“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech.” As Jews we laud the principle of free speech as enshrined in the First Ammendment of the United States Constitution. Our people have lived in numerous countries where speech has been censored as well as practice of our religion. Yet too often there are people who hide behind free speech to spew hatred and threatening remarks. Too often people engage lawyers who know where the lines are drawn between free speech, hate speech and incitement and skirt on that line. Should #Hitlerwasright be free speech? How about having “easy access to Zionist journalists?” Do we need to wait for someone to be harmed in order to view speech as crossing a line?

On one hand we need to support free speech because of times when we were unable to speak out against evil and violence. On the other hand we must routinely condemn hate speech whenever we hear it-provided of course that our safety is not impacted in said situation. There is no such thing as an innocent bystander in Judaism. Not only must we condemn this hateful rhetoric but we also need to work with allies at creating a kinder, gentler world. Love will always triumph over hate and goodness will over evil.

Am Yisrael Chai!

I had a wonderful 3 years at the University of Wisconsin. Some of the best friends of my life were made there. Sure there were regular anti-Israel protestors but they were almost comical in nature (Jews United for Justice-4 middle aged men with a small protest sign). After seeing what is going on on liberal college campuses today, including at Columbia, a mere 6 blocks from JTS, I am enraged but not surprised. 

What can we do as these protests spread to numerous colleges throughout the United States? One thing is to withhold our funding to any of these universities that are not keeping our Jewish students safe. However I believe we need to do more. We need to call our local politicians and impress upon them the need for safety of our students-it is even better if we call on our non-Jewish allies to make these calls for us. We must also call on sanctions for those who are funding these demonstrations as well as elimination of federal and state funding for those who are allowing them to occur and putting their students in danger.

I want us to hear from our college students, as we did from Carly Klinger of Aggies for Israel on April 7, as to what they go through on a daily basis. I also want us to encourage sanctions on the countries who are funding Middle East programs who are inciting this hatred, most directly Qatar. It is no accident that these students are not only getting violent but also trying to incite Hamas to attack Jewish students on campuses. 

This is a crazy time that keeps getting crazier yet we will get through it with resilience and resolve. Am Yisrael Chai!v

Since October 7, members of my synagogue, Mosaic Law Congregation, have been coming to me grieving and in mourning. Many have lost family members and close friends. The cousin of one of my congregants and good friend of another are kidnapped in Gaza. My family friends are off in Lebanon and Gaza, and I have no idea if I will see them again. Many have told me they no longer feel comfortable wearing their Jewish stars or kippot (skullcaps). We have had the need for increased security measures. It is a terrifying time for my community.

My immediate response was to call other faith leaders with whom I have built relations through interfaith work and ask them to speak at the Mosaic Law Congregation on a Saturday morning. Seven of them did so. One thing which perplexed me was not receiving replies from those in the Muslim community with whom I had worked so hard to build relationships. We broke bread together, I attended their events and they came to my installation. It took me some time to realize that I was not hearing back from them because this is such a polarizing issue-one for which no amount of dialogue will help us come anywhere close to a mutual understanding.

I thank Mayor Steinberg for not giving the Valenzuela-Vang resolution a hearing and for his strong preference, “not to have any formal resolution come before the City Council.” I agree with his statement, “In most cases, I do not believe our City Council should spend council time on foreign policy.” There is so much work to be done locally, and anything we say about a conflict 7500 miles away will only increase the division between us. We don’t need shouting matches, broken windows or property burnt to the ground.
At the same time, we need to come together in a safe space to share our pain, recognize our suffering and see the shared humanity in each other as citizens of Sacramento. As the language of the Santa Cruz resolution mentions, we must “acknowledge the suffering of the Peoples of the Middle East, affirm our shared humanity and wish for peace, call for collaborative efforts supporting peaceful dialogue among all parties involved; and urge our community to develop and participate in activities that foster tolerance, empathy, education, and understanding of people of all backgrounds and religious faiths.”

I view Mayor Steinberg’s statement “Our interfaith communities are not talking to one another. They are too angry, distrustful, and hurt to reach across the divide” as a challenge to come together-NOT to pass a resolution but to find common ground in other areas. I want to give an open invitation based off his message and the Santa Cruz resolution to all faith leaders find common ground and work together to benefit the greater Sacramento community. Currently we are working on a Latino-Jewish Seder with Bishop Soto and the Catholic Diocese, and we are always looking for more opportunities to join forces. Our approach should never be to shrink into my bubble and silo off. We must view this as an opportunity to build bridges.

As a precursor to doing so, however, we must recognize the hurt, pain, loss and suffering that we are feeling. Any attempt to come together that does not acknowledge that is tone deaf. It is time to understand that each of us is grieving and that many are going through trauma. Only through doing that can we respond to the other in a way which will be productive rather than destructive.

