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🟦✡️🏳️🌈🇮🇱
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Not a rhetorical question. A broken-hearted, passionate cry.
Jewish people have always been part of the LGBTQ+ movement.
We’ve marched. Led. Fought. Died. Loved.
Think Harvey Milk. Edie Windsor. Idit Klein. So many more.
Proud Jews. Proud Queer. Proud Allies.
But this year, something’s broken.
Zionism—our commitment to our ancestral home—is being twisted.
We’re told:
“You can come—but not as Jews.”
“Your pride is okay, but your people are not.”
Let’s get real:
📍Zionism is not colonialism.
🇮🇱 Israel is not a metaphor.
🕊️ Jewish people are not occupiers of our own story.
Our return to our land is the only successful anti-colonial project in human history.
That doesn’t make us perfect. It makes us responsible.
For justice. For dignity. For peace.
To exile Jews from PRIDE is to betray the very meaning of PRIDE.
PRIDE means visibility.
PRIDE means no shame.
PRIDE means love—for everyone.
If your liberation requires our erasure, it’s not liberation.
✡️🏳️🌈 We’re still here. We’re still loud. We’re still proud. We’re not leaving.
#AmYisraelChai #JewishAndProud #Pride2025 #QueerJewishPride #LoveIsLove #ZionismIsJustice #NoPrideInErasure
Jun 4, 2025
Jun 1, 2025
A Shavuot Prayer for the Release of the 58 Hostages
A Shavuot Prayer for the Release of the 58 Hostages
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
June 1, 2025
God of Revelation, God of Silence,
On this Shavuot, as we stand again at Sinai, trembling as did our ancestors beneath the mountain, we cry out to You from beneath another shadow—604 unendurable days of captivity for 58 souls held by Hamas since October 7, 2023. We bring them with us to Sinai. We place their names at the foot of that holy mountain, where thunder roared, and a shofar blast pierced the heavens (Ex. 19:16-17).
We remember the fear and trembling of long ago, how the mountain loomed like a threat (Shabbat 88a). And we remember that they said, na’aseh v’nishma—we will do and we will understand (Ex. 24:7). We, too, even and especially when You are hidden and the world trembles with injustice, commit to action.
As the earth once held its breath, fearing it might return to chaos if dignity were not upheld, we now hold ours, aching for the moment when our family return home. God, release Your thunder not as a threat, but as a cry for justice. Let the forced silence of captivity be shattered by the sounds of reunion, of prayers answered, of mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and daughters and sons weeping with joy.
Reveal Yourself, Holy One, not through fire and cloud alone, but through human courage, compassion, and unrelenting pursuit of justice. Let this be the day the mountain lifts—not in fear, but in freedom.
May the Torah we cocreate with You this day carry with it the power to heal, to liberate, to bring every captive home.
Amen.
May 30, 2025
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May 28, 2025
Counting Every Soul: A Response to the Response
Counting Every Soul: A Response to the Response
Rabbi Menachem Creditor | May 28, 2025
After publishing my essay, “Counting Every Soul: We Are Not Giving Up,” I received a wave of engagement—some thoughtful, some painful. First among the critiques was the question: Do Palestinians have souls? The question, in its very framing, wounded me. My essay mourned the 58 hostages still held by Hamas, named and unnamed, alive and murdered. It sought to hold space for Jewish pain on the 600th day since October 7th. That an expression of grief for my people was met with such a question left me breathless. Is our pain so unimaginable that to voice it must be offset by a disclaimer? I was not denying Palestinian suffering—I was counting ours.
One responder pointed to the phrase “every soul” in my title and asked if I meant every soul. Another accused me of justifying genocide by prioritizing “tribal pain.” Let me be clear: I did not say only Jewish souls count. My piece was not a geopolitical treatise—it was a cry from within the anguish of my community. To suggest that holding space for that grief is immoral, or even racist, misunderstands both the piece and the human need to feel seen in our own sorrow.
I do use the word “tribe,” and I use it with love. Tribe, to me, is not primitive—it is sacred. It is family, identity, and belonging. One can love one’s tribe and still advocate for justice and dignity for others. To feel deeply for one’s people is not to dehumanize others. I reject the false binary that caring for my own must come at the expense of others. I ask only that I be granted the same fullness of humanity I extend to others—complex, grieving, and striving to be just.
