Author: admin

“Then Jacob was greatly afraid and was greatly distressed” (Genesis 32:8).

Who cannot relate to that these days? A deeply divided nation; the threat of climate change; crisis at our southern border; the erosion of safety on subway platforms, public parks, kosher markets. Fear and distress hover above us with an eerie ominousness that can be destabilizing or paralyzing. We have a propensity to flee, to escape—into our work, into our lives, into our phones and devices. Or, perhaps we choose to confront and do battle.

In this week’s Torah portion, the Biblical Jacob readies himself to see his brother Esau, whom years earlier he had cheated out of their father’s birthright and blessing for the first-born son. These twin brothers, born into the world seconds apart of the same mother, are separated by a lifetime of choices which created a river of muddied waters between them.

But now, in the desert wilderness, each on his journey as a man, a husband, a father, they are to confront one another again as brothers. Years of silence and anger and disappointment, a yawning canyon between them.

“Then Jacob was greatly afraid and was greatly distressed.” He didn’t know if he was going to wage war with Esau and his tribes or if he was going to embrace, reconcile, and love.
“Rabbi Judah bar Rabbi Ilai asked, ‘Are not fear and distress identical? The meaning however is that he was afraid lest he be slain ‘and was distressed’ lest he should slay. For he thought, If Esau proves stronger than I, he might slay me, and if I prove stronger than he, I might slay him.’”

Let us not be seduced into thinking that this is a zero-sum game. It is not “kill or be killed.” Rather, Torah and its interpreters are demanding of us an exercise in conscience, a test, not unlike those given to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham, to scour his heart, mind and soul for the mettle of his being. He faces not only the possibility of his own death but equally grave, the reality that he has it in his hands to take another’s life.“

And now it’s night
But I’ve seen our silhouette fade
And weaken to grey
We used to be sharp against the light
Our empathy weaponized
Our history bleaching out during the day.
What you’re after, what you’re after
Erasure. Erasure.”

So sings Mac McCaughan in Superchunk’s most recent album, What a Time to Be Alive, a phrase I have heard uttered as often as “hello” and “goodbye” these days. What a time to be alive. For it is not only the radical digitization of the human experience that eases into our DNA the facility of deletion or erasure; it’s the fear and distress running roughshod over the ineffable, the ephemeral, the elusive but no less real qualities of what makes us human. “We used to be sharp against the light,” but now we are lost in the uniform glow of phones oozing blue light to faces lost in thought and distance from one neighbor to another.

Or, we are inflamed by the burning blue fires of hate, refugee parents having to make fateful and irreversible decisions about children at Central American and Mexican borders while life and death, freedom and prison, bear down. We are vigilant on subway platforms with broken hearts for Shamari Anderson; in public parks near pristine campus walkways in mourning for Tessa Majors; we practice lockdowns in our children’s schools and we are vulnerable in a kosher market, where we shop to feed our families, to sustain and live our lives.

Did you read about Douglas Miguel Rodriguez? This noble Ecuadorian immigrant to Jersey City, who worked closely with JC Kosher Market owner Leah Mindel Ferencz and was killed alongside Ferencz and Moshe Deutsch, a Brooklyn rabbinical student. Rodriguez died while actually saving another’s life. According to the Daily News, as Moshe Deutsch lay dying, Rodriguez moved Deutsch’s cousin Chaim toward the backdoor of the market, held it open so Chaim could escape, and in the melee, Rodriguez was shot and killed. “Is there any more proof that things happen for a reason?” was the way Leah Ferencz’s brother-in-law responded and I have been mulling his words all week.

What is the reason we give for why these heinous events happen? What is the meaning we create from the unerasable mark they leave on our lives?

Douglas Miguel Rodriguez stared death in the face and chose, in the moment, to save a life. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life, if you and your offspring would live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Neither great fear nor great distress but life, the choice of life: this is the reason, the indelible mark, the seal of fate and meaning of what it means, every day, to choose.

The Jewish philosopher Emanuel Levinas once said that the most important commandment, the first law of ethics for the human project is God’s commandment “thou shalt not kill.” Levinas, a Holocaust survivor, believed that since God created the human being in the Divine Image, then to look into another person’s eyes was to see the face of God and that the commandment not to kill would forever be rooted in the radical notion that to kill another is to kill God. And I believe this ethic is foundational to understanding Jacob’s moment, hours before confronting his brother for the first time in years. He is saddled with fear and distress; he is laden with guilt and gifts of appeasement. He has created every imaginable protection for his family at the border between the past and the future so that he and his brother may finally settle matters and determine a way forward. Fear and distress, however, presumes a false dichotomy. For when Jacob and Esau meet, a third path emerged. “Esau ran to greet him. He embraced him, and falling on his neck, he kissed him, and they wept” (Genesis 33:4).

