Parshat Bamidbar

Adam Kofinas

This Shabbat, we’ll begin reading the fourth book of the Torah, Sefer Bamidbar which, depending on your translation of the Tanakh (bible), you’ll see as “in the desert” or “in the wilderness”. Our ancestors’ journey from the time they crossed the sea until they entered the land of Israel took 40 years. Yet according to Google maps, this journey, a walk from Cairo to Eilat, should only take 7 days.

The majority of the Bible is devoted to this period of time, so there are naturally a number of commentaries on the topic of why our ancestors took so long to arrive. The explanation I’ve heard the most is Moses simply kept walking in circles, loathe to ask for directions. While that explanation will elicit a chuckle or two and many eye rolls, I believe the willingness, or lack thereof, to seek advice and change direction is an integral part of why our ancestors had to linger in the desert/wilderness for so long. 

Growing up under the harsh conditions of enslavement like those leaving Egypt did, it’s challenging, if not near impossible, to imagine any other life for yourself. Hence, when the Israelites were approaching the Red Sea and saw the Egyptian army closing in on them, they naturally complained to Moses, stating they could have simply perished in Egypt. They couldn’t see anything different for themselves or their descendants; they were simply too set in their ways. 

Their children, on the other hand, who came of age following the exodus from Egypt, grew up with the notion of individual choice and self-selection. They knew that perceived impossible tasks, such as the Israelites conquering the land of Israel, were indeed possible with God’s help. They knew of the miracles God had performed, both the plagues in Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea, and they formed a different mentality than the generation that preceded them. This new generation, ultimately headed by Joshua as they entered Israel, truly believed anything and everything was within their grasp as long as they followed God’s commandments and God was on their side.

So how does this relate to our world today? All too often I hear “we’ve always done it this way”, or, “that’s just how it’s done”. There are times I find myself saying that too, at OVS where we have a beautiful 100+ year old tradition as our foundation, or at home with my kids when they ask why they have to get dressed before leaving the house. While sometimes there are good reasons for keeping the status quo, in order to grow and be the best people we can be, we must constantly question, and when appropriate, change how things are done. “We’ve always done it this way” isn’t a sufficient answer.

As we approach Shavuot this coming week, our annual celebration of receiving the Torah, of receiving God’s wisdom, ask yourself “what assumptions should I be questioning to improve our world? What can I change to improve our community?” It’s only through our annual shift in perspective, our coming out of the wilderness into the land, that we’ll achieve success, both for ourselves and for our community as a whole.

Parshat Behukotai

Rabbi Hearshen

Traditional theology has asserted that “everything happens for a reason” and that when we do bad, we’re punished and when we do good we’re rewarded. This idea isn’t unique to Judaism and the Jewish people. It’s something that different religious groups and their followers have clung to for centuries. Some of us find this idea to be comforting because it means there’s a rationale that the world operates in a way that’s neat and organized. The problem with this theology is when many of us look at the world, this isn’t how it appears to operate.

When Carrie and I spent years dealing with our infertility, I was left feeling rejected and punished by a God I’d spent my life trying to serve and please. Left with my traditional theology, I could only assume God was behind this awfulness and that I had to cope with the adversity and find the meaning behind it. Eventually I found God, not in the infertility, but in the doctors who worked with us to become parents and the people who helped us to adopt. I could no longer find God in the catastrophe but readily saw God in the response and the drive to remedy it. Since that moment, this has become my understanding of our relationship to God. I spoke at length about this last year on RoshHashana. But, if God isn’t “pulling the strings” and making things happen in the world, then where and what is God? Further, what are we to do with a text that tells us God does reward and punish and everything does have a purpose/reason?

אִם־בְּחֻקֹּתַי תֵּלֵכוּ וְאֶת־מִצְוֺתַי תִּשְׁמְרוּ וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם׃ וְנָתַתִּי גִשְׁמֵיכֶם בְּעִתָּם וְנָתְנָה הָאָרֶץ יְבוּלָהּ וְעֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה יִתֵּן פִּרְיוֹ׃

If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit (ויקרא כו:ג-ד/Leviticus 26:3-4).

These are the opening words of פרשת בחקתי/Behukotai and in these words you find a very clear and real “if:then” statement: If you do… (then) I will do…. That’s the theological and philosophical underpinning of the statement, when we do good we will be rewarded with good. In verse 14 the text changes in tone and talks about what will happen if we don’t follow God and the תורה/Torah. This idea of good and bad and reward and punishment paints a binary world where it’s either this or that. We all know the world is indeed anything but binary in that almost everything is gray rather than black and white. We all know the world is more complicated.

What can be done for us today? The reality is that these texts are real and have a real eternal message: actions have consequences. Our actions actually matter and impact the world. When we do good, we’ve brought good into the world and made it better able to absorb good things. When we do bad, we’ve brought bad into existence and it’s more susceptible to bad things happening. That might sound simple, and it might sound counter-intuitive, but it’s at the root of what God was trying to convey to us in the text. When we listen and do what’s expected of us, the world has goodness and positivity in it, and when we don’t, the opposite occurs.

