RABBI DAVID BAUM
FOUR CUPS: EMBRACING PEOPLEHOOD AND HOPE POSTOCTOBER 7
RABBI DAVID BAUM
Rabbi David Baum
www.rabbidavidbaum.com
© Rabbi David BaumDedicated to my mother, Rachel Esther Baum z’l
She opened her home for Passover seder for hundreds over her life - this is dedicated to her on the first Passover without her. May her memory be a blessing.
FIRST CUP
STANDING FOR PEOPLEHOOD
דיגמ
Storytelling
In each and every generation, a person is obligated to see oneself as if he/she/they left Egypt...”
Accepting the Best International Feature Oscar for Best Foreign Film for Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer said: “Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked, an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims, this dehumanization, how do we resist?”
I imagine this was for several audiences, but I want to ask you, as Jews, how did it make you feel? Now, imagine if you were a Jewish teenager watching the Oscars up late on a
school night. You’ve been targeted in school for being Jewish, and now, you hear two Jews who won an award for a movie about the Holocaust say the words, “We refute our Jewishness.”
Those words stuck out to me: "Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness.” Now, I am a big believer in giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, and I am certain that he did not mean that he renounced his Judaism. As some have pointed out, it seems probable that Glazer meant to say something like “we stand here as men who refute having their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked,” but got flustered at the moment. Glazer was also visibly shaking during his remarks.
Taking their words as how they were likely meant to read, they essentially said that Israel is going too far in this war and doesn’t speak for them as Jews.
But after October 7, it just feels different to hear a Jew saying these words in front of tens of millions of people. It feels scary to see a Jew use the words ‘resist' and ‘Israel' in the same sentence.
The antisemitism we are seeing post, and leading up to, October 7th, isn’t exactly the antisemitism of the past. You might be hired if you are Zionist, but will you have friends? And this is what is happening in schools across the U.S.
Many Jews in America feel, well, alone at this time. And they are being told to choose between Zionism and their place in their social circles.
In a recent article titled, The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending, journalist Franklin Foer tells the story of Stacey Zolt Hara, a Jewish mother of a 13-year daughter in San Francisco. He tells the story of how their lives changed after October 7. After October 7, her son, , began coming home with stories about anti-Semitic jibes hurled in his direction. On his way to math class, a kid walked up to him playing what he called a “Nazi salute song” on his phone. Another said something in German and told him, “I don’t like your people.”
There have been constant ‘walk-outs’ in their schools, and the only kids left in the room are the Jews, living in the shadows. The book of Exodus, a book known for its grand scenes, and story of liberation, has a rather boring ending. The end of the book is essentially a blueprint of the Mishkan, the Tabernacle; the place where God dwelled amongst the Israelites in the camp after they were freed as slaves from Egypt. The last parashah of the book, Pekudei, contains an accounting of every single piece of the Mishkan, but within that accounting, we read again about an essential character in the book of Exodus: Betzalel.
These are the records of the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle of the Pact, which were drawn up at Moses’ bidding—the work of the Levites under the direction of Ithamar son of Aaron the priest.
׃הֶשֹמ־תֶא
Now Bezalel, son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, had made all that the LORD had commanded Moses;
What I found most interesting about Betzalel was that he was just thirteen years old, just a boy, when he was tasked with becoming the builder of the Mishkan. Betzalel could be a guide for us, and our youth, as well.
In the shadows…
The name Betzalel means ‘shadow of God’. It was taken from a story in the Talmud that suggests that Betzalel knew what was in the Mishkan before Moses knew what was there. The rabbis explain that Betzalel knew because he was ‘in the shadow of God’, privy to more information than even the great Moses.
Betzalel came out of the shadow to show his genius to the world, but how many of our kids will hide their inner Jewish souls, to live in the shadow of society? Imagine how he would feel if he was watching as someone renounced their Jewish souls in public?
Something has changed - the world for us will never be the same, and so too when it comes to how we view ourselves and our relationship to Israel.
Not all young Jews are architects, some are cowboys. I want to share the story of a Jewish cowboy, or as they are known in Argentina, a gaucho - named Juan Carlos Sandoval.
Juan Carlos Sandoval was not born in Argentina but in a faraway land: Morocco. His name in Morocco was Hakovo— or Yakov.
He came to Argentina as a boy, and he fell in love with what it meant to be an Argentinian, and for him, to be a Moroccan Jew was in tension with what it meant to be an Argentinian. So he left Buenos Aires, the capital and where the Jewish community was, and went to the country's interior. And he became a gaucho, and a singer, and that is when he changed his name to Juan Carlos Sandoval.
