Shabbat Weekly Dvar Torah

This past Tuesday was my Hebrew birthday, the 20th of Nissan, which I have always remembered for two reasons. First, because it is the sixth day of Pesach, the day our tradition teaches that the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. And second, because growing up it meant suffering through those truly terrible dry potato starch Passover birthday cakes. Thank God for celiacs and gluten-free trends; Passover desserts have gotten much better. But the sixth day of Pesach has come to mean something deeper to me as well. It is the moment when the Israelites stand trapped between the sea ahead and the Egyptian army behind them. After all the miracles and the hasty escape, they are suddenly out of options. I imagine the desperation they must have felt, and I find myself returning to the line from Warsan Shire’s haunting poem, Home: “no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.”

Early this week, terrorists set fire to four Hatzalah ambulances in London. Hatzalah – the volunteer Jewish emergency service built on the principle that when someone is dying, minutes matter. I made the mistake of spending too long on X reading reactions. Tweet after tweet questioned why Jews should have their own ambulance service at all. The Jewish community’s response was swift: these ambulances are funded by Jews and run by Jewish volunteers, but they serve everyone. I couldn’t stop thinking about that response. Not because it was wrong – I am genuinely proud of what Hatzalah does. But because of what it assumed: that Jewish particularity requires a universal alibi. Would arson be any more justified if these ambulances served Jews? Would anyone demand this of a Black mutual aid society? A church food pantry? An Asian community health clinic?

In Israel today, there are sounds we have come to know all too well — the sharp, jarring alerts, followed by the rising and falling wail of sirens that send us rushing to safe rooms and bomb shelters. These sounds rupture the rhythm of daily life, filling the air with urgency, fear, and vulnerability. They remind us, again and again, that the danger is real, that our security is not to be taken for granted, and that we are still engaged in the struggle for continued existence in our land. Against this backdrop, Parashat Vayikra introduces us to a radically different kind of sound…

I used to think that Parashat Vayakhel had “interesting material” and “boring material” in it. The “interesting material” is Moshe / Moses bringing the Israelites together and telling them to make an offering to G!D based upon how their heart is moved to do so. Following that, Moshe / Moses continues by asking those who are skilled to come and make all the objects that G!D has commanded regarding the Mishkan / Tabernacle, the place where the Divine Presence will dwell. So the whole community of Israelites brings and makes objects for the Mishkan / Tabernacle — blue, purple and crimson yarns or tanned dolphin skins or gifts of copper or spun goat’s hair…

Parshat Ki Tisa picks up with Moshe still meeting with HaShem on Har Sinai. God instills Moshe with instructions for taking censuses, anointing priests, and keeping Shabbat. After doing all this, HaShem gives him the tablets with the Ten Commandments. Down on the ground, though, a jarringly different sequence of events takes place (Shemot 32:1-4). We know this as the sin of the eigel hazahav, or the golden calf. Moshe famously comes down and smashes the tablets, after which HaShem commands him to carve new ones. One way to make sense of this off-putting episode is to see the golden calf incident as an instance of the worship of gold, the worship of money.

On Wednesday, February 12th, as part of the SAGES in the 305 public lecture series sponsored In loving memory of Charles Ganz z”l, Temple Judea was buzzing with energy as more than 150 people gathered to hear Rabbi Ethan Tucker, President and Rosh Yeshiva of the Hadar Institute. Rabbi Tucker’s topic? A deceptively simple question: What is a Jew? “A Jew is someone with an identity crisis,” he jokingly began. With characteristic clarity and depth, Rabbi Tucker showed that this “identity crisis” is not a modern invention — it is built into Jewish history itself.

If you are lucky, you will live to see your parents begin to need you in the way you once needed them. You will feel it most in the small things: lifting a cup of water to your motherʼs lips; adjusting the light your father can sleep. Laying a hand on his forehead. And you will be desperately sad, but also lucky, because each time you do these things, you will remember that they once, so many times, did them for you. And you will know that you were, and are, loved. God, too, is a parent. But Godʼs biggest tragedy, if one can say such a thing, is that God will never grow weak or old. God will never need us to do for Him what He once did for us.

This week’s parsha, Mishpatim, is one of the longest and most detailed portions in the Torah. After the dramatic moment of Mount Sinai - thunder, lightning, and the giving of the Ten Commandments - the Torah shifts gears completely. Parshat Mishpatim is filled with laws about everyday situations: Borrowing and returning objects, Accidentally causing harm, Interpersonal responsibility, How people are expected to treat one another when things go wrong. There’s no drama. No miracles. Just regular life. And that shift is intentional. Right after revelation, the Torah teaches us that holiness doesn’t stay on the mountain.