The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.

Passover
Exodus 33:12-23

We arrive at a strange moment in the seder. We are telling a story about Egypt. About slavery. About Pharaoh. About brick and mortar. And suddenly, the haggadah interrupts itself:

“In every generation, those who hate the Jewish people rise up to destroy them.”

It feels out of place. We are no longer speaking about Egypt. We are speaking about something much larger, much darker, much more enduring. Why does the haggadah do this?

Not to deepen our sense of tragedy, but to deepen our understanding.

If we confined ourselves to Egypt, we would search for explanations within Egypt. We would say: “The Jews were enslaved because they were foreigners, or poor, or too distinct, or perhaps too successful.” Each explanation has its logic. None survives the test of history.

Antisemitism does not behave like other forms of conflict. It appears under conditions that contradict one another. Jews have been hated when they were poor and when they were prosperous, when they were segregated and when they were integrated, when they were powerless and when they wielded influence. It persists in exile, and it does not vanish even when Jews return to their own land.

The mind searches for a pattern, for a cause that will make sense of it. But the usual categories fail. The explanations contradict one another. The question deepens.

Imagine a doctor trying to understand a mysterious illness. In one city, he studies the afflicted and concludes: it must be the water — the supply is contaminated.

Then the same illness appears elsewhere, where the water is perfectly clean. So he revises his theory. Perhaps it is the climate — the cold, the harshness. But then the illness appears again, in a place warm and gentle, untouched by such extremes.

At that moment, if he is honest, he must change the question. No longer can he ask, “What is different here?” He must ask, “What is the same?” For when every condition changes and yet the phenomenon remains, the cause is not in what varies. It is in what endures.

So too with antisemitism.

If it were the result of poverty, it would vanish with prosperity. If it were the result of separateness, it would dissolve with integration. If it were the result of weakness, it would disappear with strength. But it does not. And so we are compelled to look deeper.

What is it that has remained constant? What is it that the Jewish people have carried with them through every land, under every condition? It is not power. It is not wealth. It is not land. It is something far more dangerous. It is an idea. A vision. A moral insistence that has entered history and refuses to leave.

From the days of Abraham and Sarah, the Jewish people have borne witness to truths that were, and remain, revolutionary:

That there is a God who stands above all human authority.

That no ruler is ultimate.

That every human being carries within them a sacred worth.

That justice is not the invention of kings but the demand of Heaven.

That conscience is not to be silenced, even in the presence of power.

These are not merely articles of faith. They are the foundation of a moral universe.

And precisely because they are so, they have always been unsettling.

Any system that seeks to make itself absolute, any regime that demands unquestioned allegiance, must find these ideas intolerable. They limit power. They challenge authority. They remind rulers that they, too, are judged.

And so, across centuries and civilizations, we see a recurring drama. Different empires, different languages, different doctrines, but a strikingly familiar response.

Pharaoh cannot tolerate it. Haman cannot tolerate it. The Inquisition cannot tolerate it. Hitler and Stalin cannot tolerate it. Nor can the Ayatollahs. Nor can Hamas.

Antisemitism is not random. It is a reaction to something that refuses to bend.

The Passover haggadah teaches us to see this. It takes the story of Egypt and sets it within a larger horizon. It tells us: Do not be misled by appearances. Do not imagine that this began here, or that it will end here. There is a deeper current at work. And so it declares: “In every generation, they rise against us to destroy us.”

Yet the haggadah does not end there. It adds: “But God saves us from their hand.”

Empires have risen with great force and declared themselves eternal. They have marshaled armies, issued decrees, built monuments to their own permanence. And they have passed. The Jewish people have remained.

The seder, therefore, leaves us not with fear, but with perspective. Do not define yourself by those who hate you. Antisemitism is not the essence of the Jewish story. It is the shadow cast by a light that has not gone out. The story is what you carry.

If one must draw meaning from it, let it be this: When the greatest tyrants in history hate you, it is a badge of honor.

To live as a Jew, then, is not merely to remember what has been done to us. It is to continue what has been entrusted to us. To carry forward a faith in justice, in the holiness of mitzvah, in the sacred worth of every human soul.

Hatred may rise. It does not have the final word. For the story of the Jewish people is not the story of those who sought to destroy them. It is the story of a people who endured. And of a truth that still lives.

(JTA) — TEL AVIV — The day before Yael Ben Cnaan was set to take over ownership of Bishvil Flowers, a corner flower shop located in the upscale Lev Hair neighborhood, an Iranian cluster munition landed on the street outside.

The March 9 impact shattered the store’s windows and left shrapnel holes in the walls. The flowers inside, which Ben Cnaan was unable to access due to police closure of the street, were left to wilt. “In the meantime, the shop was not operating. There was no income, but the expenses continue: rent, payments and commitments I already took on when entering the business,” Ben Cnaan said.

All of this took place in the lead-up to the Passover holiday, which, according to Ben Cnaan, is the most important time of year for flower shops like hers.

“We depend on the revenue during these weeks to keep us alive,” she said in an interview at her shop.

Ben Cnaan was seemingly undeterred by the strike and wasted no time setting up a crowdfunding campaign and posting on Instagram that she would soon reopen with a limited number of orders available for pickup ahead of the holiday. “I don’t have a choice. If I don’t manage to sell bouquets, we would have to close.”

An online fundraiser has raised 45,000 shekels (about $14,000), according to Ben Cnaan, allowing her to cover repair costs in the short term. But the long-term survival of the shop, which has become a community staple over its 17 years, remains uncertain.

In the Instagram post announcing the limited resumption of sales, she urged community members to consider purchasing bouquets or making donations to help sustain the business. “It will likely not be enough,” Ben Cnaan added.

Nearly four weeks into Israel’s war with Iran, which has quickly escalated into a regional conflict, stories like Ben Cnaan’s are commonplace. Businesses are struggling due to widespread closures and damage from Iranian missiles, which have killed at least 18 Israelis since the start of the war on Feb. 28.

Now, Israelis are starting the Passover holiday under wartime, with the conflict casting a somber shadow on the celebrations. Iran launched the largest missile salvo since the start of the war as families sat down to their seders on Wednesday night.

Earlier in the morning, as Iran launched another barrage of missiles toward central Israel, one man was killed, and at least 11 others were injured.

The missiles punctured efforts to approximate normality in the hours leading into the holiday. Early Wednesday morning, Orthodox families gathered to burn chametz, or leavened grains prohibited during the holiday, before the deadline to sell or discard it, while more secular families walked their dogs just hours after multiple sirens sounded due to incoming missile attacks. Throughout the day, Israelis preparing their meals had to pause cooking and cleaning to run to their shelters multiple times.

With a ban on large public gatherings still in place, major public seders, such as those typically hosted by synagogues in Tel Aviv, had waiting lists hundreds of people long.

And hotels hosting Passover retreats saw widespread cancellations as travelers from abroad were unable to get to Israel, and as families changed their plans to stay closer to home.

The war has also prompted new reflections on the meaning of the holiday. “We know there were Passover celebrations in all kinds of surreal circumstances. My grandmother told stories about celebrating Passover during the Holocaust,” said Avital Rosenberger, head of the emergency unit at the Israeli branch of the Joint Distribution Committee. “It’s still our mission to remember, to maintain routine and to ask what freedom really means.”

The JDC has been on the front lines of assisting Israelis affected by the war, including residents of Beit Shemesh, Arad, and Dimona whose homes were destroyed by ballistic missile strikes.

Those involved in relief efforts fear the full scale of the damage will only become clear after the war ends.

“We are so deep in it, and I’m not sure we’re seeing the whole picture,” said Rosenberger. “Some of the damage, especially the mental and emotional toll, will only emerge at the end. We already understand what’s coming.”

The growing human toll is one dimension of the damage. Ben Cnaan’s example underscores the financial toll of the ongoing war, as well.

On the morning of Passover, while many other stores on Lincoln Street remained closed, Ben Cnaan was still at work taking orders and assembling bouquets for last-minute shoppers.

A concept and tattoo artist who lives in Tel Aviv, she has worked on films including “Beirut,” starring Jon Hamm, Ben Cnaan worked in the flower shop for years before taking ownership. Because her business sustained physical damage due to the war, she is eligible for state compensation to offset losses and fund limited repairs. But she still fears that she will need to close down if business does not pick up soon.

According to estimates from Israel’s Finance Ministry, the economy is losing at least 4.3 billion shekels per week due to the fighting. As gas prices continue to rise following disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, civilians, whether affected directly by missile strikes or rising costs, are bearing the burden of the war.

For Johnny, who is spending a year volunteering with the JDC on Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra in the north, the toll of the war ahead of the holiday is becoming increasingly stark.

“They’re exhausted. They’re absolutely exhausted. And the thought of several more months like this could really break their spirit,” she said.

Johnny, who is Israeli but has lived most of her life in the United States, returned before the current round of fighting. She said it has been reassuring to be closer to her mother in the Galilee while volunteering on the kibbutz.

“At the same time, the community is incredibly supportive and empowering,” Johnny added. “I know they’ll be OK.”

She said she knows her seder plans with a host family in Rosh Hanikra may be interrupted by incoming missiles from Lebanon but remains in good spirits.

“We may have to head to the shelter,” she said. “But it’s certainly not the worst conditions for a seder our people have had to endure.”

(JTA) — At Temple Israel in suburban Detroit, where congregants are still reeling from last month’s attack in which a man drove a vehicle filled with explosives into the building, a new Passover tradition is taking shape.

“This Passover, we’re adding something new to our Seder plates: a single Lego block,” Temple Israel wrote in a post on Facebook.

The attack on Temple Israel, a Reform congregation and the country’s largest synagogue, took place as 104 preschoolers were inside the building. The assailant, Ayman Ghazali, was the only person to die in the ramming attack, which severely damaged the synagogue building and left one of its security guards injured.

While all the children were evacuated, their presence has shaped the synagogue’s call to add the children’s toy to seder plates as a symbol of both vulnerability and rebuilding.

“A Lego is a child’s toy — it represents the innocence that was threatened, and the lives that were protected. It represents our creativity, our strength, and the sacred work of putting the pieces back together again,” the post continued. “Place a Lego on your Seder plate this year. For our kids and our teachers. For our community. For the future we are building together.”

In the comments of the post, dozens of people pledged to include Legos in their Passover seders this year.

“I love this meaningful idea representing resilience and strength. I will put legos on our Seder plate in Santa Monica. Wishing all of the clergy and my Temple Israel family a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful Passover!” wrote one user.

Temple Israel is not the only victim of an antisemitic attack to be marking Passover for the first time since. Next week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is slated to host a seder with interfaith leaders to commemorate one year since an arsonist attacked his official residence hours after he and his family hosted a Passover seder there. The seder will be held in the same room that was burned during the attack.

And in Minneapolis, Shir Tikvah, a Reform congregation, is calling on others to include a “steaming cup of tea in a travel mug” in the Passover seder to honor the community’s response to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies in the area.

“After you open the door for Elijah and before you pour the fourth cup of wine, we invite you to pour tea for everyone at your table from your shared cup,” the congregation wrote in a post on Facebook. “As you enjoy your tea, take a moment to share how you hope to show up in your communities this year.”

Temple Israel’s symbolic addition to the holiday this year is also not the first time Jews have modified the seder plate’s traditional components to reflect the dangers that Jews increasingly face.

During the Israel-Hamas war, some families included mirrors, yellow ribbons and pomegranates on their plates to honor the hostages still held at the time in Hamas captivity. This is the first Passover since the last living hostages were freed in October.

“There’s something comforting about what we know, but what if, alongside those familiar traditions, we also made room for something new and unexpected,” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said in a Facebook video posted Tuesday. “Rather than simply going through the motions, we might lean into the surge of Jewish pride we’re seeing all around us, even amid the current epidemic of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hatred.”

As the waxing moon shone in a dark sky, seven men gathered on Sunday for an ancient ritual in the grassy courtyard of Berkeley’s Jewish Renewal synagogue Chochmat HaLev.