Juan Carlos ended up marrying a Jewish woman. He had a son, who became a rabbi.
His son pledged to become a Jewish warrior, to bring back a vibrant Judaism that he never had. He dedicated his life to bring more Juan Carlos Sandoval’s back to Hakovo - back to their names, their identities - their Jewish souls.
That rabbi had a daughter named Mijal Biton.
Dr. Mijal Biton is a Latina immigrant with a PhD in Sociology from NYU. She is the Rosh Kehilla (communal leader) and co-founder of the Downtown Minyan in NYC. Dr. Biton gave an incredible speech on October 26, 2023 in Washington Square Park, titled “Never is Now”
During that speech, she screamed:
We are the children of Abraham and Sarah, who stood up alone against an entire pagan world. We are
the children of Moses, who stood up to Pharaoh and who taught the world about the meaning of freedom. We are the children of King David, a mighty warrior whose prayers pierced the heavens. We are the children of Queen Esther, who stood alone in the palace, courageous, and brought down Haman. We are the children of the Maccabees, who faced down the might of the Greek Empire with no fear, outnumbered. We are the children of Jewish history, we are the children who know that in every generation, they rise up against us to destroy us.
And we are the children of a new time in Jewish history. We are the children of the Zionist founders who created a Jewish state to make sure every single Jew had a safe place to go. We are the children of American Jewish leaders who fought for the American dream to be available to everyone. We will not be silent; we will not be afraid; we will not stand back. We will not abandon Israel in its hour of need. The blood of one thousand four hundred of our brothers and sisters cruelly murdered are screaming to us from the ground. We will not be silent while more than 200 Israelis are held captive by Hamas. We will not back down while our beloved New York and our universities are taken over by students who are promoting terror and legitimizing it. And one thing to note. We know that we do not stand alone. New York City will not stand for this. America will not stand for this. People of good conscience around the world will not stand for this. Because anybody with any moral clarity knows that terrorist Hamas and their
supporters around the world, that they are not just waging a war against Israel, they are not just waging a war against the Jewish people. They are waging a war against American values, they are waging a war against freedom, they are waging a war against decency, they are waging a war against anyone who loves life and who loves humanity. We are a generation - our generation’s souls are being formed right now on fire. And we will stand up tall, we will stand up loud, we will stand up proud and courageous, and ready to take this on. We will win; we will overcome. Am Yisrael Chai.”
Singled Out By Name…
Earlier in the book of Exodus, we read that Betzalel is singled out by name, and he called the son of his father, and his grandfather. This, too, can teach us lessons.
A medieval Torah commentary titled, Da’at Zekenim, notes that Chur is mentioned in this line to remind us of his sacrifice. According to our tradition, Chur lost his life while attempting to stop Bnai Israel from making the golden calf. Therefore, one of the reasons God chose Betzalel in particular, by name, is because Betzalel would atone for the murder of his grandfather and the sin of the golden calf.
This is such a powerful teaching because it reminds us that we are connected to not only our parents but also our grandparents and all those who came before us. Betzelel
honored his grandfather's sacrifice by becoming the chief architect of the Mishkan, which many commentators believe was built as a result of the sin of the Golden Calf.
This is Peoplehood in a broad sense.
Midrash Tanhuma, likely commenting on the peculiar phrasing that Betzalel was ‘singled out by name’, teaches that a person is known by three names: the name by which that person’s parents call them, the name by which other people call them, and the one they earn for themselves; the most important name is the one they earn for themselves.”
In every generation, a generation of Jews earns a name for themselves. This is our moment, our moment to come out of the shadows and proudly say who we are, and what we stand for.
For many years, we’ve stood up for many oppressed peoples - in our country, the U.S. in Darfur, in many countries in South and Central America, in China and Burma, and yes, in Israel and the disputed territories themselves, including the Palestinians, but when it comes to Israel, we are asked to stand in the shadows.
Zionists are not allowed. And so, there is the choice - to be in the limelight, to be accepted but only if you hide a piece of yourself, or, to be in the shadows because of who you are, who your mother and father were, and who your grandparents were.
As Jews, we have greatly benefited from being citizens of America, soaring to great heights, and we’ve won an award
or two along the way. We created the Jewish sovereign self to have the power to make our own decisions without any judgment. But we had to give up something we cherished for so many years - peoplehood, our connection to each other.
It is time for us to reclaim our names and change Juan Carlos Sandoval to Hakovo—Yaakov. It is time for us to lean back into peoplehood, start standing up for what we believe in, and bring that into the light.