Who did they see at that moment? Each other? Themselves? Their parents? The Face of God?

This is our test, to rise above our fear and distress and insist upon seeing ourselves in others and others in ourselves; choosing life, not death; living not with despair but with hope.

Rabbi Akiva said that hope, tikvah, was like the waters of the mikvah: it allows us to renew and begin again.

Division is a false dichotomy. It’s more life and hope that we need to always be choosing, one moment at a time.

It’s easy to miss the challenges that we don’t have to face. I don’t need elevators to access the train or ramps to access buildings. I don’t worry about my card being declined when I buy groceries for my family.

Our ability to do things easily affects how we express empathy for other people. Sometimes it’s as simple as ignoring a parent struggling to bring their stroller down the subway stairs, and other times our actions contribute to systemic oppression.

Though we might not want to admit it, it’s easy to act callously toward others, ignoring their needs and feelings and focusing on our own. This is especially true in New York City, where the proximity to others makes it necessary to put up our boundaries. But these protections can prevent us from showing empathy. When I put on my headphones and imagine I’m alone on the crowded subway home, it makes my commute pleasant but I don’t notice the person that actually needs my seat or hear the woman being casually harassed further down the car.

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayeshev, we see these same character flaws reflected in Joseph. He is the master of selfishness, and can’t seem to understand how his actions affect other people. Within his family, Joseph’s elevated status colors his interactions with others. His attractiveness comes from his resemblance to his mother and ultimately cements his status as the revered son. Jacob, lost in his naive favoritism, consistently demonstrates his love for Joseph: he requires less manual labor from him, he positions Joseph as a spy over his siblings, and he gives Joseph an ornate coat. When we are first introduced to Joseph, he speaks unfavorably about his siblings. He gives his father negative reports, and he shares dreams of his brothers’ subservience to him, oblivious to his already grossly elevated position in the family. To have a younger brother achieve this level of status is outrageous; for him to anticipate ruling over the entire family, their father included, is simply absurd. He is unable to relate to his brothers because he is unaware of their differences and the privilege afforded to him by both G-d and Jacob.

Then we are blinded by our own elevated status, we enable dysfunction in our lives and in our relationships. But this is human nature. The book of Genesis is the story of a human family. It has not been passed down as a model for good behavior. It is the story of our ancestors who have begotten a great nation, but are unapologetically human and tragically flawed. Joseph’s issues are all too familiar. We see them reflected in ourselves and in the systems that perpetuate oppression. This is what makes us feel so connected to the patriarchs and matriarchs: they are our reflection, passed down from generation to generation.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a Jewish intellectual associated with the renewal movement, imagines the cyclical nature of Jewish life as a spiral. We repeat the same liturgical calendar each year in order to grow. Every celebration, every candle lit on Shabbat is more enlightened than the last. Yet somehow, thousands of years later, we are still able to see ourselves in the texts. Sometimes this may feel like we are stuck in a loop. We can always find a modern equivalent to biblical carnage, the family dysfunction, the cloud of antisemitism. We always feel a little bit like a Joseph, lacking empathy and overflowing with hubris.

But perhaps Joseph’s flaws can give us comfort. The dysfunctional heroes that we see ourselves in are capable of love and reconciliation. If we reflect the negative qualities of Joseph, we should also reflect his capability for greatness and love because these are also within reach. Humanity, demonstrated by the stories we have the opportunity to reflect on each week, is a mix of failure and deliverance. We should relish in this harsh look in the mirror, because where we see tragedy there is also possibility. Although we should confront our privilege and lack of empathy, we’ve been given the tools to interpret and to strive for more. Each time we relate to a Torah portion, we are both blessed and forced to cyclically examine our humanity.

Shabbat Shalom,
Chelsea Probus,
Development Associate

When I was a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, my professional goals hovered somewhere around journalist or public servant. I spent a semester writing at the Daily Cardinal, another semester serving as a student senator, and two years working in the State Capitol for then Wisconsin State Senator Lynn Adelman, now a federal judge. Adelman’s family ran Milwaukee’s most successful dry-cleaning business, and by the time I was a kid, Adelman Dry Cleaning stores were all over Milwaukee and the Adelman name was synonymous with Jewish and broader communal philanthropic endeavors. Lynn Adelman sat across the aisle from Russell Feingold, a Rhodes Scholar and future United States Senator whose sister Deena Feingold had the distinction of being the state’s first female rabbi.