The world needs us to do what’s expected of us. The world needs us to listen and obey expectations and to rise to the occasion. We need to recognize that all we do has an impact on those around us and those far away from us. The power is within each of us to decide which way we want our world to look. God isn’t going to punish or reward, but God will allow for what we do to make an impact and we’ll need to deal with the consequences of our actions. Theology need not break us nor does it need to reject our understanding of the world around us. We can have strong and deep faith in God and still live in the world.

Parshat Behar

Rabbi Hearshen

I’m on a plane from DC to Atlanta while I’m writing this article. I was in DC for a conference for a relatively new organization called Zionist Rabbinic Coalition. I’ve attended many conferences in DC over the years including AIPAC, and never has one felt so urgent and so difficult. I chose to attend this year because this is a most important and urgent time for the American Jewish Community and for Israel. I was in DC when the UN stood for a moment of silence for the Butcher of Tehran. I was in DC when the ICC prosecutor requested arrest warrants for the Prime Minister of Israel and the Defense Minister. We listened to so many speakers and so many teachers and spent so much time learning and developing. Today we were on Capitol Hill and we met with members of the House of Representatives from both parties. There can be no denying we’re living in extraordinary times and that we must, we must, be filled with resolve to stand by our community and by the State of Israel.

Parshat Behar, read this week, has a very famous and important statement in it, “proclaim liberty throughout the land”, which many will recognize as the quote on the Liberty Bell. This quote was chosen because America’s foundation is rooted in religion, in this case Judaism and Christianity. It wasn’t an accident that the founders and early Americans would want such a quote. It’s decontextualized, but at its core is a deep belief in the foundational values of America being those of freedom.

Something that seems to have been forgotten since October 7 is that one nation in the Middle East shares such values and is allied with the US through thick and thin. The reality is that the opposite is also true. Though the relationship can be strained from time to time, there’s an ironclad commitment to Israel from the US that’s been in place from Harry Truman through Joe Biden and every president in between. The reason is because there’s a commonality of values shared by the US and by Israel.

Today we met with members of congress: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Michael Lawler, Max Miller, Brad Sherman, Brad Schneider, Kathy Manning and Steny Hoyer. Each of them was clear and resolute in their commitments to Israel and to fighting anti-Semitism. Most wore yellow ribbons and bracelets for October 7. Representatives Wasserman Schultz and Manning both told us they’d been at the Capitol the night before for a screening of Sheryl Sandberg’s new documentary, Screams Before Silence. I cried through it in my home office and request that we all watch it and bare witness. The documentary can be seen at https://screamsbeforesilence.com.

I’ve made a concerted effort for some months now to write and speak about topics other than Israel and anti-Semitism. I’ve done so because I believe there are numerous issues facing the Jewish world today and that Israel and anti-Semitism are only two of them. The reality is, from time to time we need to be reminded that the time is not tomorrow, but rather the time is now. We need to recommit ourselves now to learning and to speaking out. The essence of Zionism was, and still is, Jewish sovereignty and sovereignty needs to be understood as taking care of ourselves and not relying on others to do so for us. As a worldwide Jewish community, we each need to step forward and recognize our obligation to be informed and outspoken.   

 

Parshat Emor

Rabbi Hearshen

People who know me well know I’m partial to symmetry. I like when things are in order and when they’re balanced. Some call this a bit annoying. I refer to it as something extra special. Many people who see the world as I do like to have a “B” to each “A.” They like to have everything in pairs just like I do. Our holidays come in pairs: Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret, Hanukkah and Purim, Passover and Shavuot. Each pair of holidays tells a deeper story and greater narrative than any of the holidays by themselves. We celebrate the New Year and then begin to look back and ahead at how we can change to be better. We celebrate the cycle of nature with Sukkot and then the cycle of the Torah with Shemini Atzeret. On Hanukah we commemorate our near destruction at the hands of ourselves and an external enemy and on Purim we focus on the human story of overcoming an eternal external foe. Passover and Shavuot tell the story of our complete history and identity. On Passover we celebrate our redemption and our freedom and on Shavuot we celebrate our covenant and our relationship with the Divine.

We left Egypt to come to Mt. Sinai and stand in relationship with God through our acceptance of the Torah. This incredible relationship between Passover and Shavuot is discovered in this week’s פרשה/Parsha: אמור/Emor when it describes the obligation to count seven sets of seven days from the second night of Passover until we reach the 49th day. The next day, the “50th” is the designated day of the holiday of Shavuot and thus the celebration of the giving of the Torah. Each year as we count, as we are commanded to do this week in אמור, we recall the connectedness of these two celebrations.