ZACHOR - REMEMBER
This summer, I was having lunch with a rabbi around my age, who was going through the same things. We spoke about what it meant not just to be the sandwich generation in our families but the sandwich generation in Judaism: to understand our teens and the world they live in somewhat, while those of an older generation are usually at a complete loss. We are the only people to have known people who lived in a completely different reality that our young people could never fully understand.
Try explaining to a young person today how you’ve known people, your grandparents (or, in my case, parent), who would go to the bathroom in an outhouse, or that they had to actually go to the library to research things if they were lucky enough to have a library; or the unique smells of horses in the streets.
Conversely, explain to a 90-year-old the difference between Instacart, TikTok, Instagram, and SpaceX.
There’s a saying: Grandchildren and grandparents get along so well because they share a common enemy. It might be because we, the parents of the future generation and the children of the past generation, know each side better because we can understand each other’s worlds better, which can lead to more struggle, as the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt.
For the youth, the world is about hope and opportunitythe future is boundless and universal. We, the ‘sandwich generation’ remember those college days well (or some more so than others)! But, when taken too far, one may say this mindset can border on a dangerous naiveté with terrible consequences.
For those who have lived in this world much longer, the generation ahead, who have seen the disappointments of humanity’s development, they see the world with welldeserved cynicism, a very different view than those first starting. And I think I’m finally beginning to understand it. As American novelist Mark Twain said, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
But, when taken too far, this mindset can lead to cruelty and outdated parochialism.
But I can see both sides. Between particularism and universalism - the past and the future.
This is what Jewish memory is - it is not just a way to remember facts, but also the experience. Jewish memory is about reliving the experiences today in order to have a Jewish future.
Jewish holidays are not about praying and eating…I mean they are, but they are about so much more than just that. Jewish holidays are experiences that cross the boundaries of time. We are trying to recapture the experience that our ancestors felt. On Passover we say, “We B’Chol Dor VaDorEach person is obligated to look at themselves as if they themselves had left Egypt.” We don’t eat matzah because it’s delicious (few Jews think so, but there are matzah fans out there), we eat matzah because we want to experience what it was like to be a slave almost nothing. And our sacred task is to learn from those experiences and apply those lessons to our lives today, while also maintaining these ideas in order to pass them down to a next generation.
This week is a special Shabbat named for memory: Shabbat Zachor.
In our Maftir this week, in Deuteronomy 25:17-19, we read: ׃םִירְצִמִמ
Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—
how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. רֶשֲא ץרָאָב ביִבָסִמ ָיֶבְיֹא־לׇכּ ִמ ְָל ָיֶהל
Therefore, when the LORD your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget.
Amalek was the first nation to attack the Israelites in the wilderness, attacking them from behind so as to target the weak and weary stragglers, the most vulnerable in the camp. Amalek gets a special infamous place in our tradition. We both have to blot out their memory, and never forget what they did to us.
This is why we boo Haman, who was a descent of Amalek, on Purim, to blot out his name. But there’s also a dark side to this commandment: the annihilation of the Amalekite nation, including women and children. Our Sages reinterpreted this commandment, and even in recent history, Rabbi Yitzchak Nissim, the second Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, clarifies that this commandment cannot be extended to any other nation, even to those who perpetrated the horrors of the Holocaust.
It seems I wouldn’t have to say it, but I feel like I must - if the Nazis aren’t included in Amalek, neither can the Palestinians or even Hamas. In other words, this law cannot be used to justify genocide.
Nevertheless, the parallels are striking. A genocidal enemy whose strategy is to target Jewish civilians, including seniors, children, and newborn babies.
Hamas has become experts in building tunnels and terrorism, but they’re also quite adept at gaslighting. How do you get out of being punished for performing genocide upon a people? Charge those same people with genocide.
So sitting here, as an approaching middle-aged person, and seeing young Jews ignore the horrors of Hamas, to side with those who say that resistance by any means necessary, that we do not need a Jewish state, I say, I have seen the face of a Jew who was targeted for genocide, my grandparents of blessed memory. There was no IDF to stop the initial attack; there was no one to stop it. It happened slowly over a few years, but it was quite efficient. And then, the entire European Jewish civilization was gone in six years.
I think about the conversations I’ve had with my grandfather who lived until he was 98, but conversations that my children never had, or will ever have. When I asked him, when he was a much younger man, how did you survive?
And he said, “I survived so that no one would ever forget what happened to us.” It is one thing to read these words or to hear me say them, but I cannot stress how these words,
all of his words, meant something more profound and unique because they came from someone who lived through those experiences.
