Until Everyone is Free (Beshalach)
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
We must, as human beings and as Jews, to hold our focus in more than one place at the same time. The power of being present as community is that we carry many eyes, looking in many directions. And our hearts, our collective heart, has a capacity far greater than any one of us alone. That is both a gift and a responsibility.
Renee Good z”l and Alex Pretti z”l were two American citizens whose lives were brutally taken in the midst of a terrible abuse of power on the streets of this country. Whatever our politics, these acts were captured on film. And witnessing murder, really witnessing it, leaves a mark on the soul. To see what we have seen, to know what we know, and then to be told that we did not see what we saw, feels Orwellian in the deepest sense. One of the ways wrong happens in the world is when people are told that their own eyes are lying.
But we have eyes.
And we have responsibility.
Our tradition places enormous moral weight on the human heart. It asks much of us. And yes, it is heavy. But we are obligated to pay attention.
All of this is happening as the funeral of Ran Gvili z”l, the final Israeli hostage returned from Gaza, is also happening. For the first time in ten years, there are no Israeli hostages in Gaza. What a moment to be holding, a moment that should never have been necessary. This is not happiness, but it is a shift. I pray that this shift might allow our hearts, once again, to expand, to regain the capacity to more truly care in multiple directions at once. That capacity is not something I have felt in a long time.
What is happening in Minneapolis is not simply “disruption.” It is violence. Clergy friends on the ground tell me it is worse than what we see in the headlines. One dear friend shared the story of two young children whose parents were taken, children now without parents, without clarity, without answers. Members of my friend’s synagogue have taken them in, but no one knows where responsibility rests or what comes next. And that is only one story among many.
At the same time, the resilience and love shown by religious communities there is almost unfathomable. Clergy showing up at the airport in forty-below weather. Clergy on their knees in prayer. Nonviolence embodied in the face of violence. That kind of moral courage deserves amplification.
This is not a political issue. It is a human one. It is not partisan. No one, no one, should ever have this done to them.
Gatherings are happening everywhere, and they matter. But they must be grounded in spirit, not shrieking reactivity. We cannot become the thing we are fighting. Violence against violence will not redeem us.
We know another way. We have always known another way.
We are heirs to those who marched, who prayed, who sang, who sat at counters, who crossed bridges without weapons, who rebuilt what was broken. As Jews, we have always believed: fight when you must, but love and care always.
This week’s Torah portion deepens that call. We read Beshalach, “when Pharaoh sent us out.” But it was not a gentle sending. It was an expulsion after unbearable suffering. And like the Passover seder, where we pour out our rage before God rather than acting on it ourselves, the Torah teaches us something essential: our responsibility is justice, not vengeance. Rabbi Gordon Tucker teaches that when we recite “Sh’foch Chamat’cha / Pour out Your wrath” at seder, we externalize our rage, handing it to God, so that we do not enact it ourselves. If we misunderstand this, we imagine ourselves as agents of divine vengeance. But that is not who we are meant to be.
Self-defense is sometimes necessary. Justice must be pursued. But vengeance corrodes the soul.
The Sea splits. Justice is (finally) served.
The midrash tells a remarkable story: Rabbi Yohanan asks his students what the walls of the sea looked like. No one can answer. He suggests they looked like a lattice window. And then an old woman appears, Serach bat Asher, and says,
“No. They were mirrors. Mirrors reflecting past, present, and future all at once. So many generations crossing together that it looked like an even greater multitude. (Pesikta d’Rav Kahannah 11:13)”If that is true, then we were there. And if we were there, have we ever stopped marching?
Furthermore: What is freedom if it belongs only to some?
Seeing the image of God in another human being costs us nothing, and gives us everything. Renee Good z”l and Alex Pretti z”l were images of God. Ran Gvili z”l was an image of God. Every child, every parent, every human being whose dignity is denied by violence bears that same image.
Our ancestors are watching.
Our descendants will ask, “What did you do when this was happening?”
May we have the courage to answer with integrity. To fight when we must. To respond with dignity when inhumanity rears its head. For the Jewish people. For humanity.
May the memory of Ran Gvili z”l be for a blessing. May comfort find his family. May those who risk their lives to bring the beloved home know that when we speak of humanity, we speak with them and for them.
And may we never stop marching, until everyone is free.