It was thrilling to learn at their feet and watch the way they wrote, spoke, cajoled and campaigned for trying to do the right thing. As a young searching Jew at the time, I was also interested in their Jewish roots, their motivations for why they did what they did and if something about their Jewishness compelled them in the late 20th century to choose public service over Jewish communal service. My own great-grandfather came to Milwaukee from Minsk and supported his family by purveying a junk business into a burlap bag factory. In the Jewish ghetto of Milwaukee he founded a Jewish orphanage, was president of his Orthodox synagogue, and raised funds for the Zionist project in British Mandate Palestine “from the largest number of the poorest residents” of his area of the city, according to obituaries that appeared when he died.

But this lion of the Jewish community in fin de siecle Milwaukee had sons who became doctors and a daughter who married a doctor. His grandchildren went into business. And as I looked across the landscape of my own friendships in high school and college, while my world was mostly Jewish, very few of my friends had any interest in Jewish service per se. They were doing, to a large extent, what American Jewish communities had meant for them to do: go to Hebrew school; celebrate B’nai Mitzvah; get into the best college they could, followed by a successful career; and be the best American citizens they could be.

For better or worse, therefore, what arguably defined what it meant to be a Jew in America was support for Israel and a commitment to remember the Holocaust by fighting anti-Semitism wherever it reared its head on the social and political landscape. By the 1980s, synagogue affiliation was already waning as a principal marker of Jewishness. Assimilation and the “threat” of intermarriage became the critical priorities of American Jewish leadership. A friend’s mother even went so far as to tell me at one point that intermarriage was “another Holocaust.” How fun to explain to her that though my mother wasn’t born Jewish, I was thinking of becoming a rabbi!

In an odd way, what began to define Jewishness was a kind of negative valence of identity. “We have to stick together because we are under threats both internal and external,” was a mantra of sorts and for many of my and subsequent generations, this was not really a very compelling message. Something felt wrong. There was a distinct misalignment of my understanding of history and the choices people were making about being Jews. And while it is true that choice, debate, argument and the celebration of difference is essential to Jewish civilization’s ongoing development, that ought not to make being Jewish a negative experience. Why be defined by the negative, by conflict, by threats or oppression when the greater canvas of what it means to be a Jew is a palette of colors, shades and hues that are both the work of art itself and an unlimited reflection as seen in the eyes of each who behold it?

The Hillel director at Wisconsin was Dr. Irving Saposnik. A scholar of English literature by training, Irv was also a Yiddishist, a student of the American songbook, a great teacher, and a mensch. We studied Torah every week, one-on-one, for two years. And at this time of year, every year, when the Jewish people in their weekly readings transition from Genesis, the foundation narratives of Jewish beginnings, to Exodus, the arch narrative of our servitude and redemption, I remember what Irv taught me one Friday afternoon in his study.

In Exodus we are introduced to two theories of the Jewish People, he said. In the first, Pharaoh sees his Jews as a threat to Egypt. “Behold the people of the children of Israel are too many for us and too mighty for us. Let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply and it come to pass that in the event of war they join with our enemies.” The Jew as the Other, the Stranger, the Enemy Within. Pharaoh’s word choice of “people,” is in fact the first such time in the Bible that the Jews are referred to as a people. I was stunned when Irv pointed this out. “What defines us as a People, as a Nation, is our Otherness,” Irv said, leaning forward for emphasis. “Here, at this stage, we don’t define ourselves but others declare who and what we are.”

Who among us hasn’t felt the raw dissonance of that pernicious sentiment these past few years with anti-Semitism on the rise, bearing witness to violence against Jews merely for our Jewishness, our Otherness, our “threat” to the status quo.

“But,” Irv said, “There is a second definition of Jewish Peoplehood that emerges in the Exodus story as well and it is inextricably bound to the notion of what it means to be a ‘chosen’ and ‘choosing’ people.” Standing at Mount Sinai after our liberation from slavery, Moses the messenger of God implores the people to accept the Torah, to follow its commandments, to live lives of goodness, kindness, compassion and justice as an expression of our “servitude” to an idea greater than the borders of nation or race or ethnicity or gender. In effect, to define ourselves through the construct of what it means to build rather than tear down; what it means to make peace rather than make war; what it means to love rather than hate.

This was the decisive moment for me. I realized then that my writing and my public service would be for the Jewish people. I was fascinated by the need to find a new language for what it meant to be Jewish in the 21st century and as is often the case, the language might seem new to its practitioners but its foundational values would be eternal. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” “Be kind to the stranger, the widow and the orphan.” “Justice, Justice thou shalt pursue.” “Do not steal.” “Do not kill.” “Revere your parents.” “Keep Shabbat.”

In Jewish civilization, the chain of tradition invites us not to merely ape our ancestors’ Jewishness but to make, in every generation, a Jewish community responsive to the complexities and demands of life in our age. From ancient Jerusalem in 1000 BCE to Babylonia and Persia in the 6th century BCE; from Roman conquest in 70 CE to the Spanish expulsion in 1492; and from Spinoza in Amsterdam to the first Jews who came to America in 1629, the Jewish people are ever-evolving and yet always deeply rooted in the words, values and ethics of our tradition that both animate and are reanimated by our very existence.