This is the memory I invoke today, and it’s not mine alone, but all of ours as a Jewish people. Hamas is a genocidal death cult led by hate-filled billionaires living in luxury in Qatar; they are not the freedom fighters fighting for a better tomorrow for all.
My message as someone sitting in the middle is - we cannot be naive. Israel was not created because of the Holocaust, but the Holocaust could never have happened without a Jewish state of Israel.
This is why Israel fights this war.
Remembering Amalek gives us the strength and courage to persevere, but it also leaves us with other side effects.
On a surface level, it seems that we are commanded to remember the trauma of being attacked by Amalek, but remembering trauma isn’t such a good thing for us. There’s a reason why women can’t remember the pain of childbirth all too well, because if they did, likely none of us would be here today. Memory research shows that PTSD is a result of the human brain malfunctioning. We are supposed to forget traumatic events.
In our case, remembering Amalek isn’t about reliving trauma but reliving how it changed us.
In verse 18, the Torah says, “ְרֶדַב ָרק רֶשֲא” - the translation is how he encountered you on the way, but the Midrash (Tanchuma Ki Teitze, Siman 9) sees the word Kar as related to cold. When we left Egypt, we were hot, in other words, filled up with confidence because of the miracles that God did on our behalf. We felt invincible, but then Amalek attacked us when few would. Amalek cooled us down and made us feel powerless and weak. The Etz Chaim Chumash commentary offers another explanation: the real sin of Amalek was that he robbed Bnai Israel of their idealism, teaching them that the world could be an unreliable and dangerous place.
And this is the message for a generation that has seen the worst of humanity against the Jews firsthand: we cannot be made to become cruel by our enemies. There are hints of how Amalek changes the way we think about ourselves. Some commentators say that the line that Amalek did not fear God was directed to Bnai Israel; when we lose faith in God, in a world where we have compassion and empathy for the powerless, we make ourselves vulnerable to Amalek and their worldview. And this is what I fear most of all - the hardening of our hearts.
We cannot close our eyes to the suffering of others, even those who may be our enemies now. This is where the youth can teach us about how the future could be different than the past, that we are not destined to live out the same scripts over and over. They can challenge us to be selfreflective, to challenge us by saying we are not guilty of the suffering of the Palestinians, but are we responsible for
alleviating the suffering of the innocents, even if you think there are few innocents?
Being in the middle of it all gives us an interesting perspective and valuable lessons to teach the world.
אָצָי אוה ולִאְכ ומְצַע־תֶא תוארִל םדָא בָיַח רודָו רוד־לָכְב םִירְצִמִמ...
In each and every generation, a person is obligated to see oneself as though he/she/they left Egypt...
Rabbi Neil Gillman explained why we include the extraneous Hebrew word kill,"as though." “Every person must see him- or herself "as though” implies that I must learn to see myself "as though" I was there, by virtue of my communal memory. Memory is what knits together the generations; memory creates the possibility of continuity and history. Memory creates community.”
This is what Jewish memory is—not just a way to remember facts but to relieve experiences today to have a Jewish future tomorrow together.
SECOND CUP
TWO VOICES, ONE TABLE: BALANCING EMPATHY AND VIGILANCE AT OUR PASSOVER SEDER
Passover Haggadah:
This is the bread of destitution that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Anyone who is famished should come and eat, anyone who is in need should come and partake of the Pesach sacrifice. Now we are here, next year we will be in the land of Israel; this year we are slaves, next year we will be free people.
Commentary:
Pesach Jew
THIS IS THE BREAD OF OPPRESSION: This is a strange invitation: “This is the bread of oppression our fathers ate in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come in and eat.”
What hospitality is it to offer the hungry the taste of suffering? In fact, though, this is a profound insight into the nature of slavery and freedom. As noted, matza represents two things: it is the food of slaves, and also the bread eaten by the Israelites as they left Egypt in liberty. What transforms the bread of oppression into the bread of freedom is the willingness to share it with others.
Primo Levi survived Auschwitz. In his book, If This Is a Man, he describes his experiences there. According to Levi, the worst time of all was when the Nazis left in January 1945, fearing the Russian advance. All prisoners who could walk were taken on brutal death marches. The only people left in the camp were those too ill to move. For ten days they were left alone with only scraps of food and fuel. Levi describes how he worked to light a fire and bring some warmth to his fellow prisoners, many of them dying. He then writes:
When the broken window was repaired and the stove began to spread its heat, something seemed to relax in everyone, and at that moment Towarowski (a Franco-Pole of twentythree, typhus) proposed to the others that each of them offer a slice of bread to us three who had been working. And so it was agreed.