The connection is important and shouldn’t be lost on any of us. At Passover Seders, we read and sing the words of “Dayenu”. Those words state “Had God brought us out of Egypt and had not brought judgement upon (the Egyptians) it would have been enough”. As the reading continues, it says “Had God given us Shabbat and not brought us to Mt. Sinai it would have been enough. Had God brought us to Mt. Sinai and had not given us the Torah it would have been enough. Had God given us the Torah and not brought us to the Land of Israel it would have been enough…” The list goes on and on, and in reality, we need to be grateful enough to recognize the true power of “Dayenu” and that we have to be satisfied with what we have. At the same time, we don’t live in a world where God took us out of Egypt and didn’t bring us to Sinai, didn’t give us the Torah, and didn’t bring us to Israel. We live in a world where we received all those things, which are all necessary and all connected. We can’t say something would’ve been “enough” because we don’t know what our world would’ve looked like if we hadn’t received them.

As we navigate the Omer period to the celebration of the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, we must see that our freedom, received when we left Egypt, was a freedom to be in a relationship with God and with our people through the Torah. The freedom isn’t absolute. It’s about our ability to share in the sacred and great relationship with God. As I’m writing these words, it’s the 23rd day of the Omer and we’ll count the next one tonight. This means we’re left with 26 more days to prepare ourselves to grow in our relationship with Torah and with God.

May 9, 2024

Rabbi Hearshen

“Is it worth it?” These four words are often spoken when dealing with something that is challenging. “Is it worth it…” to keep on eating healthy when we don’t see the progress in our health? “Is it worth it…” to fight with those we love when we know we will make up later on? “Is it worth it…” to put forth all of this effort when nobody will even notice what I have done? All of these questions of the inherent value in something call out the imbalance between the work and the benefit. Over the years, the Jewish world has fallen victim to this concept in our conversation about Israel. “Is it worth it…” to live in Israel when there are suicide bombers? “Is it worth it…” to live in Israel when all of our children will be required to go to the army? “Is it worth it…” to live in Israel when you have to run to shelters on a repeated basis? “Is it worth it…” to live in Israel when the world sees us as a pariah and we need to constantly defend ourselves for merely defending ourselves? “Is it worth it…” to live in Israel when we are forced to fight against an enemy that forces us to kill innocent civilians in the crossfires?

It is easy to see this as a “this or that” conversation. It is easy to think that we can only have it one way or the other. Nobody ever stops to question that the claim of us having a choice is false. Nobody ever stops and recognizes that even if we accepted the premise that it is not worth it that the hardship would still remain. We must admit that the cost of us having our homeland and our own nation comes at a great cost. We mist accept that the cost is one that we continue to pay time and again as the years continue to go by. Sunday night we will mark יום הזכרון/Yom HaZikaron, Israeli Memorial Day. On יום הזכרון we not only memorialize and mourn the deaths of those who fell defending our country but we mourn and memorialize those who were viciously murdered by terror as well. Our loved ones who are killed by terror are victims of a war against us that knows no limits or boundaries. There are lists of all of the people who are remembered at the ceremonies each year. Those lists clearly grow year in and out and this year the list has grown unlike ever before. This year the lit will be increased by over 1500. The numbers are vast and hard to fully grasp but here is the Israeli Government website with their data and the names of the fallen: https://www.gov.il/en/pages/swords-of-iron-war-in-the-south-7-oct-2023 .

Monday will be יום הזכרון/Yom HaZikaron, Israeli Rememberance Day, and in the evening the sadness will give way to the celebration that is our homeland, Israel, with the celebration of יום העצמאות/Yom HaAtzmaut, Israeli Independence Day. This fragile balance is something that the Israeli people have known since their founding. They recognize that nothing can be taken for granted and that we need to know that there is a heavy price associated with the existence of the State of Israel.  This idea was the inspiration for Nathan Alterman’s poem: “The Silver Platter,” based on President Chaim Weizman’s quote “A state is not handed to a people on a silver platter.”

The Silver Platter by Nathan Alterman

The Earth grows still.
The lurid sky slowly pales
Over smoking borders.
Heartsick, but still living, a people stand by
To greet the uniqueness
of the miracle.

Readied, they wait beneath the moon,
Wrapped in awesome joy, before the light.
– Then, soon,
A girl and boy step forward,
And slowly walk before the waiting nation;

In work garb and heavy-shod
They climb
In stillness.
Wearing yet the dress of battle, the grime
Of aching day and fire-filled night

Unwashed, weary unto death, not knowing rest,
But wearing youth like dewdrops in their hair.
– Silently the two approach
And stand.
Are they of the quick or of the dead?

Through wondering tears, the people stare.
“Who are you, the silent two?”
And they reply: “We are the silver platter
Upon which the Jewish State was served to you.”

And speaking, fall in shadow at the nation’s feet.
Let the rest in Israel’s chronicles be told.

The sheer amount of terror and heartache that our people have endured over our history is hard to find in other populations of the world. The amount of adversity and pain that has afflicted the State of Israel is likewise nearly unparalleled. And yet despite all of this heart ache and pain the Jewish people and the Jewish State have both found a means and way to build and to go above and beyond in terms of contributing to all of humanity. There is a great cost associated with our precious homeland and that cost is that no matter how hard we try and fight to be accepted we remain outsiders. The cost is that the world cannot come to terms with our outsized influence and impact. The cost is that we have to fight to protect what is ours and this forces our military to do things that are hard and difficult to accept. None of this takes away the blessing that is Israel and the virtue that it is to have our own home land in the world.

