called a sinner, all the more so one who denies himself the enjoyment of other pleasures of life. It follows that one who keeps fasting is called a sinner.

To harmonize these two views, we can understand that heroes live in two worlds: one of joy and one of pain… one is permissive and one is restrictive. With the power to be a hero, there’s always a risk of being misunderstood and being overtaxed. To be a hero means to carry the burden of those around them. To be a hero means not to control their own time. And to be a hero means to know that at the end of the day, the world was made better because the hero stepped forward and did what others wouldn’t or couldn’t do.

The New York Times famously describes itself as publishing “all the news that’s fit to print”. At times, however, the Jewish community has struggled to see that principle reflected in reality. During the 1930s and 1940s, as Jews were herded into cattle cars and murdered in streets, ghettos, and camps across Europe, the Times often failed to place those atrocities prominently on its front page.

This week, The Times published a story about Israeli efforts to influence voting in the Eurovision contest. A summary video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwPc7q8jTP8. The article itself presents no evidence of illegal or immoral activity. Rather, it describes a country attempting to succeed within the established rules of an international competition. Yet the framing of the piece seems to hint at something more sinister, feeding into longstanding suspicions that Jews or Israelis are engaged in coordinated efforts to manipulate global institutions.

But that article is not the one that most concerns me. The article that deserves our attention is an opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof titled “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians”. To begin, we must recognize the difference between reporting in a newspaper’s news section and writing in its opinion section. Both should meet journalistic standards and rely on corroborated evidence. Both should be researched and responsibly sourced. But their purposes are fundamentally different. News seeks to inform; opinion seeks to persuade. News strives for objectivity; opinion argues a position. News presents multiple perspectives; opinion emphasizes one side of a debate. These distinctions matter because words carry consequences. As the 11th-century Spanish Jewish poet and philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol wrote: “Before I speak, I am master of my words. After I speak, I am their slave”. Once words are published, their impact cannot be controlled.

Kristof leveled serious accusations against the State of Israel, its military, and its supporters. Such claims must be taken seriously. Sexual violence is never acceptable, regardless of who commits it or who suffers from it. That principle should be absolute and without ambiguity. At the same time, it’s also true that wherever there are imbalances of power—whether in prisons, militaries, or other institutions—there is always the possibility of abuse. This is a tragic reality seen across societies worldwide. Israel is not unique in facing allegations of misconduct within its prison system; similar abuses have occurred in the United States, France, Japan, Australia, and countless other countries. The issue is not whether misconduct can occur, but rather its scale, frequency, and whether it reflects systemic policy. That context matters, especially when considered alongside the broader editorial choices of The Times.

Why publish this as an opinion piece at the same time the paper was also amplifying accusations surrounding Eurovision? Why publish it at the same moment reports were being released documenting the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas on October 7? Many Jews understandably feel that Israel and the Jewish people continue to receive a level of scrutiny and condemnation that is disproportionate compared to other nations and conflicts. That perception cannot simply be dismissed.

I encourage readers to examine a variety of responses and perspectives on these issues. Among them are comments from journalist Haviv Rettig Gur and Palestinian activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, as well as reporting from The Times of Israel addressing some of the more inflammatory allegations that have circulated publicly.

Ultimately, Israel, like every nation, is made up of imperfect human beings. Governments, soldiers, police officers, and prison guards are all capable of wrongdoing, and when abuses occur, victims deserve justice and perpetrators must be held accountable. But accountability must not become collective condemnation. There is no evidence of a government-sanctioned system of sexual violence in Israel. The actions of individuals, however reprehensible, should not be used to demonize an entire country or an entire people.

The Jewish people should not be judged by a standard applied to no one else.

 

This week we read the double portion, בהר בחקותי / Behar–Behukotai, concluding the book of ויקרא / Vayikra / Leviticus. These two פרשיות / parshiot focus extensively on ארץ ישראל / Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, and on what it means for the Jewish people to live in, and steward, a sacred land. We encounter laws requiring the land to rest every seventh year and the return of ancestral property during the Jubilee year every fiftieth year. We also read the powerful blessings and curses associated with life in the land. Taken literally, these blessings and curses can seem to present a simple system of reward and punishment that’s difficult to fully embrace. When religion is reduced to a kind of spiritual transaction—where actions automatically produce exact outcomes—we risk oversimplifying both faith and human experience.

The Torah’s vision is far deeper. With power comes responsibility, and our actions carry consequences, both good and bad. At the same time, we must be careful not to interpret suffering as divine punishment for specific behavior. Such thinking leaves us vulnerable to believing tragedies like the Holocaust or October 7 happened because of the victims’ actions. That approach not only removes responsibility from perpetrators of evil but also places blame on those who have already suffered unimaginable pain. We also cannot deny that our actions matter. What we do affects the world around us. Acts of goodness shape society for the better, while wrongdoing leaves damage in its wake. The challenge is finding the balance: recognizing that our choices carry real consequences without reducing human suffering to a simplistic theology of punishment.

The Jewish people experienced both profound blessing and profound challenge with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. After centuries of longing, Jewish sovereignty was restored in our ancestral homeland. At the same time, self-governance brought with it the burdens and complexities of political power in a world still deeply shaped by antisemitism. Many hoped Israel could simply function like any other nation, yet the reality has proven far more complicated. The blessing of national independence carries with it the burden—and sometimes the curse—of governing.

This tension is increasingly visible within the Jewish community itself. Many Jews see Zionism as inseparable from Jewish identity, while others insist that moral and ethical concerns must be paramount in evaluating the actions of the state. Too often these perspectives are presented as mutually exclusive: one side accused of overlooking moral failings, the other of holding Israel to impossible standards.

This week, my Facebook feed has been filled with debate surrounding graduating students at the Jewish Theological Seminary protesting President Isaac Herzog serving as commencement speaker. Once again, the conversation has been framed as a clash between uncompromising Zionism and uncompromising moral critique. But this framing is itself flawed.

Zionism is not devoid of morality, nor is moral concern incompatible with support for Israel. The modern State of Israel is a democratic state governed by laws and shaped by moral aspirations, even as it struggles—as all nations do—with the realities and imperfections of governance. Israel has made mistakes, just as every democracy has. Yet the global fixation on Israel often subjects it to standards rarely applied elsewhere. A nation cannot survive on idealism alone while ignoring reality. To be a Jew is to support the State of Israel and to hold ourselves and others to moral standards. It is to recognize that love of Israel and ethical responsibility are not opposing values, but intertwined obligations.

Ultimately, to be a Jew is to live within the tension of blessing and curse, independence and responsibility, power and accountability. That tension is not a contradiction to resolve, but a reality we are called to navigate with honesty, humility, and faith.