Only a day before a similar event would have been inconceivable. The law of the Lager [concentration camps] said: eat your own bread, and if you can, that of your neighbor, and left no room for gratitude. It really meant that the law of the Lager was dead.
It was the first human gesture that occurred among us. I believe that that moment can be dated as the beginning of 22
the change by which we who had not died slowly changed from Haftlinge [prisoners] to men again.
Sharing food is the first act through which slaves become free human beings. One who fears tomorrow does not offer his bread to others. But one who is willing to divide his food with a stranger has already shown himself capable of fellowship and faith, the two things from which hope is born. That is why we begin the seder by inviting others to join us. Bread shared is no longer the bread of oppression. Reaching out to others, giving help to the needy and companionship to those who are alone, we bring freedom into the world, and with freedom, God.
- Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksPurim Jew
Although they may initially seem redundant, the two invitations we issue in HaLakhma Anya - “Let all who are hungry, kol dikhfin, enter and eat” and “Let all who are in need, kol ditzrikh, come and celebrate the Passover” - in reality are not. Kol Ditzrikh refers to one who is alone, who has a lot of Matza and wine but no home or family. There are indeed many ways to be included among the kol ditzrikh. The invitation to “all who are in need” is not yetei ve-yeikhol, “to eat with us;” rather, it is to spend the Pesach with us, yeitei ve-yifsakh, “to celebrate with us.” It is an invitation addressed to unfortunate and lonely people. They might be millionaires; it is completely irrelevant. Whoever is in need should should come and celebrate.
Ha Lahkama Anya is the renewal of a pledge of solidarity
among the Jewish people – solidarity between individual and individual, and between the individual and the Jewish community as a whole. It is a proclamation that we are one people, and that we are ready to help one other. Pesach night is a time of sharing; if the sense of solidarity, responsibility, unity, and readiness to share and to participate are not manifested and demonstrated, the whole Seder becomes meaningless.
-Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik – leading 20th-century Talmudist and philosopher.
ARE YOU A PURIM JEW OR A PESACH JEW?
What could that possibly mean?!? Are there some Jews who prefer Matzah over Hamentashen?!?
I did not coin this phrase; I learned it from Yossi Klein HaLevi, a Jewish thought leader and Hartman Institute Fellow.
Passover Jews are motivated by empathy with the oppressed; Purim Jews are motivated by alertness to threat.
He writes:
“Jewish history speaks to our generation in the voice of two biblical commands to remember. The first voice commands us to remember that we were strangers in the land of Egypt, and the message of that command is: Don’t be brutal. The second voice commands us to remember how the tribe of Amalek attacked us without provocation while we were wandering in the desert, and the message of that command is: Don’t be naive. The first command is the voice of Passover, of liberation; the second is the voice of Purim, commemorating our victory over the genocidal threat of Haman, a descendant of Amalek. “Passover Jews” are motivated by empathy with the oppressed; “Purim Jews” are motivated by alertness to threat.”1
The question is, which Jew are you now, and which one should you be? Which Jew do we need to be at this moment in the calendar, between the two holidays of Purim and Pesach?
Our tradition believes in multiple new years. In Mishnah Rosh Hashanah, we learn that four days in the year serve as the New Year, each for a different purpose: The first one mentioned is the first of Nisan.
The New Year began on Monday night with Rosh Chodesh Nisan. But what happens if you forget to celebrate New Year’s, as I’m sure most of you forgot to? Usually, we come
https://www.hartman.org.il/pesach-jews-v-purim-jews-the- 1 agony-of-our-dilemma/
up with New Year’s resolutions before the day, and then we commit ourselves on day one, but this year, we got an extension, and we get the start on the 14th of Nisan.
What type of Jew do you want to be in this coming year: the Purim Jew or the Pesach Jew? Here is what Yossi Klein HaLevi would say if he were here today: both.
He writes, ”Both are essential; one without the other creates an unbalanced Jewish personality, a distortion of Jewish history and values.”
In other words, think about it this way - let’s say you have a choice: sit alone or sit with someone else whose views are vastly different and which could upset you. Which table would you choose to sit at?
So, you chose to sit alone. Here’s the catch: You have another choice: sit alone for the rest of your life or sit with that other person. Which would you choose?
Imagine a lifetime of just speaking to yourself, of a Seder for one, year after year.
He added that our task was to find the middle ground so we could sit at the same table.
As we think about our Seders, many of us have subjects we do not discuss. We actually review our list at the beginning of every Seder. Every year, the list gets longer.