We are shareholders in the enterprise of what it means to be a Jew, more so than we are dues-paying members of the community. There is no dividend to be paid for our investment of time and philanthropy in the Jewish people greater than the privilege to touch eternity.

As a matter of personal interest, it reminds me of what it means to be a shareholder in the Green Bay Packers. I own one share and when someone asked me recently what it pays, my reply was “In truth, I get to own part of a great legacy that is in fact owned equally by all of us.” And that’s good enough for me as a fan. As a Jew, the dividends are in seeing my own children make their own Jewish choices, in watching them reify Jewish values and identity for their generation and, with hope and strength, continuing the chain of tradition for generations to come.

Let me tell you what I wish I’d known
When I was young and dreamed of glory
You have no control
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

And when you’re gone, who remembers your name?
Who keeps your flame?
Who tells your story?
Who tells your story?
Who tells your story?

These words are from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brilliant play, Hamilton. In this final song of the musical, the characters reflect on the fact that the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton is rarely told, despite his incredible accomplishments and contributions to our nation. Very few people knew about Hamilton’s legacy until Miranda told his story through the musical. Now, anyone who has seen the play can inform you about Hamilton’s crucial position in helping George Washington win the Revolutionary War, his economic plan for the burgeoning nation, and of course, his rivalry with Aaron Burr, which ended in a fatal duel.

In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Bo, we read the story of the Israelite’s enslavement to the Egyptian Pharaoh. In this Torah portion, God brings the last of the ten plagues upon Pharaoh and the Egyptian people, presumably as a punishment for keeping the Israelites enslaved.

However, if we read the first verse of this Torah portion carefully, we learn that God has an additional reason for sending the plagues: “Adonai said to Moses: ‘Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his courtiers, in order that I may display My signs among them, and that you may recount in the hearing of your children and your children’s children how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I displayed My signs among them—in order that you may know that I am Adonai.’” In other words, God sends these devastating plagues so the Israelites will remember what God once did on their behalf. God wants them to tell this story.

For 2,000 years, the Jewish people have been doing just that. Each year on Passover, we read from the Haggadah, which comes from Hebrew word l’haggid meaning “to tell.” We sit around our tables and recite the story of the Exodus from Egypt, our story. Storytelling is a major part of what it means to be Jewish.

For people who believe the Bible is the literal word of God, and that every event in the Bible is true and accurate, the discussion could stop here. However, for others who believe the Bible was written by human beings, and that it might not be historically accurate, telling the story of the exodus from Egypt is more complicated than teaching history.

We can verify the facts of the Revolutionary War. We have letters and documentation of Hamilton’s life and legacy. After all, the events of his life took place only 300 years ago. We have a harder time verifying the events of the Bible. According to historians and archaeologists, it is impossible to know whether a group of people called the Israelites experienced slavery in Egypt, and many say it likely did not happen. We do know of a group called the Apiru (which sounds a lot like “Hebrew”) people who lived as a marginalized social class in Egypt in the 13th century BCE, but that is the best evidence we have. If the Bible is not a historical document, why should its stories matter to us?

This is one of the main challenges for liberal Jews, and one worth pondering: Why do we tell and retell the story of an event that likely never happened? The answer comes from an examination of the difference between history and truth. Robert Alter, the eminent Bible scholar of the 20th century, writes: “As odd as it may sound at first, I would contend that prose fiction is the best general rubric for describing the biblical narrative. Or, to be more precise…we can speak of the Bible as historicized prose fiction.” In other words, events contained in the Bible are often fictional but described as though they are historical events. This leaves us with the question: If the biblical narrative is not historical, can it still be true?

Fiction can be truer than reality. Myths and legends are often much more memorable than works of history. The values we learn through stories become part of our identity. Think about your favorite television show, or about the novels that shape generations. These stories are fictional, yet we grow attached to them—we celebrate the accomplishments of the characters, we mourn their losses, we are shaped by their stories.

All the more so with the story of the exodus from Egypt contained in the Hebrew Bible, because it is our story. It helps us understand who we are: people who empathize with the vulnerable and oppressed, people who fight for freedom, and people who understand the danger of autocracy. We know that we must be kind to the strangers in our midst, for we were strangers in the land of Egypt. In this story, we read about the origins of the people of Israel, and we see ourselves as the descendants of this rabble-rousing, revolutionary group, who trusted in God as they made their way from enslavement toward liberty. The story of the exodus from Egypt might not be historical, but it is true. And its legacy is our inheritance.