Leaping, whooping and hollering as the ritual reached its apex, the men were engaging in Kiddush Levana, or “sanctification of the moon,” a Talmudic rite for sanctifying God.

“It is perfect. You are loved. All is clear. And I am holy,” the men chanted in unison, reciting a meditative phrase by the late Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, a Renewal co-founder.

Noah Phillips, a therapist and occasional Chochmat HaLev teacher — he led a Talmud class and a session on Jewish reincarnation during Shavuot last year — organizes Kiddush Levana as an exuberant monthly ritual and a place for intimate discussion about masculinity. The event is in its second year and is open to all masculine-identifying people.

“It’s this amazing thing where we channel blessing,” he said. “By directing it at the moon, which is this feminine principle, we’re putting ourselves into the mature masculine element.”

The evening started with participants sharing their struggles and successes from the last month. That was followed by the chanting from text put together by Phillips, with each person taking turns and reading a passage.

Their chanting got louder and louder, until it grew into a joyous frenzy, with everyone jumping and yelling with their arms pointed skyward. Then came handshakes and hugs, with each man enthusiastically greeting the other with “Shalom aleichem” and the responding “Aleichem shalom” — peace be with you.

The evening ended with arm-in-arm dancing and singing “David Melech Yisrael,” in praise of King David.

Participant Danny Kaplan described Kiddush Levana as a blend of Jewish ritual and men’s group.

“In the modern context of what it means to explore masculinity, I really like that those two things are interwoven together,” said Kaplan. 

Another participant, Philip Epstein, said he returned to Judaism through psychedelics after feeling confined by rigid, traditionalist practices when he was young. He said he feels a connection to the ritual as a way to both grieve and evoke his late mother.

“She has appeared to me in the moon a few different times,” said Epstein, “usually with some kind of psychedelic or expanded state.” He said Kiddush Levana enables him to speak to his mother through the feminine gaze of the moon.

“It’s been really beautiful and painful,” he said, “but it’s given me a way to have this relationship.”

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.

Christian influencers like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson are rallying their followers against Israel — and Jews. And to do so, they’re also weaponizing a centuries-old concept that underlies many strains of Christianity.

It’s called supersessionism, and it’s the idea that Jesus’ existence supersedes all commands, laws and beliefs that came before it. Christians often say that Jesus’ death “fulfilled” God’s commandments, meaning that everything God said to Jews in the Hebrew Bible, all of the covenantal promises and laws, are obsolete.

These views on Israel, and their theological interpretation, collide with a Christian Zionist movement that deeply supports Israel for its own scriptural reasons, believing that Jews must return to Israel to fulfill a prophecy and herald Jesus’ own return.

Yet supersessionism has become a theme in Christian opposition to Israel. We hear it in the words of Carrie Prejean Boller, a recent Catholic convert and a now-former member of the Religious Liberty Commission, a Trump administration council on religious protections. After she used a panel on fighting antisemitism as a platform to declare that her religious convictions prevented her from supporting Israel — and was removed from the commission as a consequence — she doubled down. “The Catholic Church is the True Israel,” Prejean Boller declared in a post on X. “Christians are the spiritual Semites. We are the new people of God.”

Candace Owens, a Christian podcaster who often refers to Judaism as Satanist; avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes; and right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson have all similarly said that their Christianity prevents them from supporting Israel because Jesus has obviated the need for a holy land. “As Jesus says plainly in the Gospels, I am the Temple. I am the Temple now,” said Carlson in a recent video, explaining his religious opposition to Israel.

These supersessionist Christian influencers have expressed support for Gaza and criticized Israel on political and moral grounds; that part is not religious. But they have also insisted that they must oppose Israel from a religious perspective, because its very existence goes against their belief that Jesus has taken the biblical place of Israel.

In their hands, supersessionism fuels not only opposition to Israel, but explicit antisemitism — Prejean Boller has said that she is incapable of being antisemitic because, she argued, since Catholics are the true Semites, she would have to be discriminating against herself. Owens repeatedly refers to Judaism as the “synagogue of Satan,” an age-old accusation that in rejecting Jesus, Jews have rejected God and become evil. 

This ancient and controversial piece of theological history is increasingly becoming a bludgeon against Israel, and Jews more broadly.

The roots of supersessionism

In the supersessionist understanding of Christianity, now, Jesus’ followers — Christians — are the chosen people of God, overriding and replacing the Jews in covenant with God.

Scholar Susanna Heschel has referred to supersessionism as a form of colonization. “Christianity colonized Judaism theologically,” she writes in an essay on supersessionism in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” arguing that the newer religion usurped its central theological concepts while “denying the continued validity of those ideas for Judaism.”

The reasons supersessionism emerged as a dominant belief in Christianity are rooted in a complicated history. Christianity arose from Judaism, and Jesus was a Jew. So early Christians put a lot of work into differentiating themselves and their new religion from Jews and Judaism.

“Paul, you know, he did not want Christians to adopt Judaism,” Marcia Kupfer, an independent scholar who researches and writes about supersessionism, particularly in medieval art, told me over the phone. “It would mean that they are turning to the law when they should be just putting their faith in Jesus.”

Much of that differentiation involved rejecting the continued validity of Judaism. While Christians do consider the Hebrew Bible to be part of their holy texts, there’s a reason they refer to it as the “Old Testament” — because, now, it is obsolete, making anyone who continues to follow its teachings in some way backward and no longer in active relationship with God.

“It is this problem of having, in a way, consumed Judaism,” Kupfer said. “It’s part of their Bible. But it has to be preparatory, prophetic, some anticipatory stage to something more complete and true. More spiritual. So it’s at the same time taken over and rejected.”

Who believes in supersessionism?

Today, it can be tough to definitively say what movement thinks what, due, in large part, to the stratospheric rise of Christians who consider themselves non-denominational — and to the linguistics around supersessionism, which some consider to be a negative term, even as others embrace it.

“It often doesn’t get talked about as supersessionism,” said Matthew D. Taylor, a theologian and visiting scholar at the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University. “I don’t know too many Christians who will come out and say: ‘I’m a supersessionist.’”

But, in general, the more doctrinally focused the church — Catholicism, Orthodox, Calvinism — the more likely it is to have historically preached supersessionism; the more experiential churches, such as the non-denominational charismatic movement, are less attached to the ideology and often lean toward endorsing Israel.

Among the sects that have historically preached supersessionism, however, the ideology has been a topic of hot debate since the Holocaust. In recent years, these churches — especially the Catholic church — have made moves to reject the ideology, due to supersessionism’s antisemitic undertones.

Rev. Russell McDougall, director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs at the United States Council of Catholic Bishops, told the Forward that “the church has repudiated” supersessionism “quite clearly,” and admonished Catholic influencers like Owens, Prejean Boller and Fuentes in a letter from the USCCB. He pointed to a 2015 Church document titled “The Gifts and Calling of God Are Irrevocable,” released on the 50th anniversary of another groundbreaking document about Jews, Nostra Aetate.

Nostra Aetate, a portion of the revolutionizing Catholic council known as Vatican II, is lauded for improving church views on Jews. It rejects the belief that the Jewish people bear responsibility for Jesus’ death, and also affirms Christianity’s roots in Judaism. But, while Nostra Aetate sought to improve Catholic respect for Judaism, it still affirms some supersessionist ideas. “Although the Church is the new people of God,” it says, “the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God.” Jews, in other words, are not hated by God — still, Christians have replaced them as God’s favored children.

The 2015 treatise grapples with this issue at far greater length. It admits that rejecting supersessionism undermines the central beliefs of the Church. “The theory that there may be two different paths to salvation, the Jewish path without Christ and the path with the Christ,” the document says, “would in fact endanger the foundations of Christian faith.” How to excise supersessionism without undermining the church, it concludes, “remains an unfathomable divine mystery.”

The idea that salvation is given by God exclusively through Jesus is so central to church teachings that rejecting supersessionism poses clear contradictions — which is perhaps why modern Christian influencers are returning to it.

The Christian movements that do not preach supersessionism — the charismatic non-denominational movements, Pentecostal Christians, and fundamentalist evangelicals such as Mike Huckabee, the current U.S. ambassador to Israel — don’t resolve the contradictions either.

Many Christian Zionists focus, in part, on a line in Genesis, 12:3, in which God says that those who love Israel will be blessed and those who oppose it will be cursed; Ted Cruz cited this verse to Tucker Carlson in explaining his support for Israel. Others reference prophetic books in the Bible that point to God’s promises around Israel. But they do not necessarily engage with other lines in the New Testament that imply support for supersessionism.

“They’re reading the Bible in a very helter-skelter way,” said Taylor of the charismatics.

Why does any of this matter?

While supersessionism is core to Christian theology, it might seem like a niche debate best left to pastors and rabbis. But, looking at statements from Carlson, Prejean Boller and others, it’s clear that it informs and justifies their politics regarding Israel and Jews at large — even though it has officially been rejected by many churches.

“They’re in many ways rebelling against the past 60 years of Catholic theology, and trying to hearken back to something that they view as more authentic,” said Taylor of the influencers. “So I think that the supersessionist piece is signaling something significant because it’s part of the broader distaste for some of the modernizing shifts within Roman Catholicism.”

Supersessionist beliefs have, for years, driven antisemitism. It is woven into centuries of artistic and cultural portrayals of Jews as backwards, lesser or even Satanic, based on the idea that Jewish practice is defunct and has rejected God. Synagoga, a symbolic representation of Judaism throughout medieval art, is often depicted as blind. The theological precept has also driven attempts to evangelize and convert Jews for centuries, something Christians might not understand as antisemitism but which many Jews see as an attempt to erase Judaism.

Many, many church leaders — Catholic and otherwise — support Israel. Christian Zionists like Huckabee or John Hagee, a preacher who runs the Christian Zionist advocacy group Christians United For Israel, are a major force in the U.S. Some of these groups lean even philosemitic, appropriating Jewish rituals such as blowing the shofar or wearing a tallit into their Christianity. (This is also seen by many Jews as a form of supersessionism and cultural appropriation.)

Still, a growing number of Christians are embracing antisemitism in the name of supersessionism. This theology undergirds the increasingly common argument that some antisemitic beliefs are a fundamental part of Christianity — and therefore that asking Christians to fight antisemitism infringes on their freedom of religion.

Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene refused to vote for the Antisemitism Awareness Act, saying it would restrict Christian beliefs. Prejean Boller, in the Religious Liberty Commission hearing on antisemitism that resulted in her removal, accused the Jews on the panel of calling all Catholics antisemites. Since then, she has repeatedly rejected accusations of antisemitism and said that they are infringing on her own religious liberty.

This debate — whether or not Christianity embraces or rejects Jews, and how either choice operates theologically — has become a core conflict in American Christianity, and among the right wing in the U.S.

“I think Israel has become a kind of battleground between these folks with the more interventionist kind of Christian Zionist,” said Taylor, “versus this more kind of isolationist, Catholic and Calvinist, supersessionist and antisemitic coalition.”

But even the more philosemitic side isn’t really embracing Jews for their own sake or on their own terms. Though politicians like Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz cite scripture to justify their support for Israel, it’s an uneasy alliance rooted in Christianity, not Judaism.

For these Christian Zionists, Jews operate as a way to access and experience a form of Christianity that feels ancient and authentic — think Paula White-Cain, Trump’s former spiritual advisor, being wrapped in a Torah by a messianic Jewish “rabbi,” an act of supposed Judaism that no Jew would ever do. For many of them, support for Israel springs out of a scriptural hope for the end times, and the need to gather Jews in Israel to trigger the apocalypse.

“On the American far right, this bifurcation into philosemitism and antisemitism are not opposites,” said Taylor. Instead, he said, they’re “two sides of the same coin — they’re often instrumentalizing Jews for Christian purposes.”

This story was originally published on the Forward.

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.

Despite a temporary boost after Oct. 7 — the so-called ‘solidarity spike’ — traditional Jewish community in the United States has been in decline for at least a generation.

Synagogue attendance, regular Shabbat practice, paying congregational dues — never have these seemed less appealing to more Jews.

