Defiant Dignity (Pinchas)

Defiant Dignity (Pinchas)

Rabbi Menachem Creditor

 

I dedicate this learning to my brother-in-law, Arsen Ostrovsky.

 

A few months ago, thanks to the generosity of beloved friends, I was able to travel recently to Sydney, Australia, in the aftermath of the horrific terrorist attack at Bondi Beach last December. My brother-in-law was shot in that attack. Thank God, he has physically recovered. My sister and nieces, who were also there, were not physically harmed, though they endured something no family should ever have to endure. Many people lost their lives.

 

Being in Sydney was both a blessing and an education. It revealed, painfully, the growing acceptability of antisemitism in too many places. And I want to be careful here. There is a difference between hateful rhetoric and violence. But they are connected. They exist on a continuum. The danger of violent rhetoric is that it does not stay limited to words.

 

Just yesterday, Arsen testified before Australia’s Royal Commission of Inquiry into antisemitism. He recounted not only the attack itself, but the thousands of threats and messages that followed, people turning his suffering into a conspiracy theory, claiming it was staged, that the blood on his face was makeup, that AI had somehow manufactured the evidence. All of it was a rejection of the right of a Jew to live in dignity.

 

He stood with eloquence and bravery. His voice quivered only when he spoke about our family, his children, his wife, my sister. It was a model of Jewish courage, Jewish pride, and moral steadiness. To stand in the face of antisemitism and call it out publicly, with dignity and clarity, is one of the responsibilities of this moment. He did so in a way that nobly modeled the mandate.

 

That brings us to Parashat Pinchas, one of the most difficult portions in the Torah.

 

The story begins at the end of last week’s portion. Israel is under assault, spiritually and communally. A plague breaks out. Pinchas, the son of Elazar, the son of Aaron the priest, sees a public desecration at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. He takes a spear and kills two people, and the plague stops.

 

This week’s portion opens with what sounds like divine praise. God says that Pinchas turned back divine wrath by displaying his passion, his “kina,” a word that means zeal, jealousy, fervor. And then God says, “Therefore, I grant him My covenant of shalom, My covenant of peace.”

 

That should trouble us. It must trouble us.

 

Yes, Pinchas acts in response to a threat against the community. Yes, Jewish leaders today must stand up against threats to Jewish dignity, including Antisemitism - and the Antizionism that so often serves as its fig leaf. We must speak, organize, testify, confront, and refuse to shrink.

 

But we must not do what Pinchas did. His act was violent. It was a spear thrust into human bodies. And even if the Torah presents the biblical context as a moment of existential threat, our ethical instinct must resist any easy sanctification of violence. We fight for Jewish safety, but we fight like mentches. We fight within the norms of a just society. We fight with strength, with strategy, with clarity, and with dignity.

 

And perhaps the Torah knows this too.

 

The word shalom in this verse is written in the Torah scroll with a broken vav. The letter itself is fractured. Anywhere else, a broken letter would make the scroll invalid. Here, the brokenness is required. The Torah is kosher only if this shalom is visibly wounded.

 

What kind of peace follows violence? A broken peace. A peace that may stop a plague, but cannot be whole. A peace that may interrupt destruction, but cannot be the fullness our people deserves.

 

Watching Arsen testify, and then watching him speak afterward with defiant dignity, I saw a different model. Fierce, but not cruel. Strong, but not violent. Unyielding, but deeply human. He channeled the best lesson we might draw from Pinchas without importing the worst of Pinchas.

 

That is our calling now.

 

We bless each other to be strong and fierce in defense of Jewish dignity, just as we are strong and fierce in defense of human dignity. We dare not shrink. Our children are watching. And if we want them to inherit a whole peace, not a broken one, we must teach them how to fight like mentches by modeling that commitment ourselves, fiercely and mindfully.

 

Defiant Dignity | Pinchas | #Broadcast1579 in honor of my brother-in-law, Arsen Ostrovsky

 

American Torah at 250: Call for Contributions!

American Torah at 250

 

Goals

1. Mark America’s 250th anniversary through a Jewish lens.
The volume should explore how Jewish texts, history, and values can illuminate “the American experiment” and how America has impacted Judaism and the Jewish community.

2. Provide usable sermons for the Jewish year 5787.
Contributions should connect and explore democratic themes to particular Torah portions and perhaps holidays.

3. Strengthen democratic culture without promoting partisanship.
The collection can address difficult public questions while remaining nonpartisan. Its focus should be democratic principles, civic responsibilities, moral formation, the importance of virtue, and the health of the republic.

4. Encourage both gratitude and moral accountability.
The book should make room for appreciation of American freedom and Jewish flourishing, while also confronting the gaps between America’s founding ideals and its historical and present realities.

Call for Contributions

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, Rabbi Charlie Savenor and Rabbi Menachem Creditor will be publishing a collection of original sermons for the weekly Torah portions of the Jewish year 5787. At this historic moment, we invite rabbis, cantors, scholars, educators, and Jewish communal leaders to help communities encounter the American story through Torah, and Torah through the responsibilities of American citizenship. Together, these sermons will offer a year of Jewish learning and civic reflection for America at 250.

