Rabbi's Message

Our parashah this week has an ironic resonance with our world.  It begins, “Shelah Lekha” – God tells Moshe to send people to scout out the land of Israel.  Though we haven’t left our homes, many of us have been scouts this past week, watching with pride and trepidation the war between Israel and Iran unfold.  As we shared yesterday, we have resources to help you follow what is happening, advocate for Israel, and give tzedakah to help those in need on our website.  We continue to pray for our loved ones in Israel and hope that Iran’s nuclear program is destroyed.  

In the scheme of all of the trauma and loss, its effect on our lives is small, but it still deserves to be acknowledged. My heart goes out to the many students in our community, including my daughter, who were planning on scouting out the land this summer on camp, youth group, and college programs, most of which, if not all, are now canceled. We know how important these experiences are, and I hope that our students will be able to get to Israel soon on these immersive programs to deepen their connection to the people and the land of Israel.  We also have many members of our community who are currently in Israel, on trips and programs, who are trying to do the reverse, Shelah lekha, to leave Israel by boat or otherwise. If you have someone there, and there is anything we can do to support you or them, please let us know. My program at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem this summer has also been canceled. I will miss the opportunity to be with my colleagues and to have the space to learn and wrestle with the many challenging questions of this moment.

Still, my sadness and anxiety are focused on Israelis running back and forth to shelters, the brave IDF soldiers leading the charge against Iran for all of us, the 53 hostages on day 622 of their captivity, and all those suffering from this war.  As we survey the landscape of what is happening in Israel, in addition to the recent political violence and other alarming trends in our own country, things can look pretty challenging. And they are. But like everything in life, how we respond to these challenges is what makes all the difference. Here, too, the story of the scouts in our Torah portion gives us guidance. Ten scouts come back and say that there is no way we are going to conquer the land of Israel. But two of them, Joshua and Caleb, say otherwise. Despite the challenges, they have confidence that the Israelites can fight for it and succeed. There are times in life when things don’t come easy, and we need to fight for what we want, what we need, and for what is right. This is one of those times. As Caleb tells the Israelites, Alo Na’aleh -“Let us by all means go up…for we shall surely overcome it.” Eventually, the Israelites did succeed, and may we as well.