This isn’t all that surprising. American Jewry is evolving — interfaith households are up, support for Israel is down — and the onus, to a degree, is on the Hillels and Jewish Community Centers and large metropolitan synagogues to respond to these changes.

Yet the growth of a group like Judaism Unbound, a digitally-savvy Jewish organization founded in part as an alternative to the mainstays of American-Jewish life, would seem to suggest that, in certain quarters, the usual offerings just aren’t cutting it.

What the organization’s members share above all, said Lex Rofeberg, its senior Jewish educator, is a failure to connect meaningfully with “classic Jewish institutions.”

Unbounders — Rofeberg’s somewhat hokey name for the group’s members — are on the fringes of Jewish community for several reasons: among them, political beliefs; accessibility; interfaith dynamics; or a perceived knowledge deficit. There are, for example, a disproportionately high number of converts and Jews from interfaith backgrounds in the organization.

Lisa Heineman, a professor of Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa, and a longtime Unbounder, told me over email that despite her repeated efforts to get involved with Jewish institutions, she “simply felt like an outsider — I didn’t know the rituals, couldn’t play Jewish geography, didn’t fit into the ethnic Yiddishkeit.”

For many Unbounders, distance from mainstream Jewish community is not just figurative, but literal. “There’s a ton of creativity off the beaten path,” Heineman wrote. “And Judaism Unbound has been alert to what we have to gain by listening to Jews in places like Iowa, Oklahoma or Mississippi — and by really integrating them into their conception of American Jewish life.”

An unconventional approach

Judaism Unbound — or the ‘Institute for the Next Jewish Future,’ the group’s lesser-used official name — has embraced what Rofeberg calls “digital-first” Judaism, the better to reach those Jews in far-flung locations. With occasional exceptions, most events take place online. “Digitally, you are able to reach everywhere,” Rofeberg said. “People who are ostracized, people who are marginalized in whatever ways, find us. We had a lot of success very quickly online in ways that could not have happened offline.”

The events themselves — in keeping with the group’s anti-institutional bent — are sold as a departure from tradition.

“To be a Judaism Unbounder,” Rofeberg said, “is not to presume that the status quo is eternal.” One recent program, for instance, explored books from the Apocrypha, the liturgical texts that, though hugely influential, were never accepted into the biblical canon. The ‘ApocryFest,’ as the event was known, was typical of an Unbound program: zany and experimental, deeply if unconventionally Jewish, and, in truth, a little intellectually demanding.

Another of Unbound’s principal offerings is the ‘UnYeshiva’, a virtual beit knesset of sorts that offers online classes on an increasingly sprawling suite of topics, such as ‘Genesis: People and Solidarity in Bereshit’; ‘Every Body Beloved: A Jewish Embrace of Fatness’; and ‘Jews and Revolution: Socialists, Anarchists, and Radicals in the Modern World.’

The ‘UnYeshiva’ debuted in 2021 and was so well-received that Rofeberg and co. added a longer certificate program for the especially dedicated. These can take up to three years to complete, and consist of four separate classes, followed by a so-called capstone project, which the organization’s website describes as “a unique expression of each student’s holy work in the world.”

Heineman’s capstone project was a day-long, genre-spanning workshop —  art, text study, meditation — that invited participants to reflect on a “path to a meaningful Jewish future.” That Heineman had had a previous capstone proposal shot down, on the grounds that her idea was too conventional, captures Judaism Unbound’s animating spirit, its insistence that participants innovate and experiment.

This programming is, suffice it to say, atypical, not least when set against the broader American-Jewish landscape. “Our premise from the get-go,” Rofeberg told me, “is that it’s very hard for existing legacy organizations to drastically change what they do in ways that will reach a new constituency, when they also have their own constituency.”

Matt Perry, a current UnYeshiva student, agrees. “If there’s one idea that I’ve noticed many participants perhaps share,” he wrote, “it might be the belief that a revolution is unlikely to emerge from within existing Jewish structures.”

UnBound, through the airwaves 

For all the UnYeshiva’s successes, the organization’s most popular venture remains its first: its eponymous podcast, hosted by Rofeberg and, until very recently, Dan Liebenson, Judaism Unbound’s founder. (Liebenson has stepped back from the organization’s day-to-day affairs to focus on a new Jewish venture.)

Both Perry and Heineman came to Judaism Unbound through the podcast, which launched in March 2016, and has since been downloaded over 3 million times. Heineman compared its array of guests and topics to “entering Narnia.”

In an era of ideological insularity, guests have run pretty much the full gamut of serious opinion. To name a few: Sarah Hurwitz, Peter Beinart, Shai Held, Danya Ruttenberg, Hey Alma founder Molly Tolsky. “Week after week,” Heineman told me, “I’d discover a new book, a new musician, a new activist organization, a new online educator — all working on this incredibly exciting project of re-thinking and re-invigorating Judaism.”

Rofeberg, for his part, wasn’t always so satisfied with the podcast. For a while, he felt it was creating a kind of epistemic distance between hosts and listeners. “Other than listening to us and emailing us,” he said, “they weren’t able to really actively participate.”

In 2023, the organization hired Miriam Terlinchamp, an Ohio-based rabbi, as executive director. Rofeberg credits her with introducing a less top-down pedagogical vision, and today the group has “more spaces where our people can come up with their own experiments,” he said. It hosts monthly Shabbat gatherings — online, naturally — during which participants explore one prayer in depth. There’s also an annual Shavuot event, Shavuot Live, a 24-hour-long Zoom gathering that draws hundreds of Unbounders and generates lengthy discussions in the event’s chatroom.

“In every respect, we’re trying to broaden who Judaism Unbound is,” Rofeberg said. “We’re not dictatorial, right?”

A post-Oct. 7 boost

The organization has grown sharply, especially of late, precisely because it hasn’t changed all that much. It’s always been a little counter-cultural and vaguely transgressive; it’s long suggested that Jewish life has passed over vital constituencies; and it’s consistently held that “the oldest Jewish tradition,” in Rofeberg’s phrase, “is upending Jewish tradition.”

The salient difference recently — read: since Oct. 7 — is that more Jews have come around to that interpretation. “We’ve had a lot of people find our work in the last few years, because more people than before feel alienated from other organizations,” Rofeberg said.

Concern over Israel’s actions in Gaza certainly helps explain this shift. As Rofeberg conceded, Judaism Unbound welcomes anti- and non-Zionists “in a Jewish world that largely doesn’t.”

The organization doesn’t have an official stance vis-a-vis Zionism. (“We’re a space that does not define itself with any ‘ism,” Rofeberg said.) One of its more impressive accomplishments, in fact, is gathering together under a single banner, albeit a virtual one, Jews who would otherwise scarcely interact.

In short, Judaism Unbound is that often-invoked-but-harder-to-realize idea of a big tent, where different beliefs mingle freely but are held together by a set of unifying values. For many, therefore, it has been a refuge from the division that has lately defined much of organized Jewish life.

Yet, for Perry, it’s more than that. “Over time, and combined with other semi-aligned efforts,” he wrote, “it has the potential to transform the Jewish world.”

This story was originally published on the Forward.

The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon. 

Tzav
Leviticus 6:1−8:36

I was 13 years old when I witnessed the birth of the milk cow Annabelle. I looked on with rapt attention as I leaned on a corral fence at a summer camp.

The counselors told us to be quiet as Annabelle’s mother labored. Even though we were generally rambunctious kids, it was easy for us to stay silent. We all understood that there is something sacred about birth.

When Annabelle finally emerged from her mother, she fell to the ground, coated in the placenta.

She didn’t move. I had never seen a birth of any kind before, and my first thought was that Annabelle hadn’t survived, that something tragic had happened.

But eventually she started moving. 

I returned to summer camp for six more summers. One year, Annabelle was a creature about my size. The next, she was a massive animal that we were allowed to brush. She then became a cow that would happily munch on hay as children milked her.

I think of Annabelle this week as our Torah portion Tzav outlines the routine use of animals in the sacrifices to God made in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. Of the five types of sacrifices we read about, four of them use animals. In Tzav, we read detailed instructions for sacrificing pigeons, turtledoves, sheep, goats — and cows.

As this week’s Torah portion makes clear, there are currents in our tradition that advocate for taking animal lives. There is also a current of thought in Judaism that looks hesitantly on doing so. 

In the Garden of Eden, God tells the first two humans that they should eat plants: “God said, ‘See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food.’” (Genesis 1:29)

God makes no mention of eating animals. Some in our tradition, including Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, believe this means that the ideal way of being is not to eat meat or animal products. According to this understanding, people eat meat only in the imperfect world we inhabit after banishment from the Garden of Eden. Greenberg further teaches that the laws of kosher eating offer us a way of limiting a practice that is flawed.

I think about the value of refraining from eating meat precisely because it is idealistic. In this era, it’s difficult for everything we do to be in line with our values. Many of us shop online in ways we’re not proud of. We buy products that were made overseas in bad labor conditions, and we use gasoline despite knowing it harms the planet. These small decisions that each of us make add up to collective wrongs, contributing to problems such as global warming, income inequality and the large-scale harm we do to animals.

In laying out the rules for different sacrifices, our portion this week outlines what should happen when the community as a whole makes a mistake.

Tzav continues the Book of Leviticus’ detailed descriptions of the chatat, the sacrifice made as expiation for the community’s collective sins. 

Of course, what is proposed is to offer an animal sacrifice, so we have to read this text with an acknowledgment that it emerges from one of the threads of the Jewish tradition that is OK with taking animal lives.

Still, it is moving to consider that this ancient text was open to the idea that the entire community could sin collectively.

Perhaps we can learn from this that it’s possible for an entire community to err — that we should heed that small voice of conscience inside of us that wonders about the ethics of a widespread community practice. 

For me, a turning point in listening to this voice took place the last time I saw Annabelle.

I returned to camp for a weekend when I was in my mid-20s. It was early summer, before the campers arrived. Annabelle had stopped producing milk like she used to, and the decision had been made to call a butcher.

As someone who ate meat at the time, I wanted to witness a slaughter to make sure I was comfortable enough with the practice.

The butcher arrived in a worn truck that carried a refrigerator for the eventual meat and a set of poles and wires that would lift the cow’s carcass for butchering.

Annabelle stood in the same corral where she was born. I wondered if Annabelle knew what was coming. I felt an instinct to comfort her.

The slaughterer acted quickly and professionally. He pulled out his rifle and pointed it at Annabelle. The man shot. Immediately, Annabelle dropped to the ground.

I didn’t know what to make of what I had seen, but I knew it was jarring to watch life leave Annabelle so quickly. 

Gradually over the next year, I decided to stop eating meat. I felt that listening to the small voice inside of me that wished to comfort Annabelle could make a difference for animals — and also for me. Not eating meat could be a practice. Every time I decided not to eat meat I would be choosing to believe in a better world, choosing to believe in a world where we do listen to that faint voice of conscience.

As we go about our everyday lives, I think it’s good to make as much room as we can for our voices of conscience.

It makes sense to be skeptical of what one consumer can accomplish. Does recycling a bottle do much to stop pollution? Does one person going to a co-op instead of a chain grocery store make a big difference? Does one person not eating meat matter in the grand scheme of things? 

One sometimes hears that these small actions add up to make a difference. That every recycled soda can matters. I honestly don’t know about that. What I do know is that we need to make as much room as we can in our souls for our sense of what’s right.

Not eating meat is one thing we can do to help build up this muscle of compassion. However we choose to do it, it’s upon us to make sure this muscle doesn’t atrophy. So much is at stake.

Every year, a raft of new haggadahs promise to enliven your Passover seder. And every year, I select a range of them for this little roundup of new haggadahs.

In this year’s crop, I spotted a theme running through several of them: What does it mean to believe in the text of the haggadah, in a modern context? Can one believe in its meaning without believing in its literal truth? Is it dishonest to use a haggadah that assumes the truth of the Exodus story if you don’t yourself believe in its literal truth? Answers, direct and indirect, follow.

