Terumah / Rosh Chodesh Adar: Make Room for Joy - #Day511 #Broadcast1251 #Trumah #RoshChodesh #Adar #ShabbatShalom #BringThemHomeNow #UntilTheLastHostage #AmYisraelChai💙 image: Aron Kodesh, Tobi Kahn

Trumah: Being a Blessing - #Day510 #Broadcast1250 #Trumah #BringThemHomeNow #UntilTheLastHostage 💙

🧡💔🧡💔🧡💔 #Day509#Broadcast1249 #Shiri #Ariel #Kfir #Bibas #Trumah #BringThemHomeNow #AmYisraelChai💙

Lampstands and Angels (Terumah)

Lampstands and Angels (Terumah) 

Rabbi Menachem Creditor 

in memory of Oded Lifshitz z"l 

Today, we mourn Oded Lifshitz, z"l. At his funeral today, Israel's President יצחק הרצוג - Isaac Herzog eulogized him with the highest praise: Oded was an "Ohev Shalom v'Rodef Shalom," a lover and pursuer of peace. What higher aspiration could there be? Oded, an 83-year-old grandfather, was murdered, abducted, and taken from his family by Hamas on October 7, 2023. His wife Yocheved, also kidnapped, was released in November 2023. Their family members have become friends to so many of us. Today, our hearts break for them. We send them comfort, knowing that comfort is never enough. We will remain present, loving, healing, and courageous. Together. 

This week’s Torah portion, Terumah, speaks to this moment. It marks the beginning of a significant section of the Book of Exodus—the construction of the Mishkan, the portable desert sanctuary. A divine invitation calls upon the Israelites to bring offerings: gold, silver, crimson and blue yarns, dolphin skins. (How did they have all this? The text doesn’t ask us to wonder—only to give.) 

Two sacred structures stand out. First, the Keruvim, the cherubs, hammered from the gold covering the Ark of the Covenant (Ex. 25:18). They are not separate pieces joined together; they are part of the Ark itself, formed from the same slab. Second, the Menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum, also hammered from a single piece of gold (Ex. 25:31). The Menorah is described as a tree, its branches and petals growing from its base (v. 33). These are not disparate parts soldered together; they are one. 

And so are we. 

From the same divine breath, from the same sacred material, we are formed. Experience may hammer us into different shapes, but we remain of the same stuff. Yet, in moments of pain, trauma, and war, it is so easy to forget. It is so easy to see the other as separate, as lesser, as undeserving. But we must resist that urge. The Torah begins not with the Jewish people, but with humanity itself. Adam—Adamah. Earth. Breath. Shared origins. Shared holiness. 

Oded Lifshitz, z"l, embodied this truth. As a founder of Kibbutz Nir Oz, he spent his days helping those in need. He drove Palestinians from Gaza to Israeli hospitals for treatment their own leadership denied them. He knew—he lived—the truth that we are all made b'tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. He was not alone. Many righteous souls did the same. And many were murdered. That does not diminish the righteousness of their actions. 

The great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel warned of a "cancer of the eye"—a disease of perception that allows us to see others as less than human. Xenophobia, racism, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia, transphobia—all of these stem from the same error: the belief that we are not of the same sacred substance. But we are. 

The Mishkan, the holy sanctuary, was carried through the desert as a reminder that holiness moves with us. It is not fixed in one place, one people, or one way of being. Our task is to set it down wherever we go, to root it in justice, in love, in the sacred recognition of each other. 

As we continue to pray for the safe return of the hostages, as we fight for our people and our future, let us not forget the lesson of the Mishkan. We must see each other. We must hold each other. We must insist on each other’s humanity. That is our charge. That is our faith. That is our hope.

Marking the Third Anniversary of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine - Rabbi Menachem Creditor in conversation with Father Kiril Angelov, of St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church​​ in Yonkers, NY.

Mishpatim: The Meaning of Freedom #WhereIsShiriBibas #Day504 #Broadcast1246 #BringThemHomeNow

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Mishpatim: In the Face of the Unfathomable, We Live - #Day502 #Broadcast1244 #Mishpatim #BringThemHomeNow #UntilTheLastHostage #AmYisraelChai💙

Mishpatim: Na'aseh VeNishmah/We Commit, Let's Learn - #Day501 #Broadcast1243 #BringThemHomeNow

Olam Chesed Yibaneh at SLBC 2025!

Day 500 / Mishpatim: Where Did the Story Go? - #Mishpatim #BringThemHomeNow #UntilTheLastHostage 💙

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Announcing: An Upside-Down World: Esther and Antisemitism - co-edited with Dr. Ora Horn Prouser

Announcing:

An Upside-Down World: Esther and Antisemitism 

co-edited with Dr. Ora Horn Prouser

a.co/d/6oZhYjy

We generally celebrate Purim as a joyous holiday, including costumes, humorous songs, and the exchange of gifts of food. This lighthearted approach, however, masks the very difficult antisemitism inherent in the book. There is Haman’s hatred and irrational prejudice, and attribution of his negative feelings toward one person to a collective. We see not only individual hatred but collective hatred, with others, such as Zeresh, being complicit and enabling bigotry. Mordechai and Esther represent the courage and advocacy necessary to fight antisemitism, often involving political figures.