Alas, the Seder is the place to have profound conversation. The Seder was the Jewish version of the symposium. The ritual of sacrificing the Pascal lamb and eating it was replaced with the act of talking about the lamb and eating together. We read in the Hagaddah, which comes from the word L’hagid, to tell:
Even if we were all wise people, geniuses in the world, and Torah, it would still be a mitzvah, a sacred commandment, for us to tell the story of our ancestor's rescue from Egypt.
Rabban Gamliel went further when he said that whoever does not discuss the Pascal offering, Pesach, matzah, and maror, at the Seder has not fulfilled his obligation.
It was also a time to discuss complex ideas, tell the stories of our ancestors, and, yeah, have a lot of fun. Children were encouraged to ask questions, which were and are essential to the Seder ritual.
So why do we have a do not discuss list?!?
The answer isn’t for us; it’s for you, our esteemed guest. The list is there to protect you…from yourself and your tongue. Not surprisingly, Judaism has a lot of advice for how we use our words.
In the weeks leading up to Passover, we read from two very mysterious, and for many, problematic, parshiot in the Torah - Tazria and Metzorah. In these readings, we learn about the person afflicted by tza’arat. Some translate it as leprosy, but it is a scaly skin affliction.
The Torah does not explain why the person is afflicted with tzara’at (the skin affliction) , but the Rabbis and commentators say that the metzorah, the person with this skin affliction, is a person who has spoken with an evil tongue (gossip/slander), ‘motzi shem rah’. This must dwell outside the camp until his tzara’at (the skin affliction) is cured – he is also utterly alone.
But they are alone in other ways as well—when others hear what they say about them, they are shunned. When you hear this person speaking ill, the listener must be thinking, ' If they are talking bad about this person, what do they say behind my back?’ The evil tongue can break families and communities apart, causing people to be alone and to dine alone.
The evidence of lashon harah as the cause of tzara’at (the skin affliction) comes from the story of Miriam. In Numbers 12:1, Miriam and Aaron speak against Moshe for taking a Cushite woman, but they also say, “Has the Lord only spoken through Moshe? Hasn’t He also spoken through us?” We see here that Moshe’s authority is challenged, and to set it up, they are trying to defame Moshe with this claim. Miriam is punished with tzara’at (the skin affliction) and has to be removed from the camp for seven days. God singles her out and punishes her not only with tzara’at (the skin affliction) but also with solitary confinement and loneliness. Is this two-fold punishment, both physical and psychological, fair?
Now imagine that she did this at the Seder table. I doubt Moses’s wife Tzipporah would have invited Miriam back for the Seder next year. And where would Miriam go for Seder? Would she not be alone?
Words in Judaism hold a special significance. In the creation story, God doesn’t use God’s hands or tools to create the world; rather, God speaks the world into existence with words.
Have you ever heard the term, Abracadabra? It is likely an Aramaic word, one of our holy languages. The literal translation of the term is: ‘I create as I speak’. As human beings are created Betzelem Elohim, in God’s image, therefore we, too, create as we speak.
Just as God needed boundaries to create the world, we need boundaries to create our world. There have to be places we cannot go, that we will not go for the sake of our relationships and ourselves. Those boundaries are often subjective, and each person and family must navigate them carefully.
And yet, if every place is a no-go zone, we are at a minefield, not a Seder table.
And, let’s face it, the issue this year is Israel. How can we not talk about Israel and the Palestinians and the war in Gaza? How can we not share the story of our vision for the Promised Land that our ancestors so longed for millennia?
The sacred conversation at the Seder can serve as a microcosm of the larger Jewish experience. To embrace depth in the form of nuance, of finding the balance between the Purim Jew, ever vigilant against threats, acutely aware of the dangers that surround us, and the Pesach Jew, driven by empathy for the oppressed, striving to break the chains of injustice.
In truth, we are called to be both. Just as a bird cannot fly with only one wing, our Jewish identity also requires a balance between these two perspectives.
To be solely a Purim Jew risks becoming insensitive to the suffering of others, while to be solely a Pesach Jew risks becoming naive to the dangers that persist in the world.
Our task, then, is to find the middle ground and navigate our reality's complexities with empathy and vigilance. This means engaging in difficult conversations, even when they challenge or make us uncomfortable.
At the Seder table, where the story of our liberation is retold year after year, we are reminded of the power of words. Just as words can build bridges, they can also erect barriers. The prohibition against lashon harah, evil speech, teaches us the profound impact our words can have on others and on ourselves because we create worlds and realities through our words.