The opening words of this weeks פרשה/Parsha are: קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ/You shall be holy. These words are then described by various מצות/Mitzvot that make us holy and that sustain our people. Things like honoring parents, keeping שבת and how we make sacrifices are a few of them in chapter 19. The תורה then states these central ethical rules in verses nine through 18:

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest.

You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I, Hashem, am your God.

You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another.

You shall not swear falsely by My name, profaning the name of your God: I am Hashem.

You shall not defraud your fellow [Israelite]. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning.

You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God: I am Hashem.

You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich; judge your kin fairly.

Do not deal basely with members of your people. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow [Israelite]: I am Hashem.

You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kin but incur no guilt on their account.

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against members of your people. Love your fellow [Israelite] as yourself: I am Hashem.

These basic ethical rules are at the root of who we are as a people and are in large part what makes us “holy.” We built a country that we hoped and continue to hope will be rooted in these and other important ethical laws and values. At times it will fall short of being that nation and we will feel a sense of it not being worth it. But, more often than not, it rises to these values and reminds us that in the end it is, indeed, worth all that we have to do to keep it our special place in the world.

May 2, 2024

Rabbi Hearshen

October 7, 2023 is a day that will live forever in the collective memories of the Jewish people and all people of conscience in the world. For those without a conscience, it will be a day like every other day, a day of nothing out of the ordinary. 90 years prior to October 7, 2023, an obscure thing happened that was buried in the newspapers of the days. Dr Albert Einstein boarded a ship in London to travel across the Atlantic to seek safety here in the US. This little-known fact is one I dug up to examine just how different things are today. In 1933, there was no such thing as 24-hour cable news or the World Wide Web and people had to patiently wait to consume the latest events.

The New York Times, on October 8, 1937, reported on page 6 that the German government had passed a law forbidding Jews from being taught music. An attempted revolt at Auschwitz Birkenau on October 7, 1944 was ultimately put down by the Nazis and resulted in the deaths of 250 inmates during the fighting and an additional 200 afterwards when the guards murdered scores of other Jews. The year is now 2024, and for the first time in my life, I’m struggling to tell fellow Jews to take a breath and recognize everything is going to be okay. We’ve all been asked if we thought the Holocaust could happen again. We’ve all said no time and again as we recognize the strength of American Democracy and of our community’s involvement in the preservation of that democracy. October 7, 2023 was the bloodiest single day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and since October 7, we’ve been caught in a continual spiral of ugliness we haven’t witnessed on this scale since the days of the Holocaust.

The institutions which Einstein came from Germany to build up, the American universities, have completely abandoned the Jewish people. Across the country we’re witnessing students and PROFESSORS and other PAID MEMBERS OF THE FACULTIES of these universities call for a globalized intifada… for a Jew-free land “From the River to the Sea…”, “no peace on stolen land…” and “APD (Atlanta Police Department) KKK and IDF are all the same”. These are just a sampling of the words being said on Emory’s campus. The same people calling for a “cease fire” call for a globalized intifada. This is 2024 and this is what we’re living through?!?

We must all believe in the freedom of assembly and the freedom of speech. We must all agree that those rights, enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, are enshrined to protect even what we find awful. At the same time, we must all accept that no singular right is absolute and there are indeed limits to everything in this world. The limits in speech and in assembly include intimidation, provoking violence as well as other limits. Many have asked the real question: “If the vitriol being screamed on campuses was directed at women, people of color, or any other marginalized group, would the response from the world be quite different”? The reality is in my heart, I wish it wouldn’t be different, but in my deepest fears I suspect it’s true. Simply put, the oldest form of hatred continues to be accepted around the world no matter how much we wish it weren’t.

The Jewish people have gifted the world with numerous things and yet we’ll never be enough for them to accept us. We expect to be allowed to be a unique people in the world but we seem to continue to be hated by people for so many reasons. The basis of a basic liberal arts education… of a university education, is the concept of academic curiosity and critical analysis. This essential concept has been usurped and used against us. A world that believes in moral relativism is a world without morality. A world that believes rape and torture and murder are crimes only dependent on context, is a world that has lost all understanding of contextual appreciation. A world in which one population is held to a separate standard from all others is a world without any standards at all.

This week, we’ll read אחרי מות which begins by invoking the memories of אהרן/Aaron’s sons: נדב ואביהו/Nadav and Avihu before going into great detail about the rituals of יום כיפור/Yom Kippur. Perhaps the message is that after people’s deaths we need to reflect and find how we can gain atonement. Perhaps the connection is we’ve cleansed our world on behalf of those who came before us. There are many messages. The one I’m most drawn to today is one I spoke of when we read פרשת שמיני/Parshat Shemini, and I recalled the silence of אהרן following the deaths of his sons. I spoke of the תלמוד/Talmud and how it says שתיקה כהודאה, Silence is Consent, and that we have an obligation to never be silent.