The question posed in Hamilton: “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” is not one that would ever occur to the Jewish people. No matter the time, no matter the place, we always tell our story.

When I decided to pursue my undergraduate degree in theater, I spent a lot of time thinking about the concept of objectives. Sometimes this was in exploration of a character, but often, it was an act of introspection. Objectives, after all, are not just limited to the realm of the creative. What gets each of us out of bed every morning if not the drive to do?

When I consider this week’s Torah portion, Parshat Terumah, and God’s latest directive to the Israelites, this idea of objectives is not far from my mind.

Having recently made their Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites’ objective of reaching the Promised Land is derailed when they commit a transgression against God through the worship of a false idol. Subjugating the Israelites to a 40 year trek through the desert, God seeks retribution in the form of a Terumah, or offering. “The Eternal spoke to Moses saying: Speak to the children of Israel, and have them take for Me an offering; from every person whose heart inspires him to generosity, you shall take My Offering… And they shall make Me a sanctuary and I will dwell in their midst” (Exodus 25:1-8).

And so, with this new objective in mind, the people build a sanctuary, or Tabernacle, where they are going to establish their ritual life in the desert, a ritual life that will continue on when they get to the land of Israel.

In the theater, you start with a foundation: a script, stage, cast, crew and creative team. From there, you build a world, and together, you tell a story. And what is truly special about the theater, what is truly miraculous, is that—as with all art—this thing that you are creating, you are doing so with the intent to share.

Carly performing onstage at Ursinus College.

If we liken this experience to that of the Israelites in their building of a sanctuary in which God may reside, then it is not the structure itself that is holy, but rather the possibility of connectedness to the Divine presence that dwells within. A piece of theater, much like a temple, may be magnificent, made from the richest materials imaginable, but the objective for its building is that rare ability to truly commune.

Terumah’s corresponding Haftarah (a weekly reading from the section of the Bible called “Prophets”), expands upon God’s word to Moses: “(Concerning) this house which you are building, if you walk in My statutes, and execute My ordinances, and keep all My commandments to walk in them; then will I establish My word with you, which I spoke to David your father. And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake My people, Israel” (I Kings 6:12). If the desert journey represents transience, then here is a promise of permanence.

The Torah and the theater have another significant commonality. They are both ancient traditions that have stood the test of time, passed down through millennia as tools for teaching and for helping us to make sense of the world as it was then and as it is now. To explore the throughlines of both human nature and human history through a practice that has endured is a great gift indeed.

Just as an entire generation passes for the Israelites between their Exodus from Egypt and their arrival in the Promised Land, so too are we now building for the future we wish to inhabit. In a modern world sowed with discord, it is important to remember that the architects of the United States built the foundations of our modern democracy not with precious metals or fine linens, but with a single document full of objectives. The American Constitution and the democratic republic that has followed, for all of its flaws, for the many setbacks, offers with every new generation the hope that we can continue to build on the foundations laid out by our forebears, while striving to also do better.

So, when our community—be it the community we’re born into or the community we’ve adopted—is in flux, when the structures we hold dear are shifting around us, we have no choice but to move, to act. Rather than an exodus through physical space, we are experiencing an exodus through time. We are catapulting into tomorrow, and the choices we make now, the institutions we uplift and the values we uphold will determine our future, our children’s future, their children’s future l’olam va’ed—extending forever into the future. Our ability to face adversity lies in our ability to choose an objective. Our ability to unite and to build community together will determine our ability to reach a different type of Promised Land, as yet unrealized: a land of liberty and justice for all.

What a week it has been for all of us at JCP, in New York City, and around the world. At a JCP board meeting mid-week, I made the claim of being an optimist, something that is both inherent to who I am but also a well-practiced antidote to the other quality I possess, being a pessimist. I venture to say that many of us hold both views in our hands at any given time and as Moses taught the people on their journey through the wilderness to the land of Israel, “I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction…this day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, that you and your children may live!” (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)

The mandate to “choose life” has always been at the center of Jewish civilization. The will and ability to choose is what animates the human project; and the moral enterprise of our existence as sentient beings, responsible for those around us and the world we live in, makes each of us guardians of the good.

What people do in a time of crisis says so much about the moral backbone of a community. And I dare say that the Jewish people have not only survived but thrived for more than 3000 years because each day, each week, each month and year and in every generation there are always those among us who choose life, who choose to do good, and in so doing, lengthen our days here on earth.