“Echoes of Egypt: A Haggada” by Joshua Berman

If you accept the literal truth of the Passover story — that 3,500 years ago around 1400 BCE, hundreds of thousands of Hebrew slaves escaped Egypt after 400 years of bondage via the splitting of the Red Sea — then the premise of “Echoes of Egypt” makes perfect sense. This haggadah, by Bar-Ilan University professor Joshua Berman, supposes that we can better understand the story by placing it in an ancient Egyptian cultural context via archaeology.

This new haggadah is indeed replete with fascinating tidbits about ancient Egypt. Unfortunately, two centuries of academic consensus, from archaeology to linguistics, have shown us that the Book of Exodus was not drafted when and where it was supposedly written, but rather it was produced over centuries and was codified into its final form around the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, and not in Egypt. It is properly understood not as true history, but as meaningful myth. To understand the story in its proper context, we need to understand the time and place it was written — 5th and 4th century BCE Israel, not Egypt 1,000 years earlier.

“Echoes of Egypt” is full of non sequiturs and faulty, grandiose assumptions. In the introduction, there is a promise to deal with “questions at the very heart of Torah’s encounter with Egypt,” one of which is “Why did the Egyptians find no meaning in the unfolding of history?” I can’t make sense of the question, let alone take it seriously. There are plenty more like that throughout.

Some of Berman’s assumptions rest on the most tenuous of connections between ancient Egypt and the Exodus text. At one point, he tells us that the Biblical character Korach, whose name means “bald,” must have been an Egyptian priest because “during the period when Israel sojourned in Egypt… the lowest level of priests, the wab priests, were known above all by one distinctive feature — their shaved heads.” That’s a little too tidy and hardly proof of anything.

There is some truth to this next bit from Berman’s introduction: The haggadah “was a voice — indeed, a protest — against the great empires or the ancient world, and most of all against Egypt.” Yes, the haggadah is a protest against empire and oppression. But we need not take the story literally to see it that way.

“The Liberated Haggadah: A Passover Celebration for Cultural, Secular and Humanistic Jews” by Rabbi Peter H. Schweitzer

Taking the exact opposite approach, “The Liberated Haggadah” takes great pains to let readers know that it doesn’t take this story or any of its associated theology literally.

It is a reissue of a classic among the Jewish Secular Humanist denomination by the late Rabbi Peter H. Schweitzer, who was the rabbi of the City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism in New York. The Secular Humanist movement takes it as a settled matter that the entire Torah is nothing more than myth and that God is, at most, metaphorical.

The introduction asks, “If, in the face of modern scholarship, we no longer accept the Exodus narrative as historical, but as legend, why do we continue to tell the story? And if we do re-enact the story, how do we maintain our intellectual honesty?” The first question is a good one, while the second one is where Secular Humanism always loses me. Why can’t we enact Jewish ritual while also treating much (or even all) of it as metaphorical? That’s not intellectual dishonesty to me. That’s simply another mode of religious behavior. 

But if that contradiction does bother you, “Liberated” is the haggadah for you. Throughout, it goes out of its way to let you know that nothing here is literally true. Earnest attempts are made, as Secular Humanism is wont to do, to rewrite prayers and blessings so that they remain ritual formulas without appealing to a higher power. For example, rather than the standard blessing over the candles, this haggadah offers “Baruch ha’or ba’olam. Baruch ha’or ba’adam. Baruch ha’or bayom tov,” meaning “Radiant is the light of the world. Radiant is the light within each person. Radiant is the light of the festival.”

My favorite thing about this haggadah are the photos of myriad tchotchkes, knicknacks and ephemera from Schweitzer’s extensive personal collection of Jewish Americana, including everything from brochures for Catskills resorts to a Hebrew National promotional clock.

“The Pintele Haggadah: A Jewish Celebration of Liberation” written and illustrated by Noah Diamond.

Personally, I’m not looking for ambivalence and cute jokes in my seder, but if you are, consider “The Pintele Haggadah,” which takes a middle path between “Echoes” and “Liberated.”

“I stopped celebrating Passover many years ago,” writes Noah Diamond in his introduction. “I had always assumed that there was a sound historical basis for the general idea that the ancient Hebrews were slaves in Egypt, and it broke my heart to learn that there wasn’t…. Working on ‘Pintele’ [also the name of his podcast] helped me realize that … at its heart, Passover is a celebration of liberation. It provides the poetic and philosophical framework for the Jewish imperative to oppose tyrants and be allies of the oppressed.” Here, remarkably, even this self-described “nonreligious nonbeliever” agrees with Berman’s overall take in “Echoes of Egypt,” even if Diamond fundamentally disagrees on the historicity of the Passover story.

Where he loses me is his insistence on pointing out what “our ancestors” did, removing himself and his audience from the equation of what we all do on the seder night. In the opening pages of the haggadah, Diamond has the leader read out: “When our ancestors lit candles, they would say a prayer in Hebrew.” He places the practice in the past, but then he writes out the blessing for lighting Passover candles anyway. Why not just print that blessing on its own, without implying that it’s a silly thing from the past? People can choose to say it or not, object or not. 

I find the ambivalence about the proceedings odd in a haggadah. But for many seder attendees, I think this will work, as it gives people explicit permission to participate or not according to their own will.

Diamond structures the entire thing as a responsive reading, with chunks to be read by the leader and chunks to be read by the entire group. There is a jokiness to some of these sections. For example: “Leader: This is matzo, the bread of affliction. Group: This is matzo, the bread of affliction. Leader: I just said that. Group: I just said that. Leader: Now cut that out! Group: Now cut that out!” Moments later, he has the group inform the leader: “You know, they also have chocolate-covered matzo. It’s available wherever matzo is sold.”

“Haggadah for Believers and Heretics” by Moyshe Altshuler, translated and edited by Noah Leininger

This one is less a rejection of the literal truth of Passover than a rejection of the holiday itself. The “Haggadah for Believers and Heretics” is my favorite type of “new” haggadah — a republication of an old, obscure haggadah that illuminates the lives and beliefs of Jews in far-removed times and places. This one is a new translation of a Communist Yiddish haggadah published in the Soviet Union in 1927. (This new edition actually came out in 2025, but I didn’t get my hands on it in time to review last year.)

Its overall ethos is summed up nicely on the page for Yachatz, the breaking of the middle matzah, which includes simply an illustration and these words: “Humankind is divided into two camps: workers and parasites.”

This haggadah is both a political reimagining of the seder and a rejection of the seder itself. Its commentary on the famous line “this is the bread of our affliction” reads: “For poor bread, every capitalist has bought our sweat and blood.… Our Jewish masters, respectable bosses and rabbis, taught us to be patient…. They have turned their holidays into a means for binding and enslaving the people.… instead of actual history, they have taught us the Haggadah and Books of Moses.”

Despite its deep engagement with religious texts, it is resolutely anti-religious in classically Communist way, proclaiming at one point that the haggadah is a “tale of freedom, so as to hold you longer in slavery” and a “condemnation of humanity’s own initiative and struggle for freedom.” Opiate of the masses indeed.

My sense is that this volume is intended more as a primary source for understanding communist Jews of its time and place than for use at your seder. That said, of the new haggadahs I reviewed this year, it’s the only one formatted well for use around a seder table crowded with plates, glasses and ritual foods — i.e., it’s small enough that it won’t take up half the table, even if everyone has their own copy.

“Haggadah Shel Erev Rav: The Mixed Multitude Haggadah” edited by Rabbi Sarah Berman with art by Siona Benjamin

Finally, one of the most significant new American haggadahs this year is not particularly concerned with the debate over Biblical literalism, perhaps because it is produced by the Reform movement, which long ago decided that these stories aren’t literally true.

“The Mixed Multitude Haggadah” is produced to mark the 20th year of Rabbi Angela Buchdahl’s service to Central Synagogue in Manhattan. Buchdahl is one of the leading voices of the contemporary Reform movement and is well known as the first Asian American rabbi. The commentary is by her and other Central Synagogue clergy. 

The English translations are written by Rabbi Janet Marder, rabbi emerita of Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, and her husband, Rabbi Sheldon Marder, who served as rabbi of the San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living before retirement. 

The real draw here, however, is a wealth of new artwork by Siona Benjamin, an Indian American Jew, who grew up in India’s Bene Israel Jewish community. Her heritage is evident in her painterly work, in which mandalas, blue-skinned figures and her use of color recall the artistic milieu of India. My favorite pieces are her multi-page treatment of the 10 plagues, each represented by an abstract mandala, colored and detailed to represent each plague; the one for frogs is green, and two little frog legs protrude from it.

Noting the byzantine complexity of the Magid (storytelling) section of the seder, “Mixed Multitude” offers four relatively brief approaches to it that seder leaders can choose from: “Magid for All Ages,” which is especially appropriate for children; “With a Mighty Hand and an Outstretched Arm,” which focuses on God’s role in the story, the most traditional approach; “Go Down, Moses,” which focuses on liberation, “not just for the Israelites, but for all people in all times”; and “Miriam’s Song,” which tells the story of the Exodus from Miriam’s perspective.

That mixed approach is reflected in the name. In her introduction to the volume, Buchdahl writes of the many ways Jews celebrate Passover. 

“That multiplicity is not a modern invention — it has been with us since the Exodus itself,” she writes. “The Torah tells us that when we fled Egypt, we did so as an erev rav, a ‘mixed multitude’ — a diverse assembly of Israelites and fellow travelers, all swept us in a shared yearning for freedom.”

And with that, let me wish you and your mixed multitude a meaningful seder this year, no matter which new, old or cobbled together family haggadah you use.

Also new this year

There are two other haggadahs of note this year that I could not get my hands on in time for this review:

“A Living Tapestry” by Leon Fenster

Fenster is a British artist whose explosively vibrant, graphic-design-influenced art appears to leap off of every page of his new haggadah. I really wish I had a copy in hand!

“The Az Nashir Haggadah: On the Path to Redemption”

This haggadah comes from the Matan Institute for Women’s Torah Studies in Israel. It features a range of contemporary art, prayers and commentary from Israeli Orthodox women scholars.

One more thing

Sometimes I’m asked, after all these years of writing about new haggadahs, which one do I use? The answer is the “The Yedid Nefesh Haggadah” by Rabbi Joshua Cahan. It is lightweight, straightforward and features a solid commentary meant to elucidate the text of the haggadah. It also comes in a spiral-bound edition that folds over and lays flat so as not to take up too much space on the table. I recommend it to just about anyone.

One of the consistent challenges at Passover is bringing new perspectives to the texts and rituals that can too easily become rote. With the festival approaching, Steven Weitzman’s new book, “Disasters of Biblical Proportions: The Ten Plagues Then, Now, and at the End of the World,” is particularly welcome.

Our customary recitation of the 10 plagues at the seder table is notable for its minimalism. The lack of detail in the presentation of the plagues in the Book of Exodus makes them ripe for expansion and exploration.

Weitzman, who directs the Katz Center of Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, takes an unconventional approach. Rather than simply offering a close reading of the Biblical text and its rabbinic interpretation, he ventures widely and explores how the plagues have been understood by Jews, Christians and Muslims over the centuries.

The book, published in February, devotes a chapter to each plague, with Weitzman selecting something “odd or puzzling” in the text to examine.

For the fourth plague, he focuses not on the disastrous invasion of flies but on the fact that the Israelites are protected by where they live: Goshen. This region in Egypt appears in Exodus only in connection with the plagues: “I will set apart in that day the land of Goshen, where my people are stationed, so that no swarm of flies will be there…”

Weitzman examines how Goshen is at once a land populated by slaves and a haven of sorts from the plague. “If Egypt is a symbol of oppression and brutality, and Canaan of freedom and independence,” he writes. “Goshen represented something in between, a realm situated within the heart of an oppressive landscape that nonetheless offered room to act with a measure of autonomy.”

I was particularly moved by his consideration of how African Americans regarded Goshen. Weitzman finds that while Egypt and Canaan carried enormous symbolic power in African American thought and expression, the idea of Goshen as a haven within the world of enslavement did not gain traction at first — perhaps because no corresponding haven existed for Black people in the United States during slavery. In 1900, however, Black essayist Kelly Miller wrote “The Modern Land of Goshen,” calling for Black people to work toward economic self-dependence.