This week I’m drawn to something even deeper and that’s the origin of the “Scapegoat” which is found in the יום כיפור ritual. The ritual involved the High Priest confessing the sins of all the Jewish people on the head of a goat and then sending it off (probably to its death) as it would thus take our place and hold all our sins for us. That’s the origin of the phrase; yet, historically we’ve found the art of scapegoating as a time when people/society blames another people for the wrongs of the world. Who is the greatest scapegoat of history? The Jewish people. Who is the scapegoat of the masses around the world today? The Jewish people. You can claim all you want that it’s “Zionists” or “Israelis” or “the Israeli Government” but it would just be telling a lie. The anti-Zionist is merely the latest incarnation of the oldest hatred dressed in new clothing.

This week, as we memorialize and honor the memories of the victims of the שואה/The Holocaust, let us not be hoodwinked by those who would’ve been on the wrong side of history then, and are on the wrong side of history now. Let us not be complacent and believe our influence and our engagement here in the US is so much greater than it was in Europe in the 1930s and 40s. Let us not forget that a certain homicidal dictator, Adolf Hitler, blamed us for all of the ills that afflicted Germany following their defeat in World War I. In his scapegoating of us, he managed to expose a violent hatred of our people we never thought was possible.

Let us not think our silence will simply let this pass us by and things will get better. Our silence today will do us no better than the silence of the world in the 30s and the 40s. As we recite the sacred words of “NEVER AGAIN”, let us recognize we don’t yet live in that world. We need to continue to fight and to build a world where it will never be possible or imaginable every again.

April 18, 2024

Rabbi Hearshen

Four cups of wine, four sons and the four questions. Those are three of the hallmarks of the סדר/Seder and they each hold a special place in our hearts and in our celebration of פסח/Passover. The four questions may very well be the most significant as they occupy the center of the holiday. The way we would say the “Four Questions” in Hebrew would be the ארבעה השאלות which literally translates into “The Four Questions” but we traditionally refer to the central part of the סדר as the ארבעה הקושיאות which is roughly translated into “The Four Challenges.”  This is an important nuance because what we refer to as “four questions” are not so much questions as they are “four challenges.” The four challenges are making assertions about what is so different on this night from other nights:

  1. On all other nights we eat חמץ/chametz and מצה/matzah but tonight its only מצה
  2. On all other nights we eat all veggies but tonight we eat מרור/bitter herbs
  3. On all other nights we don’t dip even once but tonight we dip twice
  4. On all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining but tonight we all recline

 

In each of those questions there are implied questions. However, the question is not explicitly stated for any of them. The entire section is indeed introduced with the words of מה נשתנה/what is changed/different on this night from all other nights. Following this opening question, four examples are provided of the changes/differences. They are challenges more than questions.

This year, as we sit down together, there are many questions and challenges. As free people, we must assert these challenges to the world and demand that we find answers or responses. Here are my four challenges to the world this Passover.

  1. This year people are being held against their will in captivity and are not able to celebrate the holiday with their families and the world seems to have moved on rather than fighting for them.
  2. Israel continues to be held to a different standard when it defends itself while the world demands Israel behave as if it’s not in an existential struggle.
  3. This year anti-Semitism is growing after all of these years. The world doesn’t seem to care nearly enough about our plight.
  4. The Jewish world continues to fight for Israel and against anti-Semitism but does not fight for Judaism nearly enough. Our people need to recommit to being engaged Jewishly.


These four challenges keep me up all night far too often.

We live in a world where such awful things have happened. We live in a world where people who were celebrating life at a music festival, enjoying a holiday, visiting family, working, and so much more were murdered, tortured, raped and/or kidnapped. We live in that world and yet it seems so distant and remote. This isn’t the world we deserve and it isn’t the world we wish for our children. I’ve been to Kfar Azza, Sderot and the ReyimMusic Festival site. These things are real and have really happened in our world. To imagine that just across the border from where I was standing and learning and grieving, there are our loved ones being held in inhumane circumstances and against their will. This can never be normalized and we must carry them with us.

We live in a world where such awful things have happened. We live in a world where a cease fire existed and had been respected and suddenly on one day, a Jewish holiday no less, a group of terrorists came across the border and unleased a horrific ghastly massacre while they fired rockets indiscriminately at our towns. We live in this world where this happened and yet we watch as the rest of the world demands a cease fire knowing full well our hostages are not home and that Hamas will remain in power and are capable of doing this all again (something they have already said they intend to do). Where is the outrage of their unwillingness to accept a cease fire? Where is the outrage about their immoral use of human shields and putting themselves in hospitals and mosques and schools? Where is the outrage of their unwillingness to be responsible for the people of Gaza who they have put in harms way? We must remember that Israel can never be made to rely on others for her safety and security and they must do what’s required to secure their future.