In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tissa, we encounter a rather shameful moment of the people in crisis. Moses is up on Mount Sinai, talking face to face with God, receiving the wisdom and the teaching of the Torah which he will eventually share with the people down below. But while Moses is away, the people rebel. They question his leadership; behave destructively; they build an Idol Calf of molten gold, crafted from the jewelry of the people in a fit of crazed hysteria. Moses, as we know, comes down the mountain, encounters this scene and in fury, breaks the tablets and rages against his people. A bitter lesson ensues about the danger that can occur when trust breaks down; when communication is bastardized; when destroying takes precedence over building up.

But God was even more angry than Moses and was prepared to destroy the entire people for their faithlessness, for the rabid self-destruction, saying, “And now leave Me be, that My wrath may flare against them, and I will put an end to them, and I will make you a great nation.” Moses was relentless in his sense of duty and compassion, however, and countered God with the words, “Turn back from Your flaring wrath and relent from the evil against Your people.” Moses was such a good Jew. He (like many people you know) loved to argue with God.

After all, if you’re going to choose life, well, then choose life! Like Abraham arguing with God at Sodom and Gomorrah (“Surely the Judge of all the earth must deal justly?”), Moses asserts that it is in fact human agency, the power of hope and action, that ultimately redeems.

So let me say this: As our JCP community, like countless communities around the world, faces the headwinds of a global pandemic, it is worth noting and celebrating the kindness, decency, intelligence, determination, compassion and love of every member of our team. Your staff at JCP across the board has stepped up like a hundred Moses’, working late hours, banging out emails and communication, and setting up Zoom calls with kids; cleaning our spaces over and over and over again; all while keeping their eyes on the ultimate prize, that we are a loving, devoted, enduring Jewish community in Lower Manhattan with a proud responsibility to “choose life,” to take care of others, so that we and our children may live.

Words cannot adequately describe the depth of gratitude I feel to be working with the team of professionals and lay leaders at this moment in time. But with a full heart, I say thank you.

The Talmud, the great corpus of Jewish law, literature, and lore, teaches us about the power of routines. In the tractate entitled Shabbat, the Sages discuss when we can engage in certain routine aspects of our day, and when we have to put them on hold:

“Immediately before the time of the afternoon prayers, a person may not: go to the barber, enter the bathhouse, go to work in a tannery, sit down to a meal, or judge a case” (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, page 9a).

According to the Talmud, a person needs to stop their daily activities when it is time to pray. Respect for God comes before any other quotidian task no matter how hungry we are, how much work we have to do, or how much we need that haircut. After all, the Sages surmise, shouldn’t we take a moment to thank our Creator, without whom the world would not exist for us to enjoy?

At this moment in time, our routines are also interrupted. The things that we often take for granted: going to the gym, eating a meal in a restaurant, heading to the office, are all on temporary hiatus as we face this pandemic. However, instead of pausing our lives to pray to God, we are pausing for a different, but no less important, purpose: to protect those around us.

The other night, Dr. Sanjay Gupta appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. During his interview, he said: “What I’m really struck by is that never before have I found a situation where how I behave so dramatically impacts your health and how you behave so dramatically impacts my health.” Colbert adds: “It’s not just you…my behavior toward you is going to affect your parents in their late seventies.” We are living in a time where our choices directly impact the lives of those we encounter. Though we are all facing unique disappointments and struggles during this time, we have made the important choice to pause our routines, postpone festivities, stay home, and thereby protect the most vulnerable in our society.

Long before COVID-19, the Sages of the Talmud knew about the power of our human connections. They teach us: “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh ba’zeh” (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shevuot, page 39a). This phrase is usually translated to mean: “All Israel is responsible for each other.” But this translation does not go far enough to capture the essence of this statement. The word “arev” means “guarantor” and the preposition “ba’” means “through.” In this statement, the Rabbis teach us that we are completely dependent on each other; we are the guarantors of each other’s existence. My life is made more certain and stable through your actions, and vice versa. The Rabbis know that we are not mere individuals. We are a single unit, ensuring the well-being of the whole by adjusting the actions of the parts.

Right now, our day job is not necessarily our main job. For the coming weeks and months, we are all primarily serving as holy guarantors of one another, honoring the Divine by protecting each other. And just maybe, when this is all over, and we go back to our work, to restaurants, and to the barber shop, this sense of our sacred interconnectedness and dependence on one another will remain.

As we all engage in this holy task of remaining physically distant, we are always here for you. If you are seeking communal connection, we hope that you will join JCP’s many educational and spiritual offerings via Zoom and social media. And of course, anyone on our JCP staff is just a phone call away. After all, our sacred interconnectedness always remains.

And then there is the silence.

The silence that connotes fear. The silence that expresses concern. The silence that projects concentration. The silence that opens up to a new reality, to our lives changed yet again as the result of human error and human resiliency which teaches us that “what does not kill us can make us stronger.”