Dozens of self-governed Black towns emerged in the U.S. in the aftermath of the Civil War, offering some degree of insulation from the surrounding racism. One such place was Eatonville, Florida, where author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston was raised. Her book “Moses: Man of the Mountain,” which fictionalizes the Exodus story, offers a vision of Goshen as a sort of prison camp. But it was one where, as Weitzman puts it, “the oppressed find ways to evade the notice of their taskmasters and express themselves freely.”

The author approaches the fifth plague of cattle disease by asking whether attention was paid to the suffering of the animals themselves.

He finds that early Jewish and Christian interpreters appeared unbothered by the afflicted cattle, viewed as “mere implements” of God’s designs. Christian sermons from the 17th century onward, however, showed increased concern about animal welfare, and real-world recurrences of widespread cattle disease kept it in public consciousness.

Weitzman traces a line from this emerging empathy to new language in some contemporary haggadahs, in which “God‘s killing of animals during the exodus began to be experienced as a moral embarrassment by Jewish animal rights activists, vegetarians, and vegans.“

In discussing the sixth plague, Weitzman focuses not on the boils, but on the “shift that Exodus registers from a pharaoh who hardens his own heart to a pharaoh whose heart is hardened by God.” This is familiar territory to those who have studied Jewish commentary on Exodus, but I particularly appreciated Weitzman’s discussion of Christian thought.

Paul the apostle, writing in the Epistle to the Romans, took a deterministic approach, asserting that God created Pharaoh to be hardhearted. This view met resistance early on, with the third-century scholar Origen arguing that God endowed people with free will and that human beings always have choices concerning their behavior.

Tracing a path through Augustine, Erasmus, Luther and other thinkers, Weitzman notes that “Christians will turn again and again to the story of Pharaoh’s hardened heart to try to work out whether humans have self-determining power in a world controlled by an all-powerful and all-knowing God.“ 

The book’s afterword reveals that it was inspired by the feelings Weitzman experienced at the first seder during the pandemic lockdown, with the plagues taking on a sudden immediacy. Other chapters convey the sense that the plagues remain relevant today, in a world marked by war, disease and environmental catastrophe. 

For those interested in the Bible’s enduring influence or seeking fresh insight before this year’s seder, the book offers a challenging and satisfying journey.

“Disasters of Biblical Proportions: The Ten Plagues Then, Now, and at the End of the World” by Steven Weitzman (Princeton University Press, 328 pages)

Vayikra
Leviticus 1:1-5:26

“The world is one-part wilderness, one-part settled land, and one-part sea. Said the sea: ‘Master of the Universe! The Torah will be given in the wilderness, the Holy Temple will be built on settled land, but what about me?’ Said God: ‘The people of Israel will offer your salt upon the Altar.’” — Yalkut HaReuveni midrash collection

As the Book of Leviticus begins, we meet the elaborate rules and procedures that became essential in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, and there find this mitzvah: “You shall salt your every meal offering with salt; you may not discontinue the salt of your God’s covenant upon your meal offering — on your every offering shall you offer salt.” (Leviticus 2:13) 

That the Hebrew word “melach,” or “salt,” appears four times in one verse suggests the centrality of this practice. Salt was an essential ingredient in the recipe book for our Beit Hamikdash.

With the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Judaism evolved to regard the dining table as a suitable alternative to the once-central Temple altar. The Leviticus commandment is thus the reason why many Jews still salt their challah before Hamotzi, the blessing over bread, as they welcome Shabbat, and why salt is so often present on any table where food is shared.      

Why salt? By most reckonings, salt is undoubtedly positive. It adds flavor to foods, serves as a remarkably effective preservative, plays a major role in the kashering of meat and has numerous curative properties (think of gargling with salt water or soaking in a salt bath, for example). Its role in superstitions is well attested (after salt is spilled accidentally, some people toss a few grains over their shoulder to ward off evil). And describing anyone as “the salt of the Earth” is a compliment denoting goodness, loyalty and lack of pretense.

Salt is a ubiquitous symbol of hospitality and welcome. It is often given with wine and bread to friends moving into a new home, with the hope that they will receive many guests. One suggestion for why Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt when looking back on her ruined home (Genesis 19:26) is that she failed to show her guests proper hospitality, a primary theme of that tragic episode, by laying out sufficient food, drink and salt. An Arabic expression, “there is salt between us,” tethers a host and a guest in an unbreakable bond once they have shared a meal with salt.

A Middle Eastern tradition known as a Salt Covenant involved two parties meeting to establish a pact, with each bringing a bag of prized salt. (An Arabic word for “treaty” or “contract” is the same as “salt.”) The parties co-mingled their grains of salt in one vessel, declaring “may this bond last until these grains of salt can be separated and returned to their original owner.” Some modern weddings still feature a version of the Salt Covenant, where the marrying couple mixes colored salt in a transparent keepsake holder, symbolizing the unbreakable union they hope to create.  

And so, when we read of the Brit Melach, or Salt Covenant, between God and the Jewish people (also in Numbers 18:19 and 2 Chronicles 13:5), it suggests something enduring and preserved for all time. The rabbis likewise likened the Torah to salt because the world could not do without salt, nor could it do without the Torah. (Soferim 15:8)

But salt is also bitter, often representing tears. It can be destructive and corrosive, ruining land and plants. Diets high in sodium are known to be quite unhealthy. 

Ramban taught that the salt of the sacrificial offerings reminded us that, when performed correctly, the Temple service preserved Israel and its relationship with God. But when rituals were neglected, defeat and exile were the inevitable result. 

For many modern readers, the visceral, overpowering notion of animal sacrifice and its importance in the ancient world is too much to bear. But for those willing to grapple with this strange and wondrous book, Leviticus offers a way we might draw closer to holiness, in the truest sense of the Hebrew word for sacrifice, “korban,” with intention and commitment. 

We often speak of sacrifice negatively, as something precious we have to give up, yet that’s exactly how our tradition regards it. To give up something should involve taking something treasured and giving it up for a holy purpose.

The seminal but easily overlooked mitzvah of including salt with our sacrifices teaches that something seemingly ordinary can be mined for deep holiness. If we can add some “salt” to our daily lives, how much more meaningful might they become? As a devoted challah baker, I can also attest to the fact that omitting salt, which I did only once inadvertently, makes all the difference.

The kabbalists teach that when performing the salt with challah ritual, the bread should always be dipped into the salt, so that the sweetness of the bread dampens down any bitterness that the salt might represent. But it’s also a way to recognize that life contains both bitter and sweet; notably, the word for bread, “lechem,” and the word for salt, “melach,” contain the same Hebrew letters.    

As we begin the Book of Leviticus, we are also in the opening days of the month of Nisan. We are entering a veritable season of bread. In the weeks to come, we’ll clean out all the crumbs of the past year and revert to flat, unleavened matzah, the bread of potential, on Passover. We’ll count the Omer for seven weeks to commemorate the barley harvest and ascend to Shavuot, the joyful wheat harvest, when fully risen loaves were offered — with salt, of course! 

May our bread always be sweet, with just the right amount of salt, and may our offerings be brought, and received, with joy.

Vayakhel-Pekudei
Exodus 35:1-40:38

The public reading of the Torah this week features two portions that are thematically related. They speak of the fulfillment of the instructions given to Moses with respect to the Tabernacle and all of its accompanying articles. 

The actual instructions were laid out in the portions of Terumah and Tetzaveh, which we read a couple of weeks back. There is one major factor that God introduces in this week’s double portion. It is the assignment of leadership to ensure the success of the project. 

“Moses said to the Children of Israel, ‘See, God has called by name Betzalel son of Uri, son of Chur, of the tribe of Judah.’” (Exodus 35:30) Moses had informed the people that God had a particular individual whom he wanted to appoint for this operation. In fact, the language of “called by name” indicates that it was not just hinted at by God, but that God actually chose Betzalel as the chief architect. 

And what of Betzalel’s qualifications for the task at hand? The text tells us, “I have filled him with a godly spirit, with wisdom, discernment and knowledge, and with all of the skills.” God does not rely on the natural talent of Betzalel. He actually endows him with everything necessary to lead the effort. The verses continue listing the crafts, which include stone cutting, metal work (with gold, silver and copper) and even carpentry. (Exodus 35:31-33)

Building the Tabernacle was certainly a formidable task, and God did not stop at the appointment of just one leader. He also directly designated the second in command. Ohaliav, son of Achisamach, was appointed from the tribe of Dan. The verses have subtle nuances that suggest that there was a clear hierarchy and that Ohaliav was subservient to Betzalel.

“He filled them with wisdom of the heart to do all of the crafts of carving, designing and embroidery with the turquoise, purple and scarlet wool, and the linen, and to weave; the doers of every craft and designers of every design.” (Exodus 35:35) The skills that were necessary for the tapestry and the vestments of the priests were not just given to Ohaliav, but the pronoun “them” suggests that Betzalel was blessed with those talents as well. 

There was one other ability that was granted to Betzalel as well as Ohaliav: “And to instruct he placed in his heart, he as well as Ohaliav son of Achisamach of the tribe of Dan.” (Exodus 35:34) 

It is one thing for a person to have the talent to produce great work. It is a completely different skill to be able to instruct or teach others how to use their own abilities. 

Betzalel was a great-great-nephew of Moses himself. God was going to imbue him with everything necessary to accomplish the work, but Betzalel was also part of the leading family and was a beneficiary of the great merit accrued by his great-grandmother, Miriam, as well as that of his grandfather, Chur. Just to remind ourselves, Chur played a significant role just after the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. He was one of the two people who held up Moses’ hands during the battle with Amalek, and he was also appointed with Aaron to manage the people while Moses left for Mount Sinai.

According to a midrash in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 7), Chur actually attempted to stop the building of the golden calf. The midrash states that he was murdered by the perpetrators of the grievous sin, and hence, he is no longer mentioned. It is possible that granting such a prestigious position to Betzalel was a way to recognize Chur’s sacrifice.

There is another question that one could raise with respect to the choice of Betzalel. He is introduced as the son of Uri, who was the son of Chur. Why would God skip down to a younger generation and not enlist Uri as the chief architect of the Mishkan (Tabernacle)?

According to what was discussed in the midrash about the fate of Chur, it is possible that God did not want to have Uri because he was in a state of mourning for the loss of his father. The Tabernacle was the holiest place for the Israelites and should be constructed with great simcha, or jubilation. A mourner is not supposed to participate in such joy during the year of mourning for a parent. Betzalel was only a grandson and not required to observe the rituals of mourning.

In general, the observance of mitzvot should be done with joy. We can all learn that lesson from the appointment of Betzalel to this great opportunity he was given to serve God.

(JTA) — During my early years of cantorial school, I noticed a significant gap in my studies. While the coursework included extensive classes on biblical grammar, liturgy and text study, I received only surface-level training in providing pastoral care, and little attention was given to my character development, spiritual formation, or to learning to tend to my own well-being as I prepared for a career in religious leadership.

I was being taught, sure. But was I being formed? That question would later inform my understanding of clergy burnout as structural — rooted not in individual weakness, but in how seminaries are training clergy long before they enter the field.

As a future cantor aspiring to guide community members through meaningful rituals and lifecycle transitions, I felt unprepared both for how to best support congregants on their Jewish journeys and how to protect myself from burnout while doing so. I kept hoping that training would come, but by the end of my second year, I realized I would need to seek additional education outside of the seminary walls.

I decided to apply to a part-time Master of Social Work program at New York University, which I completed at night and on the weekends, alongside my cantorial studies. My seminary pushed back, saying it was unnecessary, but I felt strongly that if I was going to thrive in the role, I would need both an expansive education and an experience that would tend to my growth.

My experience is part of a wider problem. Atra’s recent report showing widespread burnout in the rabbinate and articles highlighting similar trends among cantors showcase the seriousness of the issue. Meanwhile, seminaries have long expressed confusion over why prospective students are becoming increasingly hesitant to enroll in their training programs.