We live in a world where such awful things have happened. Jewish people around our country and around the world have been targeted because of their support for Israel and because of their identity. People continue to hide behind criticism of Israel as being something legitimate but the reality is that all too often their “legitimate” critique is nothing more than illegitimate “othering” of the only Jewish State in the world and the Jewish people. Anti-Semitism is not a thing of the past (where it should be relegated) but is current news. On university campuses we have witnessed Jewish students running for safety and hiding in safe rooms while they waited for the cops to arrive. This is not Germany or Europe of the 1930s and 40s: yet how far have we actually come from that time? We need to demand better. We need to build bridges and demand that those around us recognize there can never be space for neutrality. One is either a friend or an anti-Semite and there’s nothing in between.

We live in a world where our politics and our culture have replaced the sacred birthright we’ve inherited. We’ve allowed for so much to stand in the place of our religious commitments. We have Jews today who don’t know what it means to be a Jew. We have Jews today who support every other cause but their own. We have Jews today who don’t know how to function as Jews in a Jewish environment. This is the world we have. We need to recommit ourselves to our heritage and to our people. We need to recommit ourselves to our faith and to our tradition. We cannot allow for cultural Jews to be all that remains of our people. We must show that our faith and our way of life matter and we will not let anything stand in the way of those values.

Those are my four challenges for this פסח. I invite you to join me in digging more deeply and finding ways to be in conversation with them while never accepting them as our fate.

On behalf of Carrie, Ayelet, Galit and the staff and Board of Directors of OVS, I wish you a wonderful and meaningful Passover.

חג כשר ושמח
Rabbi Hearshen

April 11, 2024

Rabbi Hearshen

בְּכָל-דּוֹר וָדוֹר חַיָּב אָדָם לְהַרְאוֹת אֶת-עַצְמוֹ כְּאִלּוּ הוּא יָצָא מִמִּצְרַיִם. In each and every generation a person is obligated to see themselves as having gone out from Egypt. These words from the הגדה של פסח/Passover Haggadah are well known to all of us. They come after Rabban Gamliel’s statement of the three core symbols we’re required to explain and discuss at the סדר/Seder: פסח, מצה, מרור/Shank Bone (Paschal Offering), Matzah and Bitter Herbs (Maror). He’s telling us we have to discuss the relevance and importance of these three central elements of the סדר and he’s then telling us the importance and centrality of the telling and reliving of the story. This is no easy feat to accomplish. To actually see ourselves as having been in Egypt, and having been liberated from some enslavement, is difficult to accomplish in any meaningful manner. At the same time, it’s of critical importance to struggle with and work to attain.

America is the great land of freedom. The freedom we most commonly relate to America is that of “opportunity.” For generations we’ve struggled as a nation to bring more people into the fold of having the freedom of opportunity. When our country was founded, we didn’t include certain groups in this (women and slaves). Over time we’ve progressed, and thankfully our country has come to emancipate and liberate all in our midst. Jews, to varying degrees, encountered this problem over the years as well. We were both discriminated against and welcomed. There were hospitals that wouldn’t allow our doctors to work. Country Clubs and other social organizations closed their doors to us. We were unable to join Sororities and Fraternities and we were not welcomed in certain neighborhoods. This is just the beginning of the discrimination we faced and yet America has been a land of opportunity for our people. American Jews have flourished here unlike any other time in history. With that freedom, we’ve experienced such greatness and sadly such hardship. The reason for this is with the freedom of opportunity, came the unintended consequence of assimilation. With the acceptance by the non-Jewish world we, as a community, have not necessarily thrived so much as we’ve created even greater problems.

When we lived in North Africa, Europe, the Middle East and all over the world, we were not embraced.  There were often laws enacted that limited our choices and opportunities, and here in America, all that disappeared. Today Jews in America are in danger of choosing their American identity at the expense of their Jewish core. The antidote is seeing ourselves as the Jew who was once a slave, who was once freed, and who is now a piece of a global puzzle that forms a picture greater than all of its pieces. We must recognize that complicity in failing to embrace this is equal to spurning our sacred treasure.

The days of external forces compelling us to be involved Jews are gone. We have to choose to see ourselves as active and engaged Jews or see ourselves as breaking the endless chain of our peoplehood established when we left Egypt thousands of years ago. It’s sad to realize our ultimate freedom could be our ultimate undoing. It’s sad to see that, in an age of unparalleled rights and opportunities, we’re forgetting our commitments and our obligations to ourselves and to our people.

We at OVS need to think long and hard about what we’re committed to and how we can build something incredible together. We need to recognize we’re tied to our people, our history, our religion and our tradition. We have to see ourselves as religious and engaged people and not see ourselves as outsiders. To really live the words of RabbanGamliel is to fully embrace ourselves as the Jew in the story. To really live these words is to fully recognize we’re engaged and involved. The freedom of opportunity afforded to us in the US is something we’ve been blessed to enjoy, and at the same time, it’s something that can undermine us as we continue to move forward. The freedom we enjoy is not about absolute freedom so much as it’s about responsibility. Each of us is responsible to see to it that we’re committed and “all-in.” We, here at OVS, have to recognize our community is our responsibility and our sacred commitment. We each need to see ourselves as an important part of the community and need to make being involved a core part of our sacred identity.