The streets of New York City in the age of Covid-19 are quiet and we pass our fellow citizens at the appropriate social distancing measurement of six feet carefully, wordlessly as each of us weighs our radical responsibility to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” It is ironic for such a noisy city. But our quietude is teaching invaluable lessons.

“Shimon ben Gamliel said, ‘All my days I have grown up among the Sages and I have found nothing better than silence’” (Pirkei Avot, 1.17).

Indeed, now is the time to listen. In a world pandemic with our city at the epicenter and having just passed one thousand tragic deaths nationwide as the result of this pernicious virus, it is time to listen.

Listen to the doctors and the scientists. Listen to the healthcare professionals on the frontlines of this monumental battle. Listen to the voices of steady leaders — both civic and business — calling for help, collaboration, cooperation, coordination and focused effort at getting the most important equipment and material to areas most in need.

“Shammai said, ‘Say little, do much’” (Pirkei Avot, 1.15).

Patience with our children and partners and ourselves at this time of heightened anxiety is doing; calling loved ones and caring for the most vulnerable is doing; giving charitably when volunteering is impossible is doing; understanding, especially now, that there is more that unites us than divides us is doing.

This week’s Torah portion, VaYikra, is the first section from the third book of the Torah, Leviticus. It begins with the words, “And He called to Moses and the Eternal spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting.” The scholar Robert Alter notes “According to normative use, one would have expected ‘And the Eternal called to Moses and He spoke to him.’ Is the postponement of the subject a maneuver to isolate and emphasize the act of calling?” (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary).

What does it mean for us to “emphasize the act of calling” in the age of the Coronavirus? One might ask in such a moment of calling the fundamental question, “Who am I? And what should I do?”

At JCP, like everywhere, we have shifted our learning and community engagement to the virtual realm and are learning, albeit through the medium of screens, that we are indeed a community of individuals and families connected to one another in profound ways. We are caring for one another, virtually; saying Kaddish together, virtually; learning Torah and singing together, virtually; and plotting our future, our growth, our resilience, our success, virtually — so that we can keep on doing good.

Emphasize the act of calling. Food pantries are hit very hard right now with massive layoffs and unemployment; the hardest hit in our city are those with the least economic security. One easy way to help is to donate to a local food bank.

Here are links to pantries that all get excellent ratings for their use of charitable donations:

• Bed Stuy Campaign Against Hunger
• Food Pantry of Harlem
• Hunger Task Force Milwaukee

Emphasize the act of calling. Heed the advice of the Sages of this crisis. Eat with your health in mind; practice patience; love fully; listen to those who know, not those clamoring for attention.

“Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is wise” (Proverbs 17.28). Imagine that

I want to close this message with a word of gratitude to my remarkable colleagues at JCP. I remain inspired and motivated by their unity, their devotion, their creativity, sense of humor and hope in the midst of this crisis. We are blessed to have them.

And I want to thank you, dear reader, for your support, your generosity, and your own devotion to JCP. We are here for you and you are here for us and in times like this, with so much uncertainty, our cohesion grounds us as we strive for a way out, for an alleviation of this pandemic, and look to better days.

Caring for ourselves means caring for others and caring for others means caring for ourselves. In those silent nods and glances from six feet away, in physical distancing, we are understanding that in a way we are drawing nearer to one another. This is my great hope for JCP, for New York City, and for the world.

“Hillel said, ‘If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?’”

What will it feel like this year?

Each year on Passover, we read this phrase from Haggadah: “In every generation, a person must see herself as having come forth from Egypt.”

For each generation of Jews, this command has meant something different.

Picture the Passover seders of Jews during the first Crusade of 1096, or those of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492. These Jews lived under the yoke of brutal, capricious, tyrannical powers… the Pharaohs of their time. I can imagine these Jews at their tables, yearning for a day when they would find peace with their neighbors and could stay safely in their homes.

Picture the Passover seders of Jews in the 13 Colonies during the American Revolution. These Jews fought for freedom from a distant but mighty foreign power. Like the Israelites, they refused to serve a greedy overlord who benefited from their labor and their sweat, giving them nothing in return. Instead, they took destiny into their own hands, charting a course for a new type of promised land.

Picture the Passover seders of Union Jews during the Civil War. Relatively safe and free in the diaspora for the first time in 2,000 years, these Jews now fought so that those who were unjustly enslaved could share in the sacred promise of freedom.

Picture the Passover seders of Jews right before the establishment of the State of Israel on May 15th, 1948. European Jewry had been all but annihilated by the events of the Holocaust. And now, here was the opportunity for the Jewish people to rebuild ourselves in our ancient homeland — a journey from complete enslavement to ultimate freedom in the span of only a few short years.