Burnout is, of course, not unique to clergy. Research comparing clergy burnout with other vocations shows that rabbis and cantors experience burnout at levels similar to other helping professionals —and even lower than police and other emergency responders — yet face a uniquely unbounded role marked by constant emotional labor, blurred boundaries, and around-the-clock expectations that may require unique skills to combat.

And while we may be quick to recognize burnout by only its hallmark of exhaustion and simply propose self-care in response, the research is clear that other dimensions of burnout prevalent among clergy — such as job-related cynicism that emerges over time, or feelings of diminished effectiveness caused by systemic barriers — require solutions centered in personal development, relational health and structural and institutional support.

So then why the confusion? It seems simple to me: to prepare rabbis and cantors to thrive in their roles, graduate-level theological education needs to catch up by grounding clergy training in intentional formation and practical skill-building, both central to preventing these trends and promoting long-term success.

It’s time to move to action. We need to enact evidence-based practices that support clergy during their education and beyond, helping them to build resilience, not just master content or complete degree requirements.

To find those evidence-based practices, we can look to research findings coming out of academia and the ways that other faith communities have implemented the research’s recommendations in their seminary programs.

I can vouch for the necessity of applying these practices and research outcomes. In my social work program, I learned the relational theories, justice skills and psychology chops I knew I would need in order to succeed as a cantor, and which I rely heavily on in my clergy role today. I gained clinical skills that equipped me to explore the personhood of the individual sitting in front of me while also learning to maintain boundaries, protect myself from becoming burnt out as a helping professional, and flourish as a person who loves what she does.

In 2021, I went on to pursue a PhD in Practical Theology with a focus in the Psychology of Religion from Boston University to further deepen my knowledge of this intersection. As a doctoral candidate, I’m part of a research team collecting and publishing data about clergy burnout risks, flourishing potential, formation goals, and the crucial role seminaries play in shaping rabbis- and cantors-in-training.

Our empirical study at a Jewish seminary — the first of its kind — found that students value the formation they already experience through the school’s supportive social and academic cultures, impactful t’filah (prayer) program and processing spaces, and relational growth studying in chevruta (partnered study) and with professors and mentors, among other things. The seminarians also recognized that as the needs of the Jewish community change, their role is changing too, and that developing the relational capacities to facilitate meaningful community is the only way forward.

Students expressed a strong desire to learn more about responsible uses of power, spiritual abuse and t’shuva (making amends). the social sciences and mental health, and how to cultivate personal virtue capacities such as compassion and humility in order to promote their well-being. The students requested training in the kinds of skills I gained through my social work education, citing them as essential both to their effectiveness as spiritual leaders and to their personal sustainability as helping professionals.

These results are encouraging and show us what it can look like when seminary systems are enthusiastic about and invest in their students’ formation — and they must stir us to action. Potential solutions include establishing or building upon already-existing formation programs to shape future rabbis and cantors as whole people — programs that attend to the strengths and vulnerabilities students bring into their training, and which engage in regular evaluation of their growth. Programs must shift from frameworks that approach burnout as an individual problem to one that highlights systemic challenges and prepares students as healthy, holy vessels with capacities to navigate them—from one that simply educates students to one that forms them for leadership.

Relatedly, and importantly, seminaries must adopt an intersectional lens that acknowledges the unique challenges faced by clergy of marginalized social locations (e.g., women, queer people, people of color) and support those students in developing the tools to respond to the additional obstacles they may encounter in the field.

The impact of this will be broad. By supporting future clergy members’ development and well-being, we also help them better serve their eventual communities from places of strength. Research in Christian seminaries shows promising results: when seminarians are supported in their struggles and growth, and studying in institutions that invest in their personal and moral formation along with their knowledge acquisition, flourishing is not only possible, but likely.

We no longer have to wonder about what to do, nor fear that the next generation of Jewish clergy will enter the field without the capacities to thrive in their work. It’s time we integrate the research into clergy training programs and ongoing professional development to address issues of burnout, long-term sustainability, and well-being.

Rabbis and cantors shouldn’t have to pursue additional degrees to flourish in their work and learn to protect their mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Seminaries can be a part of the solution, if they invest in the work.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

Ki Tisa

Exodus 30:11–34:35

Without question, the breakout star of the 2026 Winter Olympics was Bay Area native Alysa Liu. She grabbed headlines not only because of her flawless routines and Gen Z energy, but also because of the captivating, relatable details of her life journey. 

By now, most of us know the outlines of her burnout from pressure and her retirement after a sixth-place finish in the 2022 Winter Olympics. Eventually, though, Liu realized she missed the thrill of skating and returned to the ice — under the condition that she be given complete control of her preparations. 

Liu’s decision to return to skating coincided with an important self-discovery. After realizing she had more than 145 missing assignments in her senior year of high school, Liu was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. As she began to understand her diagnosis, Liu learned more about the ways that ADHD had shaped her. 

Often, she waited until the last minute to face tasks, making her life more chaotic. At the same time, her ability to hyperfocus allowed her to engage in extended practice sessions: falling again and again before finally landing a jump.

Remarkably, the people in her life listened. Her father gave her the space she needed, and her coaches let her take the lead. The results for the 20-year-old skater were undeniable: a performance that some have described as among the most joyful and free in Olympic history. 

I thought of Liu this week as I reread the famous story of the golden calf. The details are well known: God summons Moses to Mount Sinai to receive the law. While he is away, the Israelites — who feel abandoned in his absence and find themselves incapable of faith in a God they cannot see — compel Aaron to form an idol to worship. Appalled by what he sees upon his return, Moses shatters the Divine tablets in his arms. 

On its surface, the episode appears to be a physical manifestation of the spiritual rupture brought about by the Israelites’ sin. But the moment is actually revelatory about Moses. I suspect that people with ADHD may recognize it immediately. 

If we probe Moses’ life with curiosity rather than judgment, a familiar profile emerges. Without seeking to diagnose Moses, we can still observe patterns in his life that resonate with contemporary discussions of ADHD. 

Moses reacts with impulse in the face of injustice, such as shattering the tablets upon discovering the golden calf. Likewise, he sometimes acts without listening carefully. When God tells him to speak to the rock to bring forth water, he strikes it instead — an act that costs him entry into the Promised Land. And Moses struggles to organize administrative tasks: It takes Jethro to step in and show Moses how to arrange the judicial system so that Moses isn’t judging every dispute on his own from morning until night. 

Moses also has remarkable strengths. He is fiercely loyal to the Israelites. Despite their endless complaining, he never abandons them. He has an endless thirst to connect, grow and learn. He yearns to encounter God’s presence. And when needed, he can enter states of hyperfocus: Twice, he communes with God for weeks in isolation, learning all of the law. 

He thrives in chaos, providing steady leadership in the face of plagues, scarce resources and threatening nations. Even Jethro’s critique sheds light on Moses’ unique leadership qualities: He is willing to give all of himself to the people he loves. 

It is because of this, I think, that God loves Moses. God demonstrates this love by giving Moses the support he needs. God protects Moses from sensory overload, giving him a quiet space in the Tent of Meeting, and makes sure Aaron is there to offer support. Perhaps the most surprising thing, though, is that God — who Moses describes in this week’s portion as slow to anger — does not frequently punish Moses when he seems to miss the mark. Instead, God tries to understand it. 

Consider the broken tablets. According to the Talmud, the shattered remnants were ultimately placed in the Ark of the Covenant, alongside the second set of tablets that God gave Moses after the people repented. The broken tablets come to represent the community and God joined in failure. 

In shattering the tablets, Moses acts before God explicitly instructs him but as soon as he recognizes that the people are not ready to receive the law.  

The rabbis teach that God responds to this choice by offering Moses a rare blessing — “Yasher kochecha,”or “May your strength be affirmed.” It is striking to me that the blessing Jews offer one another for engaging in Torah study traces back to the moment when Moses recognized that the people’s ability to engage with the law was still beyond their grasp. 

Some recent research suggests that ADHD may be overrepresented in the Jewish community, perhaps because of Jewish histories of trauma, migration and reinvention. Yet our institutions often struggle to accommodate these children. While we reassure them that their differences do not define them, we are often reluctant to do the harder work required to truly include them.  

Liu’s story offers a different model. It shows what becomes possible when adults are willing to listen carefully to children and to adapt to their needs rather than demand conformity. 

Ki Tisa asks us to be the parent who steps back or the coach who makes space — or even be like God, who offers a blessing — so that our children can become the best versions of themselves. 

The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.

Terumah
Exodus 25:1–27:19

On a trip to Minneapolis in late January, this week’s Torah portion came to life for me in an entirely new way.

Parashat Terumah brings us the ultimate invitation to communal generosity in the Torah. God commands the Israelites to bring “terumah,” meaning “gifts” (literally, “something raised up”), for the construction of the Mishkan, the desert tabernacle, “from every person whose heart is so moved.” (Exodus 25:2) The people contribute many belongings, including works of their own hands, to provide for the construction of the Mishkan. God says, “Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.” (Exodus 25:8)

The people step up with a remarkable array of objects — striking, given that they had just come out of slavery in Egypt — and fashion them just as they were commanded. These gifts contribute to the construction of a beautiful altar and for the indwelling of the Divine Presence amid the Israelite community. Eventually the people must be told to stop bringing gifts because no more donations are needed.

In a totally different context, I saw an extraordinary outpouring of personal gifts among the people of Minneapolis in January. The explicit goal was not to build a sanctuary or create space for the Divine, but to push back against the cruelty and dehumanization enacted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in their city since early December. The declared intention was to communicate that Minneapolis residents would not tolerate the demonization and abduction of their neighbors including those without legal status, those with pending or full legal status and naturalized citizens. The people of Minneapolis vowed to say “no” to ICE’s ruthless and mendacious onslaught, insisting on a return of humanity and the rule of law. 

The gifts that were brought were expressions of love. I learned that wide swaths of Minnesotans were buying and delivering groceries for families afraid to leave their homes, accompanying school children whose parents were afraid to step outside, patrolling areas around schools to try to prevent the abduction of parents and staff, driving around neighborhoods to alert neighbors when ICE vans approached, fundraising to support families whose primary breadwinner has been detained or deported, and much more. I know of one person that identified an underused apartment in their family and offered it to an immigrant who felt unsafe to return to her own home.

I heard of new no-cost medical clinics that were set up for immigrants in the basements of churches. I met a pastor, himself an immigrant, leading his church of mostly immigrant congregants to help one another to maintain a sense of joy and abundance. This church periodically has dance parties, to invite people out of fear and degradation and into joy.

We learned that virtually every neighborhood has its own WhatsApp group, enabling neighbors to coordinate the needs of immigrant families and their neighbors’ desire to help. Through these hyperlocal WhatsApp groups, a system was self-organized to coordinate those willing to follow large black vans with tinted glass and out-of-state license plates roaming the neighborhoods. 

A driver would text the license plate number of the van in front of them to a dispatcher, who could confirm from an improvised database whether or not this van was ICE. If it was, the driver would honk repeatedly, get out of the car and begin to whistle in order to alert immigrant neighbors (or those who might be mistaken for immigrants) to be careful, to stay inside and keep their kids safe until ICE had moved on. In one case, a young volunteer was happy to say that his intervention had allowed a woman and her young son to run into their home before ICE could reach them.

There were seemingly endless stories about the remarkable outpouring of love and care being offered by otherwise “ordinary” people to those closest to the pain. It was awe-inspiring and uplifting.

We went to synagogue on Shabbat morning on Jan. 24. It was clear that our friends were exhausted, traumatized and deeply in need of support. And then the news surfaced that the Veterans Administration nurse Alex Pretti had been shot to death by ICE that morning. The rabbi gently announced the news and led us in song and prayer. Looking around the sanctuary, I saw that many people were crying. Pretti was not Jewish nor, to my knowledge, the co-worker of anyone in that room. But in that sacred space, there was no separation. Everyone felt deeply connected to him and his family and to everyone else. The air was thick with love, anguish and prayer.

After Shabbat, we were invited to a small gathering. About 40 people stood in a circle around a fire in the frigid cold, singing and expressing gratitude for one another. There was a request for songs, so I led “This Little Light of Mine,” my 6-year-old granddaughter’s suggestion. The Shechinah, the Divine Presence, was palpably with us.

