Nov 3, 2026
Election Day (Chayei Sarah)
.png)
(Chayei Sarah)
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Today is Election Day. Voting is one of the ways we accept responsibility for the world we share. For all the fraught nature of our politics, it is a blessing to live in a country where we can make our voices heard and help shape its future. And from within a Jewish understanding of moral obligation, the ability to make a difference calls us to act.
As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught, what is needed is not a leap of faith, but “a leap of action.” If we care about the future, we must do something to help build it.
Chayei Sarah is framed by the deaths of Sarah and Abraham. Between those bookends, Abraham confronts his own mortality and the urgency of ensuring that the next generation has stable footing. He calls upon his trusted servant, traditionally identified as Eliezer, and sends him to find a partner for Isaac. The task follows the binding of Isaac, a story after which the Torah records no further conversation between Abraham and his son. Much has changed. Abraham cannot know exactly what the future will hold, but he knows that he must entrust someone with an essential mission.
When the servant arrives at a well, he prays for guidance. But he does more than ask God to make things turn out well. He specifically names what he is looking for. The woman who offers him water and also draws water for his camels will be the one he understands to be right for Isaac. Rebecca appears. She responds with extraordinary generosity and wonderous strength, drawing water again and again until the camels have had enough. Her kindness is not a vague sentiment. It is expressed through effort, attention, and action.
The servant’s prayer reminds us of a valuable lesson this Election Day: our hopes for the future need clarity. It is not enough to say that we want things to get better. We must be able to name what our communities need, what we expect of those who seek to lead, and how we will hold them accountable.
On Election Day, we are called to choose people we trust with a sacred responsibility: to serve the public. We need leaders who can articulate a vision and a plan, who understand the weight of their mission, and who lead with clarity and kindness. We need leaders who see the whole community and understand that they are sent to serve by the people.
The Jewish community has helped build this country. Our families have served in its armed forces and contributed to every sector of American life. We belong here, and we have both the right and the obligation to participate fully in shaping its future.
If you have not yet voted, please make a plan to do so. If you have already voted, consider whether someone you know needs help getting to the polls.
And let us bless this country with a good next day, and with a future in which no one is targeted for being who they are; where Jews can stand proud, safe, and secure as full participants in American life; and where vulnerable people are not left behind.
That future will take work. May we choose leaders who know that this is their work, and may we never forget that it is our work, too.
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Today is Election Day. Voting is one of the ways we accept responsibility for the world we share. For all the fraught nature of our politics, it is a blessing to live in a country where we can make our voices heard and help shape its future. And from within a Jewish understanding of moral obligation, the ability to make a difference calls us to act.
As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught, what is needed is not a leap of faith, but “a leap of action.” If we care about the future, we must do something to help build it.
Chayei Sarah is framed by the deaths of Sarah and Abraham. Between those bookends, Abraham confronts his own mortality and the urgency of ensuring that the next generation has stable footing. He calls upon his trusted servant, traditionally identified as Eliezer, and sends him to find a partner for Isaac. The task follows the binding of Isaac, a story after which the Torah records no further conversation between Abraham and his son. Much has changed. Abraham cannot know exactly what the future will hold, but he knows that he must entrust someone with an essential mission.
When the servant arrives at a well, he prays for guidance. But he does more than ask God to make things turn out well. He specifically names what he is looking for. The woman who offers him water and also draws water for his camels will be the one he understands to be right for Isaac. Rebecca appears. She responds with extraordinary generosity and wonderous strength, drawing water again and again until the camels have had enough. Her kindness is not a vague sentiment. It is expressed through effort, attention, and action.
The servant’s prayer reminds us of a valuable lesson this Election Day: our hopes for the future need clarity. It is not enough to say that we want things to get better. We must be able to name what our communities need, what we expect of those who seek to lead, and how we will hold them accountable.
On Election Day, we are called to choose people we trust with a sacred responsibility: to serve the public. We need leaders who can articulate a vision and a plan, who understand the weight of their mission, and who lead with clarity and kindness. We need leaders who see the whole community and understand that they are sent to serve by the people.