April 4, 2024

Rabbi Hearshen

I haven’t begun the process of bringing our Passover materials out of storage. Each year when I take the boxes out (and please know there are many… I mean many) I have the opportunity to reconnect with years of memories and with so much joy. One of the boxes is the Seder box, with all of the materials from our years of Sedarim. We have numerous versions of representations of the Ten Plagues and each of them portray the 10 occurrences in different ways. The 9th, חושך/Darkness, is typically all black or a pair of sunglasses and is thus one of the easiest to depict. The reality is the plague of darkness is alive and well in the world today and something that needs to be addressed.

From the basic plain meaning of the text, we find that for three days the people of Egypt lived in total darkness and could do nothing as they could not see a single thing. This must have been immensely frightening and damaging to all who encountered it. It’s so difficult to wrap our brains around such an occurrence and to even be able to imagine what it was like. We’re naturally afraid of the dark because we cannot see what’s all around us. This coming Monday, there will be a natural occurrence many are excited to encounter; a solar eclipse. Unfortunately for us, it won’t be a total eclipse but we’ll have the opportunity to experience a portion of the miraculous world in which we live. The darkness we’ll experience will not even come close to the total darkness described in the Torah. It will merely be a taste of something similar.

I’m writing these words as another darkness has just accumulated to 181 days. It’s been 181 days since over 100 people were robbed of their freedom and violently kidnapped to Gaza. It’s been 181 days since they were able to do what they wanted and were able to enjoy life. We have no concept or idea of what they’re experiencing at this time. We only know they are not free and they are not safe. It’s likely most, if not all, of the hostages are being held in dungeon-like tunnels under the Gaza Strip. The darkness and lack of air they’re experiencing, coupled with the lack of food and lack of every other basic human need, is beyond anything we can imagine and yet it’s happening in 2024. They’re living in darkness, and as they’re living in darkness, so too are we to a lesser degree. We’re living in darkness because we have no idea what’s happening to them. We’re living in darkness because as long as any of our people are being held captive against their will, we’re all being held captive. We’re living in darkness because the world is allowing for light to be sacrificed and ignored and to be eclipsed entirely by darkness.

For years I’ve looked at the 9th plague, Darkness, not so much as being about the external darkness of something like an eclipse, but as an internal darkness of something like blindness. This would be the darkness that would prevent people from seeing one another or from being able to leave their places. It’s darkness that was so dark people could actually touch it. With this understanding, we could have light as Israelites while the Egyptians could have darkness because the sun wasn’t blocked but the eyes of the Egyptians were.

Today, in 2024, we live with a gross pandemic of blindness that has to be cured. Let us begin by recognizing one basic fact of humanity: when we’re responsible, we must stand up and say so and make amends for the wrong. The killing of seven humanitarian workers this week by the IDF was nothing short of a tragedy and something that must be rectified immediately. Any attempt to demonize the IDF and to assert this was emblematic of the IDF is revealing the blindness certain people have when it comes to Israel and the Jewish people. Israel must prevent this from being repeated and must be fully transparent in its findings about how this happened. We, proud Zionists, must not allow our Zionism and love of Israel to blind us from seeing that our army, the IDF, made a critical and painful error with real consequences that cannot be downplayed.

The world has shown, time and again, during these past 181 days that they can be quite blind when it comes to Israel and the Jewish people. Every demand for an immediate cease fire that leaves Hamas intact, and that leaves all hostages in Gaza, is blind to the reality that on 10/6 there was a cease fire and it was broken by a demonic violence the world couldn’t believe existed and still exists. There are still people blinded by their need to root for the “victims” that even claim Israel wasn’t attacked on October 7th. It’s just all messed up. It’s time for Hamas to “Let Our People Go”. It’s time for Hamas to be relegated to the dustbin of history in the same way Pharaoh was so long ago. It’s time for all of us to remove the darkness and the blindness and to see clearly what the world is and what we need to do to make it what it should be.

March 28, 2024

Rabbi Hearshen

With Purim now in our rearview mirror, we have only a month until we celebrate the holiday of Pesach. We’ll be sending Passover materials to you in the coming days. Passover is a holiday steeped in law, ritual, custom and tradition. It’s a time when we truly embrace all that it is to live a richly engaged Jewish life in a non-Jewish world. Over the coming weeks, I want to offer some reflections about Passover to help you celebrate the holiday this coming year. For this week, we’re going to discuss the complexities around the subject/concept of identity and we’ll do so through a deeper dive into משה/Moses.

משה lived for 120 years in total and we understand his life as three distinct equal parts (each was thus 40 years long). The first 40 years took place in less than one chapter (שמות ב:א – י/Exodus 2:1 – 10) and the second 40 took place in a matter of just over two chapters (שמות ב:יא – ד:כז/Exodus 2:11 – 4:27). The remaining 40 years of his life took place over the course of the remaining chapters of the תורה/Torah. Because we lack so much information about his youth, we need to dig and look for hints that point to something deeper. We know he had an older sister, מרים/Miriam, and an older brother, אהרן/Aaron. We know he was hidden for a time for his own protection and we know he was floated down the river. One of the deepest clues to his childhood comes from the moment he’s returned to בתיה/Batya, Pharaoh’s daughter, after having been nursed by an Israelite wet-nurse (his birth mother) and she named him.