Picture the Passover seders of American Jews during the 1960s, who fought segregation and worked to integrate schools so that all people in this country could live with dignity. Or those of the 1980s, when American Jews worked tirelessly on behalf of oppressed Soviet Jewry, ultimately succeeding in securing their rights to practice Judaism. Picture the seders of 2002, after our country had witnessed the devastating terrorist attacks of 9/11.

In every generation, we read the narrative of our escape from Mitzrayim, the Hebrew name for Egypt, which comes from the word tzar meaning “narrow.” We see ourselves as escaping from a narrow place and making our way toward expanse and freedom.

And now picture our seders, which will take place on April 8th and 9th. To paraphrase JCP Board Member, Dr. Margrit Wiesendanger, the coronavirus is the great humanitarian crisis of our time. We are all part of the fight against this virus that is wreaking havoc upon our society. Just as the Israelites left Egypt so quickly that they didn’t have time to let their bread rise, we too have abruptly halted our lives, leaving projects undone and milestones unacknowledged, in the name of securing our safety. Right now, our freedoms are restricted and many lives are on the line. We are indeed in a narrow place.

And yet, Passover comes each year to teach us — even in the toughest of times — that freedom awaits, that the Promised Land is on the horizon, and that we’re on this journey together.

During this time of social distancing, we are here to help make your holiday meaningful, so please don’t hesitate to be in touch if there’s anything you need. Please see below for a few traditions and ways to celebrate the holiday.

Stay strong, redemption awaits.

The book When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner is the world’s #2 bestselling book on religion, second only to the Bible. There’s a reason for that.

Why do bad things happen to good people? This is the existential human question, one that we will never answer, but one that many of us will spend at least some time pondering. Perhaps you have a memory of debating this question during a late-night philosophical chat in a college dorm room, or asking it aloud in the face of personal tragedy. Perhaps you have had a child come to you with this question, who walked away confused when no adult could give them a definitive answer. During this worldwide pandemic, I imagine that this question is alive and fresh in many of our minds. It certainly is in mine.

In this week’s Torah portion, parashat Shmini, we learn about a mysterious and tragic death. Aaron’s two sons, who have just been given clear instructions for how to carry out their duties as Israelite priests, offer an esh zarah, or “alien fire” to God. We don’t know what this alien fire is or why they offered it. Perhaps they were rebels who wanted to see what happened if they broke the rules of the sacrificial system. Perhaps, as some medieval commentators suggest, they were inebriated and confused as to which sacrifice to offer. Perhaps they wanted to go above and beyond their duties and offer an extra gift to God.

While we don’t know the motivation behind this strange offering, we do know the tragic fate of these two sons of Aaron. The Torah tells us: “A fire came forth from Adonai and consumed them; thus they died at the hand of Adonai.” Aaron, who held a deep and sacred connection with God, had to witness the deaths of two sons at God’s command.

Moses immediately tries to make sense out of this tragedy. Though his comment to Aaron is cryptically worded, the message is clear: “God sacrificed your children to teach the Israelites an important lesson.” Moses gained his own sense of comfort by attributing reason and logic to the tragedy.

Aaron, rather famously, responds very differently. Instead of fighting with his brother, Moses, instead of finding his own explanation for why God killed his sons, Aaron remains silent.

Even in these two verses, we see that two of the great luminaries of our tradition respond very differently to tragedy. This is reflective of a larger theme in Jewish tradition: Judaism never gives a brief, systematic answer to a large, unwieldy question. Instead, we can think of Jewish tradition as a library containing infinite answers to the impossible-to-answer questions.

Right now, as we face our own global tragedy, our sacred texts and traditions provide us with different ways of coping and responding. The biblical Book of Job, for example, teaches us that we can never know the secrets of the universe, and that God’s actions in the world will always remain completely mysterious. On the other hand, the biblical Book of Esther, in which God’s name never appears, teaches us that we can’t rely on the Divine to change or even to understand the challenges of our world. And the apocalyptic Book of Daniel teaches us that if we just wait patiently and act piously, God will send a savior who will transform our sorrow into joy and perfect our world. Three books in our Bible with three radically different approaches to the world.

As we mourn the deaths of so many people we love, as we pray for the recovery of people who are gravely ill, and as we take care of our families and ourselves, we can know that however we choose to understand the meaning of this tragic time, Judaism tells us that there is no wrong answer. Whether we want to scream, explain, or remain silent, we have the wisdom and power of our tradition behind us. Judaism contains all of our responses and more.

The one thing that all of these biblical examples teaches is that tragedy is easier to bear when we come together. Though we can’t be together in person, we at JCP are committed to making sure that our community comes together virtually. I hope you’ll join me on Instagram live tonight at 6 pm (@jcpdowntown) to bring in Shabbat.

No matter why you think this is happening, or the lessons and meaning you take from it, one thing is for sure — we will get through it together.