The people of Minneapolis built a beautiful sanctuary, which I was fortunate enough to visit, in the midst of the reign of ICE. They built it with their time, their care for their neighbors, their idealism, their humanity. Even in the midst of saying a resounding “no!” to ICE’s callous disregard for human life and the rule of law, they said “yes!” to their neighbors, to love and community. I will never forget the sacred scenes I witnessed there.

The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.

Mishpatim
Exodus 21:1-24:18

If you watch the news, you have likely seen the same heartbreaking images again and again: a coastal town flattened by a hurricane or a Midwestern community torn apart by a tornado.

You watch families sift through the wreckage of their homes, salvaging photographs, a child’s toy or a piece of furniture that somehow survived. And then, astonishingly, they rebuild. In the same place. Only for disaster to strike again a few years later.

Almost inevitably, someone watching from a safe distance asks the question that seems so obvious: Why don’t they move?

The answer is rarely economic alone. It is deeper, more human and more revealing.

That place is home.

It is where memories live, where identities were formed, where people know who they are and how the world works. Leaving would not merely mean changing an address. It would mean stepping into emotionally unknown territory. And for human beings, the unfamiliar can feel more frightening than danger itself.

Something strikingly similar happened at the dawn of Jewish history.

After centuries of slavery, God took the Israelites out of Egypt with miracles, drama and Divine power. The plagues, the splitting of the sea, the collapse of Pharaoh’s empire — all of it should have marked the beginning of joy and gratitude.

Yet almost immediately, the complaints began: It is too hot. We are tired. We are hungry. The water is bitter. 

Again and again, the same refrain emerged: We should go back to Egypt.

It is one of the great psychological puzzles of the Bible. Why would a people who had tasted freedom want to return to oppression?

The answer is profound. Egypt was not just a place. It was a mindset. It was the only emotional world they had ever known. Their parents had been slaves. Their grandparents had been slaves. Freedom, responsibility and uncertainty felt frightening. Slavery, for all its cruelty, was familiar. It had rules. It had predictability. It felt, paradoxically, like home.

So when life became difficult, they instinctively wanted to return — not because Egypt was good, but because it was known.

We are quick to judge them. We shake our heads at their lack of faith. But if we are honest, we do the same thing — just in quieter, more respectable ways.

Each of us has an emotional home.

An emotional home is the inner place we return to when life gets stressful, confusing or painful. For some people, that home is optimism, trust and gratitude. For others, it may be worry, anger, resentment or sadness. It’s not necessarily where we want to live, but it’s where we’re used to living. We know the furniture. We know the lighting. We know exactly where everything is. And because it’s familiar, it feels safe — even when it isn’t good for us.

Here’s how you can see it in real life.

Imagine you’re meeting someone you care about for dinner. You arrive on time. They don’t. Ten minutes pass. Then 20. Then 30. You’re sitting there, scanning the room, checking your phone.

What happens inside you?

Some people immediately feel anger: They don’t respect me. I’m not important. This always happens.

Others feel worry: Maybe something went wrong. I hope they’re OK.

Same situation. Same facts. Completely different emotional experiences.

Why?

Because each person returned to their emotional home. One lives in a world where disappointment turns quickly into resentment. The other lives in a world where uncertainty awakens concern. The external event didn’t change. The inner world did.

Notice what happens next. When the late arrival finally walks in, the angry person makes the evening tense and uncomfortable. The worried person turns caring and compassionate. One dinner. Two entirely different realities.

This is the deeper lesson of the Exodus as it appears in this week’s portion.

God did not take the Jewish people out of Egypt only to change their circumstances. He took them out to change their inner lives, to help them stop seeing themselves as victims of history and to begin seeing themselves as agents of destiny. That transition is far harder than crossing a sea.

That’s why, embedded in the story, God commands the people to remember the Exodus and to mark it in the future. Not as nostalgia and not as ritual alone, but as emotional education. Don’t forget where you came from — and don’t rush back there emotionally when life gets hard. Egypt will always call to you. Not because it was good, but because it’s familiar.

The Torah is warning us: Freedom is not lost only through chains. It is lost when we retreat into old emotional patterns that once protected us but now imprison us.

The quality of our lives, in the end, is shaped less by what happens to us and more by where we live emotionally. If we live in fear, the world feels threatening. If we live in resentment, life feels unfair. If we live in gratitude, the world opens. If we live in trust, life becomes meaningful.

This week’s Torah portion is asking a quiet but radical question: Where is your emotional home? And just as importantly: Is it time to move?

Leaving Egypt was the beginning. Learning how not to go back is the work of a lifetime.

Learning to chant from the Torah has long been both a rite of passage and a source of anxiety.

Popular culture has captured this feeling, from the visibly terrified b’nai mitzvah kids in the TV show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” to the anxious preparations in the film “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.” 

While Torah chanting goes back thousands of years, the way people today can learn how to do it is getting an update. Virtual Tikkun is a digital platform that allows people to practice their portions, or sections of Torah, using images of the actual scroll they’ll be using on the bimah. 

Synagogues generally keep several Torah scrolls in rotation, and both b’nai mitzvah students and the adults who chant on Shabbat and holidays don’t always know which scroll they’ll encounter, which can be intimidating and stressful. At home, they traditionally prepare with a standard printed version called a tikkun, but the transition to using the real thing can be a shock.

“Every Torah looks different,” said Rabbi Amanda Russell of San Francisco’s Congregation Beth Sholom. “You have different scripts, different sizes of writing. The words are maybe on different lines, and it would be really hard to prepare if you didn’t know what it looked like ahead of time.”

David Bayer, chair of the ritual committee at the Conservative synagogue, decided two years ago to create a solution to this ongoing issue. Using his background in tech, Bayer led the development and then the release last summer of Virtual Tikkun, which is designed to help people prepare and learn how to leyn, or read, using scans from their synagogue’s actual Torah scrolls.

Bayer starts by photographing all of the columns in a Torah scroll, then uses artificial intelligence to organize the images. The digital platform not only allows people to practice on the scroll they’ll be using in synagogue, but it also allows synagogues to rotate their Torahs more regularly, without throwing readers off their game.

“In order to keep a Torah healthy, kind of like a car, you have to start it up every once in a while,” Russell said. “If you leave the Torah in the back of the ark, and it hasn’t been unrolled or touched, then it actually gets ‘sicker quicker’ and it doesn’t hold up as well over time.”

Creating or repairing a Torah — all done by hand by trained scribes —  is costly and labor-intensive, as each scroll contains more than 300,000 letters. Russell said she was quoted about $30,000 to repair one of the Torahs back into usable condition, while commissioning a new one can range from $50,000 to $75,000. The most practical solution, Russell said, is to circulate all of the congregation’s scrolls that are considered kosher, or fit for ceremonial use.

As chair of the ritual committee, Bayer cares for Beth Sholom’s 11 Torah scrolls. When he began that position, five were no longer considered kosher for various reasons, including faded letters and tears in the parchment. 

“The genesis of the project was the motivation to increase the number of Torahs that we could use, and to really enable our lay Torah readers and our b’nai mitzvah students to be able to practice from the specific scroll that they were going to read from,” said Bayer, who is CEO of Virtual Tikkun, the company he has founded to undertake this work. 

The first version of Virtual Tikkun’s platform launched in June 2025. A 2.0 upgrade, which goes live on Wednesday, has several new features, he said.

The platform features a range of learning tools, including the ability to share audio files of tutors and students chanting an individual portion, color-coded trope (cues for chanting) and flash cards. Bayer said that Virtual Tikkun’s mission is to bring Torah-chanting skills and assistance to every community in support of “Jewish continuity and l’dor v’dor,” from generation to generation.

At least one other local synagogue has already begun using the platform. Bayer said Virtual Tikkun is working on building up its client base.

Susan Simon, education director at Conservative Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland, said that before her synagogue started using Virtual Tikkun last year she would regularly take photos of the exact column a student would read from and send the image ahead of time via cellphone. It worked but felt inefficient.

Simon said she’s had students who were so anxious they required multiple rehearsals in person with the Torah scroll. Virtual Tikkun “has the most impact on terrified students,” she said, “because it gives them a measure of confidence we couldn’t necessarily give them before.”

As more than 90,000 out-of-town visitors descend on the Bay Area for Super Bowl weekend, Chabad rabbis are geared up and ready for kickoff.

“We brought in shmaltz herring from New York,” said Rabbi Moshe Langer of Chabad of SF, describing preparations for a festive Shabbat meal on Saturday.

The Chabad center will host some 70 people for Friday night dinner at its Nob Hill location, plus the Saturday Kiddush. On game day, Langer said Chabad plans to send its “Mitzvah Cable Car” 50 miles to Santa Clara and Levi’s Stadium “to go around and pray with people and wrap tefillin.” The vehicle is a replica of a San Francisco cable car that runs on an engine.

Sunday’s Super Bowl is being hosted in the Bay Area for the first time since 2016. The tens of thousands of visitors will deliver a boost of economic activity to the region — and a traffic headache for locals.

The Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a branch of Hasidism that is headquartered in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, seeks to connect Jews worldwide with Jewish religious practices, sending emissaries, known as shluchim, to cities and rural areas across the globe.

Chabad of SF will also hand out bowls of matzah ball soup and care packages to homeless people in downtown San Francisco “in honor of the Super Bowl,” Langer said.

Chabad of Santa Clara, more centrally located about a mile from Levi’s Stadium, will serve as a hub for religiously observant Super Bowl attendees. 

“We’re providing spiritual logistics,” said Rabbi Yigal Rosenberg, director of Chabad of Santa Clara along with his wife, Elana Rosenberg.

The Chabad house published a list of community resources for Jewish visitors, including kosher restaurants, grocery stores, daily minyans and mikvahs, or ritual baths, in the area.

For what he’s calling “Touchdown Shabbat,” Rosenberg said the Chabad house plans to host around 100 people for Friday night dinner. 

“As the city fills with Super Bowl energy, Friday night ushers in something deeper,” the webpage for Touchdown Shabbat states. “Shabbat in Santa Clara is a chance to slow down, unplug, and step into an atmosphere of warmth, song, and connection.”

On Sunday, Chabad of Santa Clara will host morning and afternoon prayers followed by a kosher tailgate serving steak, wings and, of course, beer. Transportation to the stadium will be provided After the 3:30 p.m. game, the Chabad center will host an evening prayer service at 9:30 p.m.

“Our main message is, you can be a Jew anywhere,” Rosenberg said.

Football is a “very American sport. It’s something that Americans do,” he said. “You can do it and still do it in a Jewish way.”

Rosenberg observed that most of the out-of-town guests who signed up for Touchdown Shabbat are fans of the New England Patriots, not the Seattle Seahawks, perhaps owing to the Boston area’s large Orthodox population.

Still, he said, Chabad will be wrapping tefillin on Sunday morning to support both teams.

Both Langer and Rosenberg said they plan to brave Sunday’s crowds to do what the Chabad movement is perhaps most known for: facilitating the observance of Jewish mitzvot, such as offering boys and men the opportunity to wrap tefillin.

“We’ll probably wind up doing a service there in the afternoon at Levi’s Stadium. And be there for tefillin,” said Rosenberg, who also serves as a chaplain for the local police department.

Rosenberg said his efforts to center Judaism amid the football frenzy are in part an homage to his father, Rabbi Yosef Rosenberg, who died last year. 

The elder Rosenberg is considered a pioneer in the Chabad movement, who in the late 1980s was central to the legal effort to allow Hanukkah menorahs in public spaces. Today, menorah lightings are ubiquitous in American cities, providing public visibility to Jewish religious practices.

“We’re continuing that legacy,” the younger Rosenberg said.

For Langer, the opportunities presented by the Super Bowl are nearly endless. He said another idea, still in the works, involves his father, Rabbi Yosef Langer, the one-man San Francisco institution known as the “Rally Rabbi.”

“We’re trying to get somebody to put my father on the 50-yard line to blow the shofar,” Moshe Langer said. “We’re still working on that.”