As we gather around the Seder table, let us embrace the tradition of dialogue and debate. Let us make room for the difficult questions, listening with open hearts and minds. It is
through this exchange of ideas that we truly fulfill the commandment to remember and honor the legacy of our ancestors.
In the coming year, may we strive to be both Purim Jews and Pesach Jews, holding fast to the values of empathy and vigilance as we continue on our journey toward freedom and redemption.
THIRD CUP
NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM
ZIONISM 3.0: RECLAIMING ZIONISM
SHABBAT PARAH/TZAV
I want you to think about the various definitions of Zionism and who could be a Zionist?
‘Insiders’, those of us who have a more historical perspective, know that there are various different types of Zionism, a whole spectrum from extreme left to extreme right., but it’s general definition is the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. There is a lot of
The problem is, what happens when we let others define Zionism?
In our case, it is the people on the right and the left. Those who say that Zionism = racism. Zionism is Jewish fascism. Zionism is settler-colonialism.
UN resolution 3379 defined Zionism as a form of racism & a threat to world peace. In an increasing number of places, Zionism has become a bad word.
So where do we go from here?
I wanted to take a step back and talk about Zionism, a brief history, by using my life as an example.
These are the experiences of Israel that someone my age has experienced. From the tumultuous times of the Second Lebanon War in 1982, described as Israel’s Vietnam, and the First Intifada, when the right ceded power to the left and the nation embarked on a hopeful journey towards peace, led by figures like Rabin, Perez, Clinton, and Arafat through the Oslo Accords. Optimism was shattered by the assassination of Rabin by a Jewish extremist, the outbreak of the Second Intifada led by Palestinian terrorists, marked by waves of suicide bombings, leading to a period of separation, terrorism, the disengagement with Gaza followed by rocket attacks and periodic conflicts with Hamas culminating with the October 7th and the Israel-Gaza War.
To many who lived through these experiences, Israel is Goliath, and it gets even worse if you were born after Oslo. In this scenario, Hamas is David, and Israel is Goliath. That’s the narrative of so many in this new generation.
But our hope is not yet lost. It is up to us to Reclaim Zionism - to think about what happens after the war, to prepare for Zionism 3.0 because just as Zionism and Israel is going to
change and be a different country after October 7, so too will American Jewry, whether we like it or not.
To do so, we must embrace tension.
I want to highlight one sacrifice from this week’s parashahthe Zevah Shelamim, which I don’t want to translate at this moment because the commentators found it very difficult.
The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Bible, gives it three different terms, and the rabbis give it even more. In essence, it means that which relates to peace or a sacred gift of greeting.
In our tradition used in different contexts, it could mean, that the gift was offered ‘wholeheartedly’, a reaffirmation of the covenant between God and Bnai Israel. Midrash HaGadol says, “she Ha Kol Shelemim Bo - for all are complete in it - everyone shared its it - priests, donors, and God. In this case, it is a shared offering.
And this all sounds beautiful.
But…even though all of the aforementioned interpretations are possible, as Dr. Baruch Levine pointed out in the JPS critical commentary: “There is now comparative evidence to suggest that the term shelamim originally meant "tribute, gift of greeting." In a Ugaritic epic, Keret, the king of a besieged city, offered shalamüma to the commander of the attacking forces in an effort to induce him to withdraw the siege.”
In other words, as Yitzhak Rabin famously said: “You don't make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.” This offering has something ‘baked in’ pun intended.
The Zevach Shelamim consisted of both leavened and unleavened bread - Matzah and leavened cakes. But there is something interesting - even though they seem not to resemble each other at all, both types of bread that are used in the sacrifice are made from the same dough (Mishnah Menachot 5:1). The only difference between the two is one is allowed to rise, while the other is not.
So which one is bread? Remember our first question - what is Zionism? Who is a Zionist?
A legal dispute over control of a somewhat inconsequential Zionist organization in Toronto has exposed a much larger battle over who gets to be called pro-Israel in Canada today. From a recent article titled, “Who Is a Zionist? What Does 'pro-Israel' Mean? A Canadian Court Has Been Asked to Decide”, we read:
“Most Jewish Canadians born this century probably never heard of the Toronto Zionist Council – an organization founded 115 years ago, long before the establishment of the State of Israel. During its heyday, though, it served as the main hub for all the major Zionist organizations and institutions operating in this key center for Canadian-Jewish life.
With barely a handful of members nowadays, the council might have faded into total obscurity were it not for a recent lawsuit filed by a prominent member of the local Jewish community whose request to join its board was rejected, he says, on the grounds that he supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The board ruled that an individual who expresses unconditional support for the establishment of a Palestinian state cannot be deemed a Zionist and, therefore, does not qualify for membership.