The Torah-reading cycle gives Jewish communities a shared language through which to confront enduring questions of freedom, , justice, leadership, power, responsibility, disagreement, memory, and belonging. During America’s 250th anniversary year, these weekly readings offer a unique opportunity to consider the achievements, tensions, and unfinished work of American democracy.

For over two and a half centuries, life in America has created extraordinary opportunities for Jewish freedom, religious expression, civic participation, and communal flourishing. At the same time, the nation has repeatedly struggled to live up to its own aspirations ideals expressed in its founding documents. This anniversary invites both gratitude and honest reflection, celebration and renewed commitment.

We are seeking sermons that connect a specific weekly Torah portion with themes related to American democracy and civic life. Contributions might explore subjects including liberty and responsibility, covenant and Constitution, equality and human dignity, citizenship, immigration, religious freedom, political leadership, character, protest, pluralism, civil disagreement, minority rights, public trust, truth, national memory, civic friendship, or the pursuit of a more perfect union.

Authors might consider questions such as:

· What does this Torah portion teach about the responsibilities of citizenship and leadership?

· How can Jewish tradition illuminate the promises and contradictions of "the American experiment" in self-government?

· What obligations accompany freedom?

· How should communities respond to injustice, exclusion, polarization, or the abuse of power?

· What can the Jewish traditions of covenant, argument, memory, repentance, and communal responsibility contribute to democratic life?

How should we approach a hyphenated American Jewish identity today?

· How does this weekly Torah reading help us imagine America's next chapters?

Submissions should be written as sermons intended for delivery to a congregation and should be rooted substantively in the assigned Torah portion. They may express gratitude, critique, concern, aspiration, or hope, but they should promote civic reflection rather than partisan advocacy.

The collection will include one or two sermons for each weekly Torah portion, contributors are encouraged to select up to two parshiot they would be willing to address. The sign up for parshiot are available is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Zfpwnl89MUEPqPb83ByWGDHU5PW3u1vhgM0wqUZIBLY/edit?usp=sharing.

Submissions should be sent to torahwithin@gmail.com by September 1. Sermons should not exceed 1,200 words and must be submitted in Word format. Please include the author’s name, title, institutional affiliation, short biography, and the Torah portion for which the sermon is submitted.

NOTE: The editors may not be able to include every contribution and that accepted pieces may be edited for length, clarity, style, and consistency. Final assignments may be coordinated by the editors to ensure broad coverage of the Torah-reading cycle and a diverse range of civic themes.

#AmericanTorahAt250 #America250 #Torah #JewishLearning #JewishCommunity #Democracy #CivicLife #FaithAndDemocracy #AmericanJewish #MorePerfectUnion

What Comes Next? | Chukat-Balak | #Broadcast1578

 

A People Alone? | Chukat-Balak | #Broadcast1577 - inspired by a teaching by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z"l

 

The Birthright of Jewish Confidence | Chukat-Balak | #Broadcast1576

 

Blessings Not to be Missed (Chukat-Balak)

Blessings Not to be Missed (Chukat-Balak)
Rabbi Menachem Creditor


If we read the five books of Torah as one great arc, Genesis is the family story. Exodus begins the national story, and from there through Deuteronomy, Moses stands at the center: prophet, teacher, intercessor, and, alongside God, the central figure of Israel’s journey. By the time we reach this week’s portions, that journey is changing. The wilderness generation is giving way. The old leadership begins to disappear.

The Torah tells us, almost starkly, “The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin on the first new moon, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died and was buried there. (Num. 20:1)” Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron, prophet, singer, guardian of the infant Moses, leader of Israelite women, dies. And then, immediately, the next verse says, “The community was without water, and they joined against Moses and Aaron.”

There is no pause. No eulogy. No recorded mourning. No glimpse into Moses’s heart or Aaron’s grief. The people are thirsty, and they gather against their leaders. The Hebrew verb suggests that the community almost becomes an action. They gathered against Moses and Aaron. Their fear takes the shape of collective pressure.

The rabbis noticed the abruptness. They imagined that, as long as Miriam lived, a miraculous well followed the people through the wilderness. With Miriam gone, the well disappeared. This midrash may not be explicit in the biblical text, but it reveals a deep, psychological truth: Miriam provided a sustaining presence whose power was only fully recognized once she was gone.

That is often how love works. Someone steadies us, nourishes us, makes life possible in ways we barely name. Their presence becomes so constant that we do not notice how much we depend on it. Then, in their absence, the water is gone. Only then do we understand what they carried for us.

Moses, too, may be living that truth. Soon after the death of Miriam, God tells him to take the staff and speak to the rock, but Moses strikes it instead. It is worth considering whether this was not simply disobedience, but grief. Moses has just lost his sister. The people are panicking. Their protest linguistically echoes earlier rebellions, including Korach’s challenge just one Parasha before. Perhaps this time, Moses, overwhelmed and bereaved, simply cannot respond with calm.

Transitions are not only historical. They are personal. A generation changes when beloved people leave us. Leadership changes. Families change. The world changes. Even the familiar path through wilderness suddenly feels different beneath our feet.

And so tradition offers us a blessing hidden inside this textual exploration of grief: Do not wait. Do not wait until absence teaches you the value of presence. Tell your loved ones now what they mean. Name “the water” they bring. Give thanks while they can hear it.

May we be blessed to recognize the sustaining wells in our lives, and to cherish the beloveds whose presence keeps us alive.