The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.

Yitro
Exodus 18:1-20:23

This Torah portion, named for Moses’ father-in-law, reminds us of the great contribution that Yitro (or Jethro) made to the development of Israelite society. His influence continues until today.

In this portion, Moses explains to Yitro all that he has been doing — and how overwhelmed he feels. Yitro insists that Moses needs help to be a more effective leader. He instructs Moses to create a legal system in which judges will be able to adjudicate disputes between people. This ancient legal system is similar to our modern American judicial system. By creating a structure in which members of a society are responsible for ensuring that their aggrieved neighbors can be heard, we become responsible to each other for justice. 

The system that Yitro and Moses established is both practical and important. And how fascinating that this is the very first thing that happens in the development of our people after we are freed from slavery. In order to create a new and autonomous society, the first thing we needed was a system of law. 

Just last week, in Beshalach, the Israelites went free after 400 years of Egyptian slavery by crossing through the parted Red Sea. After 10 plagues, Pharaoh finally relented, agreeing that the Israelites could leave — but how would this happen? God instructed Moses to raise his arm, thereby parting the sea. And the Israelites would escape just before the sea closed, killing the Egyptian soldiers and horses who chased behind them. 

Imagine the fear and confusion our ancestors must have felt as they headed out at night toward the Red Sea. How would they cross? The Egyptian army was coming up behind them and the sea was impassable. How would they survive? It took a miracle. God made the sea part — and our story of survival began. The story of our miraculous exodus from Egypt is the foundation myth of our people, the basic story of our identity. It’s who we are. And everything we’ve done since came from this miracle. 

Once we crossed to the other side of the sea, however, the difficult work of forming a society would have to begin. After centuries of slavery, we had no laws of our own to guide us. We would need to build an autonomous society, in which we could begin the journey of becoming a free people. 

In this week’s portion, Yitro immediately helps Moses to set up a legal system for our newly freed ancestors: the basis of the society we would build. But what laws were they applying? Even before the establishment of all the laws that would come later in the Torah and Talmud, human encounters and human nature required a structure, a way to help people figure out how to live together fairly.

At the end of Yitro, the Ten Commandments are given. God sends an instruction to have the people prepare themselves to receive these fundamental laws. After three days, amid thunder and lightning, the Ten Commandments are delivered. And these 10 basic moral laws will allow for the development of our entire autonomous Israelite society. 

So why weren’t the Ten Commandments given at the very beginning of this Torah portion? Why did we need a legal system before having specific laws to apply? Though much has changed over the last thousands of years, some things have not. Human nature is still pretty much the same as it always was. Siblings still have a hard time getting along. Families still have jealousies and perceived blessings and curses. From the beginning of time until now, people have struggled with interpersonal relations. That’s human nature!

It’s interesting that our fundamental moral code came about after the development of our first legal system. Struggles between people are innate. The ways we deal with those struggles require intentional structures to allow us to interact. The rest of Jewish history from the Exodus until today has been about the ongoing refinement of laws which define who we really are as a people. 

This Torah portion allows us to witness the earliest moments of the development of our people. Yitro was a Midianite priest who had a huge influence on the creation of Israelite society. His inspiring vision immediately took us from slavery into a new reality — one in which people could speak freely and seek justice. From there, we’ve never stopped building on the laws that define who we are — and what we believe to be true.

The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.

Beshalach
Exodus 13:17-17:16

A dear friend, who is a spiritual seeker and artist, shared with me recently that he feels most at home when he hears the hymns and prayers in Jewish synagogues and Black churches. He added that he had also been deeply moved by the music at an annual festival for Indigenous peoples.

Though identifying with none of those groups directly, he wondered aloud why these particular communities touched his soul so profoundly.

“Maybe it’s because, in defiance of absolutely everything that they’ve endured, they find a way to keep singing,” I ventured, eliciting tears from both of us.

In Beshalach, this week’s Torah portion, the Israelites arrive at the Sea of Reeds with Pharaoh’s thundering chariots in pursuit. Trapped, they cry out in terror. The Eternal directs Moses to stretch out his hand, and with the power of a Divine wind, the waters part, the freed slaves walk through to freedom, and the doomed Egyptians perish beneath the churning sea. It took unimaginable suffering and unnecessary loss of life, but the Israelites have been delivered.

“Then, Moses and the Children of Israel sang a song to the Eternal.” (Exodus 15:1)

I always imagine the moment before the Song of the Sea as a breathless, expectant pause, like when a conductor raises her baton and the orchestra sits in total stillness, awaiting the direction to begin. In that moment, after 25 generations of bondage, during which time we heard only cries of pain from the enslaved, a song of gratitude and exaltation rises from the wilderness.

The rabbis of the Talmud (Sotah 30b) have a spirited discussion about the way the song was intoned. Rabbi Eliezer suggests Moses sang each phrase and the congregation echoed him word for word. Rabbi Akiva offers that Moses moved through the song, and the people sang only a repeated refrain, such as “I will sing to God,” after each line. Rabbi Nehemiah imagines Moses beginning the song alone and the people singing the remainder together, in a miraculous moment of collective prophecy.

What resonates with me about the Talmudic debate is the contentions of Rabbis Akiva and Eliezer that the 18-verse song was sung antiphonally, leisurely and carefully as each phrase was heard and absorbed. For the first time in centuries, the people moved at their own pace, freed from the taskmasters’ whips and the unrelenting, grueling labor.

What could have been more perfect for the Torah to depict at that earth-shaking moment than a rousing choral event in the desert? So much research has proven that singing and making music, especially in a group, improves both physical and psychological health. These ancient activities help with relaxation and breathing, contribute to a healthy immune system, reduce stress, improve memory and increase participants’ sense of happiness and social connection.

As University of Oxford psychology researcher Jacques Launay writes succinctly, “Song is a powerful therapy indeed.”

Moses, Miriam and the newly freed Israelites seemed to know intuitively that their song would be the first needed step toward healing after indescribable trauma. 

But I can also imagine some among the vast assembly thinking: How can we sing after what we have just witnessed? Would not silence, formal prayer or more tears have been more appropriate? 

A well-known midrash describes God silencing the angels who rejoiced at the Egyptians’ downfall and declaring, “My creations are drowning in the sea, and you want to sing?” (Exodus Rabbah and Megillah 10b) We, too, embrace that Godly compassion for human suffering as we lessen our cups of joy at the Passover Seder by spilling drops of wine when the plagues are remembered. 

In the moment of deliverance, though, the people’s song is untempered and jubilant beyond measure. 

Truly, how could they keep from singing? As my sensitive friend noticed, the ability of persecuted people to continue to compose and share music, age after age, is a gift that can bring light in days of darkness and danger. Singing, especially, is often an act of courageous defiance in the midst of despair.A beloved hymn that encapsulates this idea, and one I take comfort in a lot these days, was sung often by the late, great Pete Seeger. “How Can I Keep from Singing?” acknowledges the impulse to sing that sometimes cannot be denied and encourages us to be secure in faith and the power of song, no matter what and whom we face.

Here are some excerpts from a version of the song edited by Doris Plenn:

My life flows on in endless song
Above earth’s lamentation.
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails the new creation

Above the tumult and the strife,
I hear the music ringing;
It sounds an echo in my soul
How can I keep from singing?

What though the tempest loudly roars,
I hear the truth, it liveth.
What though the darkness round me close,
Songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I’m clinging.
Since love reigns over heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?

I can only surmise that the original lyricist, known only as Pauline T., was thinking of the Song of the Sea when she submitted her poem to The New York Observer, where it first appeared on Aug. 27, 1868. In it, I hear echoes of the ordeal of Egypt and the Exodus, as well as the promise of the new dawn that had risen. The Israelites would now need to lean on faith in God and each other and strengthen themselves for the road ahead. They did so with song. How could they not?

May we continue to sing songs of redemption.

The day before my wedding, the rabbi called and said he wouldn’t marry us unless I went to the mikvah. So at 6 a.m. on my wedding day, I went. The water was ice cold — what we’d now call a trendy “cold plunge” — and the attendant used a magnifying glass to check my body for stray hairs and dirt. 

The experience felt invasive and overwhelming. I swore I would never go back.

Years later, I was struggling to conceive. I had tried acupuncture, special diets, cycle tracking — you name it. The last thing I decided to try was the mikvah.

Desperate for anything that might help, I met with Rebbetzin Meira Albert and decided to visit the mikvah at Beth Jacob Congregation in Oakland. 

For the first time, I experienced mikvah as the women before me must have: not as an obligation but as an ancient ritual of pause and reflection. It was time focused on me — just to breathe, reset and reconnect.

In today’s world, everyone is talking about self-care. We download meditation apps, schedule massages and try — often unsuccessfully — to carve out moments of quiet in lives that feel endlessly full. But, as I have learned, long before “self-care” became a buzzword, Judaism already had one of the most powerful wellness rituals imaginable: the mikvah.

In Biblical times, when a woman had her period, she stepped away from her responsibilities — sometimes for as many as five days. In modern life, most of us cannot disappear for five days. We are needed at work and at home. But the need for pause has not disappeared. If anything, it has intensified.

This practice, which comes from the Torah, is about separation, not punishment. It’s about a woman’s need for space, a recognition that her body is in a different state and deserves rest and renewal. This was a ritual rooted in cycles, not in marital status. After bleeding stopped, women accessed communal bathing, perhaps their only regular opportunity to wash fully. These practices may originally have served practical hygienic purposes long before they became symbolic.

Somewhere along the way, we lost this broader vision. What once centered women’s well-being shifted toward marital obligation. And in that shift, something essential was ignored: women’s need for community, reflection and rest.

The cost of that loss is not abstract. Today, mental health challenges among girls and women are staggering. Rates of anxiety, depression and body dissatisfaction are at historic highs. Women need spaces that restore them, not just systems that demand from them.

Anyone who has been to the Beth Jacob mikvah knows how unexpectedly beautiful it is. Though it’s next to a preschool classroom, it feels more like a hotel spa — far from work emails, political noise and children’s constant needs. It is the kind of place that quietly tells you: You are allowed to slow down here.

That is the mikvah I want every Jewish woman to know.

Today, we talk endlessly about burnout. Women juggle families, communities and careers. And still, we act as if rest is something we must earn.

But that’s not Judaism. The mikvah was designed as a pause and a sacred break in the rhythm of life. A moment to step out of responsibility and into renewal. A ritual that says: Your body matters, your spirit matters, your well-being matters.

There is no Torah reason mikvah must be reserved for marriage and beyond. Imagine if girls at their bat mitzvah were introduced to mikvah as a beautiful tradition of self-care. A chance to learn, early on, the importance of hygiene, rest, reflection and honoring one’s body. A way to normalize taking breaks, not as weakness, but as wisdom.

So here is my controversial ask: Let the mikvah become a space for all menstruating females to celebrate the end of their cycle — a place of comfort where women can experience body confidence and self-love. Expanding the mikvah to girls starting at age 12, the traditional age of bat mitzvah, could help them feel supported and grow into women who are healthier, less stressed and more confident. And they would go on to become stronger parents, partners and leaders.

At Beth Jacob’s mikvah, I’ve seen what happens when women are given quiet space to simply be. Something shifts. A woman doesn’t feel rushed. She doesn’t feel judged. She feels held.

And that feeling matters, not just personally but communally.

For too long, this beautiful tradition has lived mostly in Orthodox communities, such as Beth Jacob. But imagine if we invited more Jewish women to reconnect with their bodies.

Beth Jacob actually has two mikvahs — one for members who follow Orthodox practice and a community mikvah that welcomes all and is used by men and for conversions and other purposes in the non-Orthodox community.

Reclaiming the mikvah as a female self-care ritual doesn’t weaken tradition. It strengthens it. It makes Judaism feel like nourishment, rather than a burden. It reminds women that holiness isn’t found only in obligation; it’s found in rest, reflection and the quiet moments we give ourselves permission to breathe.

If we want vibrant Jewish families and a thriving Jewish future, we cannot overlook the mental and emotional health the mikvah can provide Jewish women.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of J.