David Matlow, a Toronto attorney known for his large collection of Theodor Herzl memorabilia, filed suit against the board members in the Ontario Superior Court, demanding their ouster for allegedly betraying the original mission of the council – which was to serve as the local umbrella group for Zionist organizations and movements active across the political and religious spectrum.
There is another plaintiff in the case: representatives from Camp Shalom, a Young Judaea camp owned by the Toronto Zionist Council. In short, they accuse the Council of using all the camp's profits to fund its programs while leaving the camp in disrepair and disarray. The camp does not hold the same values as the organization.
This is us in a nutshell - we are trying to define which one is Zionism without acknowledging that both are actually Zionism, and in order to have a future, represented by the summer camp, because without a summer camp, there are
no kids hence no future; they have to exist together, just as Matzah and Hametz existed together on the alter.
Remember what Rabin said, “You don't make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.” Each side looks at the other as not bread, but in the end, we’re all from the same wheat.
Zionism 3.0 is the need to find ourselves on the Zionist spectrum - from the most basic and primal needs, the right to live as Jews in our homeland in safety, to have one place where we can escape and not be refugees, to end the crazy cycle of being the Jew in the world; or the self-actualized Zionism is an infinite ideal, where everyone is equal - and all conflicts are solved, where we will change the entire world— Maybe we have to stop telling each other what kind of Zionists to be, but to tell us that we have to recognize that we are all Zionists in our own ways.
The Israel conversation, even amongst those who agree on 99% of things regarding Israel, can lead to tense moments. One would think that I would say we need to avoid tense moments, and maybe now, we do, but after the war, we can’t go back to the way things were.
All of us need to grow a thicker skin when it comes to how we listen to each other regarding Israel.
If we truly believe that they are in the tent, we have to give the benefit of the doubt - maybe they experienced something that I never had that shaped that way they think. Maybe I can learn from that - either way.
Dr. Rachel Fish, an expert in combatting antisemitism and founder of the think tank, Boundless who presented at the Zionsim: A New Conversation conference, taught: “Zionism 3.0 cannot be based on crises, lived in trying to discover safe spaces, but our Zionism must be cultivated in brave spaces…We Americans love to resolve things with a bow on top, but in order to reclaim Zionism, we must make the conversation messy.”
And messy is the only way to reclaim Zionism when we, in fact, don’t live in the home that we are speaking about.
But reclaiming Zionism does mean speaking about our other home, even if it's challenging, even if it seems like you’re mixing oil and water together. The stakes are higher than you think. I want to end by sharing a story of how Israel came to be.
Back in the thirties, the Labor Party in Israel was struggling over whether to be in favor of partitioning the land of Israel or not. If there was a partition, there would be a Jewish state, but on the other hand, if there was a partition, they would have to give up some of the most precious and sacred parts of the land of Israel. And so many people in the Labor Party were torn. Should they be in favor of partition, because it might lead to peace? And because it might enable them to save some of the Jews of Europe, who had nowhere else to go? Or should they be against partition because it meant surrendering part of the land of Israel forever, meaning the land would never be whole?
Ben Gurion himself was divided on this question. And so he went to Yosef Tabenkin, who was one of the elder statesmen of the Labor Party, and who had always been his mentor, and he asked him how he should vote.
Tabenkin said: Give me twenty-four hours, and I will tell you what I think you should do because, before I give you my advice, I need to consult with two people.
Tabenkin came back the next day and said: You should vote for partition.
Ben Gurion thanked him for his advice, and then he said: Would you mind telling me who were the two people whom you consulted before you made your decision?
Tebenkin said: I asked my grandfather, who is no longer alive, and I asked my grandchildren who are not yet born. And only after I thought about what they would say, and about what would be best in their eyes, did I make my decision.”
And he chose partition, because of the people, the Jews that day, the Jews in the past, and the Jews of the future.
In a recent Brett Stephens interview with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, he said.
“In 50 years, people should say that October 7th was the worst day in our country’s history, and it was also the day that our country was saved.”
Perhaps October 7 was the day when we were remade as Jewish Americans - may the decisions we make today on what Zionism is and who is a Zionist, shape our collective future, and ensure that we have a bright future.
ורואְל הרֵהְמ ונָלֻכ הֶכְזִנְו ריִאָת ןויִצ לַע שדָח רוא.
Cause a new light to illumine Zion. May we all soon share a portion of its radiance.