          I was visiting family friends in Efrat during my year of study in Israel and they asked me, “Do you want to come back next week for Shabbos Hevron?” “What is that?” I asked. “It’s when thousands of Jews come to Hevron to pray at Maarat HaMachpelah, the Cave of the Patriarchs.” I declined but ever since then have wondered what it would have been like in Hevron that weekend.

          The most recent population statistics I could find, from 2021, are 782,227 Palestinian Arabs living in Hevron.[1] In contrast there are under 1,000 Jews, outside the outskirts of the Old City of Hevron. The larger Jewish population is in Kiryat Arba, an adjacent city, which in 2021 had a population of 7,499 Jews.[2] In the two times I visited Hevron I saw a bench with a picture of Elijah leading the Messiah. My tour guide said, “I like the Hevron settlers because at least they are honest-they are here to bring about Mashiach.”

          There are complicated agreements around the governance of Hevron, the most prominent being the Wye River Memorandum under Prime Minister Netanyahu in the 1990s.[3] We can discuss these another time. My question for us this morning, as we had thousands more going to Hevron to pray at Maarat HaMachpelah, is just because we can do this is it something we should do? I love biblical sites and I found it powerful to pray at the Cave of the Patriarchs. However, that’s different than going with thousands of my closest friends to assert we have a right to storm the city on the Shabbat at which Avraham Avinu purchased Maarat HaMachpelah as a burial place for his beloved Sarah. I am not posing an answer, only raising the question, as we begin our Torah reading this morning.

[1] Hebron – Wikipedia

[2] Kiryat Arba – Wikipedia

[3] Wye River Memorandum – Wikipedia

          Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers, teaches us about the Midah, or type of behavior, given to the people of Sodom. The Mishnah reads: “People fall into four categories, based on their dispositions: the one who says ‘What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours”-this is the disposition of a middling individual; but some say it is the disposition of (the people of) Sodom.[1] In his commentary on this Mishanh, Rabbi Gordon Tucker writes, “The Bible depicts Sodom as a place of violence and depravity, but the rabbinic traditions are much subtler and far more interesting. They posit that the people of Sodom did not ignore the law entirely, but rather followed it so strictly that their behavior resulted in the over-privileging of those who were better off while those who were impoverished were completely shut out legally…Middat Sodom, the disposition of Sodom, thus came to be synonymous for the rabbis with grudging behavior in a case of zeh neheneh v’zeh lo haser[2]-that is, when one can bestow a benefit on someone else without suffering any loss yet still declines to do it.” The example Rabbi Tucker provides is “My refusing to let you have your guests park in my driveway on a weekend when I am out of town; legally I can certainly refuse to do so, but it hardly seems justifiable from a moral standpoint.”[3]

          One of the aspects that makes Israel unique is the principle Kol Yisrael Arevin Zeh LaZeh-all of Israel is responsible for one another.[4] For us it is not enough to say ‘You take care of yourself and I’ll take care of me.’ Rather, if we can help another within reason, not in expense of our self-care, our families and our work, we not only should do so but we must. That is what makes the nation of Israel so unique at a time like this: we see the best in Israelis in their coming together and supporting one another. Israel is demonstrating that it is not Midat Sodom but that each and every Israeli is responsible for one another. May we do the same here.

[1] Pirkei Avot Chapter 5 Mishanh 12.

[2] Babylonian Talmud Bava Kama 20a

[3] Rabbi Gordon Tucker, Pirkei Avot Lev Shalem, Page 252

[4] Babylonian Talmud Shavuot 39b

I’ve been thinking about the Frozen song Into the Unknown where Elsa needs to enter into uncharted territory. That reminds me of three momentous events connected to today. First is Parshat Lech Lecha. Abram and Sarai have to venture from all they have ever known into uncharted territory. All they have to go on is that God, who to the best of our knowledge they have never encountered directly before, will bless them. They need to take a leap of faith and move forward.

Today is also 5 years from a date which will live in infamy, October 28, 2018-the massacre at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. We were all in shock by that brutal atrocities not because it could happen but because it did. The Sacramento Jewish community had lived through the fire-bombing of 3 synagogues 18 years prior yet for a gunman to come into a synagogue and massacre 11 innocent souls was unimaginable. What a horrific event for which the only justice is that the murderer, Robert Bowers, was sentenced to death just under 3 months ago.

          This brings us to the present day, October 28, 2023, 3 weeks removed from the Black Sabbath of October 7 where over 1400 Israelis were murdered. This was also unthinkable: paragliding over the separation barrier, storming into peoples’ homes and kibbutzim, and a murderous rampage at the Tribe of Nova desert rave with peace-loving activists. Now Israel is facing a ground invasion. Like many of you I hope Israel will go in and eradicate Hamas. We do have to realize that it is uncharted territory. Since the Second Gaza War in 2014 numerous tunnels have been added, more homes have been booby-trapped and this time, unlike before, there are over 200 hostages deep in the crevices of the tunnels.