The Jewish community has helped build this country. Our families have served in its armed forces and contributed to every sector of American life. We belong here, and we have both the right and the obligation to participate fully in shaping its future.
If you have not yet voted, please make a plan to do so. If you have already voted, consider whether someone you know needs help getting to the polls.
And let us bless this country with a good next day, and with a future in which no one is targeted for being who they are; where Jews can stand proud, safe, and secure as full participants in American life; and where vulnerable people are not left behind.
That future will take work. May we choose leaders who know that this is their work, and may we never forget that it is our work, too.
Nov 2, 2026
To Belong and to Bless (Chayei Sarah)
To Belong and to Bless (Chayei Sarah)
Rabba Daphne Lazar Price and Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Parashat Chayei Sarah, “the life of Sarah,” begins with her death. Abraham mourns and weeps for his beloved, and then, in his grief, confronts a practical need: he must find a place to bury her. Until this moment, Abraham and Sarah had lived in the land without owning a piece of it. Now he approaches the Hittites and describes himself in language that holds a profound tension:
“...Ger v’toshav anochi imachem, I am a stranger and a resident among you. (Gen. 23:4)”
How can one be both?
A ger is a newcomer, someone who doesn’t quite belong, and as such, lacks agency. A toshav is a resident, someone rooted in a place. Abraham stands between these identities. He has journeyed to this land in response to God’s call, he has not yet acquired property and so he must ask its inhabitants for a place in which to honor his dead wife.
His vulnerability is unmistakable. He is grieving Sarah, negotiating with his neighbors, and seeking a measure of permanence in a place where he remains, in some sense, a stranger. And the tension does not end with Abraham. His grandson Jacob would later seek to settle in the land where his ancestors had but sojourned (Gen. 37:1). Rashi imagines Jacob longing for a measure of tranquility, only to discover that peace is not so easily secured.
Who among us does not recognize that longing? Every human being deserves a place to live without trembling, a place to put down roots, to love, to mourn, and to hope. For Jews, the journey toward such belonging has often been marked by displacement and danger. Modern Zionism emerged from the recognition that Jewish safety and self-determination could not depend solely on the goodwill of others. Jewish power became necessary because Jewish vulnerability had become unbearable. And yet, as Rabbi Yitz Greenberg teaches, power brings its own moral challenge. We need the power to choose life and protect life. We must also ask ourselves, honestly and continually, how we exercise that power (“Judaism and the Ethics of Power,” 1999).
Abraham offers a model worth considering. God has promised the land to his descendants, but Abraham does not seize the burial place or wait for a miracle. He negotiates with Ephron and pays for the field and its cave. He acts to meet his family’s need while engaging the people among whom he lives. His purchase does not resolve every question about land, promise, or power. It does suggest that even deeply held commitments call for responsibility toward others. Faith can move us to act, and the way we act matters.
The Cave of Machpelah, where Sarah is buried, as are Abraham, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, remains a place of profound holiness and painful history. Hebron has witnessed terrible violence, including the massacre of Jews in 1929 and the murder of Muslim worshippers by a Jewish extremist in 1994. To honor our ancestors there, we must also confront the human cost of hatred and the desecration caused when violence is clothed in religious language.
Our tradition calls us to hold fast to Jewish belonging and to moral accountability. These commitments require us to keep asking how we can protect life, exercise power with restraint, and leave room for the humanity of others.
Perhaps that work begins in our own personal relationships. In a time when political differences can fracture families and friendships, we can promise one another that our relationships will not be conditional on agreement. Torah is larger than any one of us, and we need one another to hear its many truths.
May we move through the world with care, courage, and the best intentions. May we act with humility when the way forward is difficult. And may we leave our children a world more rooted in life, justice, and peace than the one we inherited.
Oct 30, 2026
Oct 28, 2026
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
Immersion and Identity Rabbi Ethan Tucker Delivered at the 7th annual Camp Conference of the Grinspoon Institute for Jewish Philanthropy ...
-
.png)
Ed Sheeran Owes His Fans an Apology Rabbi Menachem Creditor September 6, 2026 At MetLife Stadium this past weekend, Benjamin Hammond Haggert...