וַיִּגְדַּל הַיֶּלֶד וַתְּבִאֵהוּ לְבַת־פַּרְעֹה וַיְהִי־לָהּ לְבֵן וַתִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ מֹשֶׁה וַתֹּאמֶר כִּי מִן־הַמַּיִם מְשִׁיתִהוּ׃

When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, who made him her son. She named him Moses, explaining, “I drew him out of the water”. (שמות ב:י/Exodus 2:10)

This verse seems to be so simple and provides us with a reason for his name that we can wrap our heads around. משה was drawn from the water and so this makes sense but בתיה, Pharaoh’s daughter, would not name her son in Hebrew and so we can find something deeper here. The Egyptian language had a name that was almost identical but had a different meaning: Mose is an Egyptian name that means created, born or son of. It would make sense that in Pharaoh’s daughter’s naming, she would assert her motherhood of this adopted son. It makes sense to her point of view of the world, and with that, we begin to see a complicated story of משה and his developing identity. It’s only cloudier in just one verse:

וַיְהִי  בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם וַיִּגְדַּל מֹשֶׁה וַיֵּצֵא אֶל־אֶחָיו וַיַּרְא בְּסִבְלֹתָם וַיַּרְא אִישׁ מִצְרִי מַכֶּה אִישׁ־עִבְרִי מֵאֶחָיו׃

Sometime after that, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed their labors. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. (שמות ב:יא/Exodus 2:11)

On a fateful day משה went out to his “אחיו/kinsmen”. Who were those people? They were the Israelites. Evidently there was some bond that משה maintained with his birth people. Evidently משה looked at the Hebrews, the Israelites, as a part of him and himself as a part of them. Unfortunately, his grandfather, Pharaoh, saw the same thing and did not fully accept משה. When he learned of the actions of his grandson, he sought to kill him. Over the course of five verses, we see a totally different approach to משה’s identity. When משה ended up in Midian, he sat next to a well, and when he saw some women/girls trying to get water, he saw them get harassed by some shepherds and he rescued them. When they got home, this is what transpired:

וַתָּבֹאנָה אֶל־רְעוּאֵל אֲבִיהֶן וַיֹּאמֶר מַדּוּעַ מִהַרְתֶּן בֹּא הַיּוֹם׃ וַתֹּאמַרְןָ אִישׁ מִצְרִי הִצִּילָנוּ מִיַּד הָרֹעִים וְגַם־דָּלֹה דָלָה לָנוּ וַיַּשְׁקְ אֶת־הַצֹּאן׃

When they returned to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come back so soon today?” They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds; he even drew water for us and watered the flock”. (שמות ב:יח – יט/Exodus 2:18 – 19)

What’s incredible about this is משה was identified as an Egyptian just verses after he was identified as an Israelite, or at the very least he identified with the Israelites. This split identity is something we can relate to in our own lives. We live in the United States as “Americans” and we live in our own world as “Jews”. We live with this dual identity that can at times cause strain and stress. We sometimes feel torn between our Jewish selves and our American selves. The only antidote to this stress is to embrace it for what it is and to recognize something/somebody can be two things at the same time. The two need not be in conflict. We can harmonize them. Thankfully, we live in a country, and in a time, that we’re not expected to forsake our deeply held beliefs and commitments. Thankfully, we’re able to live Jewish lives without the government impinging on our observances. Yes, anti-Semitism is surging and it’s scary and alarming. Yes, we’re shocked and dismayed, but we also need to recognize that unlike previous anti-Semitic episodes in the world throughout history, we now have a country that doesn’t permit it.  At פסח we celebrate our freedom and part of freedom is to be ourselves. We have the ability to be who we are and to not allow anything to stand in the way of our deeply held commitments and obligations.

Some people might read these texts as the difficulty of the identity of adopted individuals. Clearly this is personal to my family and me. In fact, Galit was born on the פרשה/Portion when this is read and her middle name is בתיה (Pharaoh’s daughter) so we might read it a bit differently. There are times when adopted children feel a sense of split personalities and identity issues, and there are times where nothing of the sort is felt at all. Some people hide adoption stories from others, and from the adopted child themselves, and the question must be asked as to why they do this. I’m sure each has their own reasons but it almost always feels like there’s something to be “ashamed” about. How is a child to build an identity in such a scenario? There are plenty of cases where the adopted child is treated as someone different and I see that in Pharaoh’s willingness to kill his own grandson rather than just excuse the behavior of a royal prince. The identity of those who are adopted is a bit more complicated than those who are not and that’s to be expected. It’s through honesty that it becomes less complicated. It’s through telling them their story with joy and honor and pride that they’re able to feel enhanced rather than torn.