Thousands of years ago God promised our ancestors, the first Hebrews, that if they completely left their way of life and all they had been taught, that God would make of them a great nation. We must have the same faith today. However long it takes, we must stand with Israel as she enters into new territory and we must pray that it be for blessing. It’s an extremely difficult and uncomfortable position to be in to say the least, just as it must have been for our ancestors Abram and Sarai, yet only by entering into the unknown, especially at times which are against our will, can we accomplish what is necessary. Ken Yhi Ratzon, may it be so.

          Parshat Noah directly speaks to what occurred two weeks ago. If there’s  a portion that says דרשני-create for me a Midrash to speak to this situation, this is it.

          Three connections between this parsha and the situation in Israel. First is the line וַתִּמָּלֵ֥א הָאָ֖רֶץ חָמָֽס, the land was full of evil.[1] Naming the evil in our world is the first step in addressing it. Decapitating babies is pure evil. Killing hundreds of peace-loving activists in cold blood is pure evil. Abducting 200 people from their land, many from their homes, by putting a gun to their heads is pure evil. Noah also lived in a world full of evil that had to be wiped out by the Great Flood.

          How do we wipe out the evil in our midst? One way is to try to uproot the Hamas, the evil, from Gaza. Yet how do we do it here in Sacramento, where as the great poet Yehudah HaLevi said, לבי במזרח ואנכי בסוף המערב “My heart is in the east but I am at the edge of the west.”[2] A start in doing so is to follow Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter of Ger in his book Sfat Emet. On this very Parshah he teaches שבת קדש כמו תיבת נח, “the Holy Sabbath is like Noah’s Ark.”[3] By developing a Shabbat practice of leaving the rat race of life, taking a break to focus on what is truly important-our families, our health and our well-being, we will be able to better respond to the current crisis or trauma at hand. If we are glued to CNN or Fox News 24/7 for the latest development, rather than taking things in moderation and focusing on ourselves and our families, in Israel as well as abroad, we will burn out. Israel is in this for the long haul. We will hear tomorrow from our former Rabbi, Yossi Goldman, as well as former congregants who have moved to Israel, promptly at 10:00 am in KOH.

          The final step I learned from my teacher, Rabbi Jordan Bendat-Appell. He taught me that “you need to build your ark” so that when the storm comes you are prepared. One cannot be prepared for every situation-the crisis of two Shabbatot ago which continues to pervade us, bringing fear, uncertainty and trauma, was not something we could have anticipated. What Rabbi Bendat-Appell is talking about in building an ark is that we have to practice building resilience, being able to be present with what is even when it is ugly, repugnant or abhorrent.  The more we can flex that muscle, the stronger the foundations of our ark will be and the better prepared we will be to weather the storms of our lives.

[1] Genesis 6:11

[2] Judah HaLevi, “My Heart is in the East”

[3] Sefat Emet, Noah 3, 1873 (תרל”ג)

          In June 2021 I went to Kfar Aza along with Miami rabbis as part of a solidarity mission to Israel following Operation Guardian of the Walls. We met with Ofer Libstein, mayor of the Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council. We were in the home of Chen, who took us around and who showed us the rockets and grenades that had landed nearby her home. The day ended with a prayer from one of the rabbis saying “We live in a constant state of channeling Yehuda HaLevi לבנו במזרח ואנחנו בסוף המערב-our hearts are in the east and we are at the ends of the west” and concluded with a prayer for peace.

          How poignant HaLevi’s words are today when we see the massacre of 40 babies, many of whom were decapitated, along with women and the elderly-dozens of bodies for the entire world to see. Ofir was killed by gunfire when he was attempting to protect a kibbutz. Chen is alive but shaken to her core-her kibbutz where she took care of children, developed agriculture and lived in community with so many is now in ruins and quarantined off from the world. People’s lives, people’s belongings are spread out across their lawns. They have been blown out of their houses by explosives. The security fence is in pieces, rammed through and enabling Hamas terrorists to enter. Major General Itai Veruv said, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my career, never in 40 years of service; this is something I never imagined.”

          What can we do here in the Diaspora, when we are so far away? One thing is to tell these stories, to show that we will never forget. Another is to attempt contact with Israelis, both those living in the Holy Land and those in our communities, to show that they are constantly on our minds, that our hearts bleed with the wanton spilling of Jewish blood. A third is to be vigilant at this difficult time while concurrently not letting antisemites and those who are anti-Israel scare us into hiding. This is a time to be proud of who we are and to stand proudly with Israel. To the people of Israel and Kfar Aza-I am in the west but my heart is in the east.