There are questions of concealing and revealing identity, the search for allies, the importance of community. While many of us thankfully continue to find the joy and happiness in Purim, we also realize, given the current situation of the Jewish community, that it has become more difficult to ignore the antisemitism which is a central focus of the book. We hope that this supplement will provide a forum for pursuing these questions whether in preparation for the holiday or during our celebrations. "An Upside-Down World: Esther and Antisemitism" will serve as a resource for the Jewish community to help us all to process and celebrate this upcoming holiday – finding joy and allowing ourselves to experience sadness, advocating for the Jewish People, and connecting to the Divine and each other, perhaps in different ways in the new world we are navigating.

Tu Bishvat: How are People Like Trees of the Field? #Day496 #Broadcast1240 #BringThemHomeNow

My Wife's Torah: "There Was a Moment" #Yitro #NeshamaCarlebach #Day495 #Broadcast1239 #BringThemHomeNow #UntilTheLastHostage #AmYisraelChai💙

YITRO: Life Itself is Resistance -- #Day494 #Broadcast1238 #BringThemHomeNow #UntilTheLastHostage

Life Itself is Resistance (Yitro)

Life Itself is Resistance (Yitro)
Rabbi Menachem Creditor

*in memory of Shlomo Monsour z”l, a beloved soul, one of the hostages we had prayed to see returned home to his family 

Yitro is the Torah portion of reunion. When Yitro, Moses' father-in-law, hears of all that God has done to liberate the Israelites, he rejoices. But what did the Israelites look like after 210 years of enslavement? What does a people, newly freed, truly look like? What does freedom feel like after unthinkable suffering? And when we look at the faces of our brothers, our sons, our daughters, our mothers, still in captivity—what will they look like when they come home?

In this moment of chaos, we turn to Torah for light. Our hearts might be broken, but they are beating. And we, my friends, are called to keep them beating.

Why does revelation matter? Why does Sinai matter? Is Torah about kashrut and ritual observance alone? Or is it about bringing ourselves into attunement with the universe, about responding to a world in deep need of repair?

There is a famous midrash about the moment of Revelation. God lifts the mountain over the people's heads and declares: “Accept my Torah, or this will be your grave” (Mechilta). Coercion? Perhaps. Or maybe it is the shock of encountering infinity—the overwhelming, trembling moment when mortality meets the Divine.

The rabbis connect this to a verse in Psalms: "You caused sentence to be heard from Heaven; the Earth feared and was silent. (Ps. 76:9)" The Earth feared—and then was silent. Fear and silence, trembling and stillness, exist together. Creation itself was conditional:

“The Holy Blessed One established a condition with the act of Creation, and said to them: ‘If Israel accepts the Torah, the world continues. If not, it returns to chaos.’ (Shabbat 88a)"

We are called, as Jews and as human beings, to make moral choices because the world depends on them. Every decision is a decision upon which the world’s existence depends. Whether we are under a mountain or facing the sea, whether we are fighting for the return of our captives or protecting the dignity of the vulnerable, we cannot remain silent. That is not the way to live. That is not life.

Yes, we Jews have our own beautiful and particular path, but Torah teaches that all people have a place around the mountain. There are as many paths to the Divine as there are souls in this world. And no matter what we have endured—210 years of slavery, 494 days of captivity—we must remain true to our tradition. We must raise our voices. We must hold fast to what makes us us. If we do this, then not only are we free, but the world itself stands a chance.

Life itself is resistance.

May we, in moments where the world’s existence feels shaky, remember that we always stand at the mountain. We stand together. We stand for life. And we are called to do no less—no matter what, no matter when.

Life is resistance.

Scarred Jewish Eyes

Scarred Jewish Eyes
Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Those images are so familiar,
because they were emblazoned
into my eyes when I was young.
I know the angles of those jaws,
the thinness of their shoulders,
their sunken eyes.

They are we. Me.
In the hands of evil,
this is what we looked like.

Because this is what they do.
Not what they WOULD do, but what they DO.
Not what they DID, but what they DO.

Gaunt, haunted.
Like then.
It was supposed to be then.
But it is now.
It is horrifically now.

God did not die in Auschwitz's ovens.
God did not die in Gazan tunnels.
I know this because
as God is my witness
I swear: I will fight for my family.

The world contextualizes this evil
equivocates on condemnation
barely registers what is so damn familiar
to my scarred Jewish eyes.

Blasphemy, I say.
World be damned, I say.
God is my witness, I swear.
I will fight for my family.

Beshalach: Fulfilling Ancient Promises - #Day490 #Broadcast1236 #BringThemHomeNow

Beshalach: To Be Fully Human - #Day489 #Broadcast1235 #Beshalach #BringThemHomeNow #AllTogether #UntilTheLastHostage #AmYisraelChai💙

Beshalach: Reach Out Your Hands - #Day486 #Broadcast1232 #BringThemHomeNow