Some readers asked for my writing that centers non-Jewish pain. I welcome that inquiry and encourage those interested to explore my writing. Others questioned whether any criticism of Israel, including the use of the term “genocide,” should be taken personally. I can only say: when accusations invoke language that negates the legitimacy of my family’s very being, I feel erased. So would anyone.
This follow-up is not a defense. It is a continuation of my counting, soul by soul—including those who disagree with me, including those who question me harshly. The counting must go on. And we are not giving up.
[DAY 600] We Must Fight for Our Family #Day600 #Broadcast1313 #Bemidbar #BringThemHomeNow #UntilTheLastHostage #AmYisraelChai💙
May 27, 2025
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May 9, 2025
Acharei Mot/Kedoshim: Not Walking Away from Each Other - #Day581 #Broadcast1300
May 8, 2025
May 7, 2025
After the Fire: Ritual, Risk, and the Holy Path
After the Fire: Ritual, Risk, and the Holy Path
(Acharei Mot-Kedoshim)
Think about the Olympics, the moment when each nation’s delegation steps into the stadium—flags raised high, colors shining, protocols honored with precision and pride. Think about the medals, the different levels of the podium. The athlete who stands tallest has achieved something rare, something sacred in its own way. And then, someone places the medal gently around their neck. That simple act, rich with ceremony, tells the truth: something important has happened here.
Now, think about other processions. A wedding. A surgery. A funeral. Each one governed by ritual. Each one bound by holy choreography—whether joy or terror stands at the threshold.
The common thread? Rituals are how we survive the chaos.
This week’s double Torah reading begins Acharei Mot—“after the death.” After the fire. After Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, were consumed for coming too close. What does that mean—to come too close to God? And how can Aaron ever approach the Holy again, knowing what the cost had been for his children?
And yet, the Torah tells us, Aaron does draw near. He is commanded to. But this time, he does it differently. Carefully. Intentionally. Step by step.
He brings incense, just as his sons did. He steps behind the curtain, into the most intimate sacred space of all—the Holy of Holies—just as his sons did. He approaches the Presence, God’s self, revealed between the cherubim, just as his sons did. But this time, the ritual is not spontaneous. It’s structured. Guarded. Measured.
A force field of incense, the Torah says, shields Aaron from what is too much, too holy, too real. It isn’t that God has changed. It’s that we have learned—painfully, tragically—how to come close with reverence, not recklessness.
There’s a message here, but I don’t think it’s simple. Aaron performs the Avodah, the most sacred service we have—on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, for his people, for his family, for himself. And to do it, he must carry the trauma of his loss into the sanctuary and still leave it behind. He must compartmentalize the human part of him in order to become the vessel his people need.
Is that holy? Is that tragic? Is it both?
Acharei Mot leads us into Kedoshim—“you shall be holy.” After the death, we are called to rise, to live differently. To build a life that honors limits, a life where boundaries make space for beauty. A life shaped by ritual, not ruled by it. A life that dares to be sacred, even when the world is still reeling from the fire.
I don’t have a neat ending. I have only the image of Aaron stepping through the smoke, bearing grief and responsibility in the same hands. I have only the question of how any of us live after loss, how we hold fire without getting burned.
Maybe the answer is in the rituals we keep. The meals we make. The goodbyes we remember to say. The prayers we offer, even when our hearts are unsure. Maybe holiness is not the absence of chaos—but the choice to move through it with intention.
What will you choose to carry, and how will you carry it?
May 6, 2025
May 2, 2025
May 1, 2025
Yom HaAtzmaut! ❤️🇮🇱 - AM YISRAEL CHAI - A special UJA-Federation of New York #MorningTorah broadcast featuring the recitations of "Tourists" by Yehuda Amichai and "A New Kind of Zionist Hero" by Rachel Sharansky Danziger. #Day573 #Broadcast1294 #Tazria #Metzora #BringThemHomeNow #UntilTheLastHostage #AmYisraelChai💙
Apr 30, 2025
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My beloved friend, Ben Stern z"l, a Survivor, a hero, a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, was my rebbe.
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Apr 18, 2025
How to Split the Sea: A Reflection for the Seventh Day of Pesach
How to Split the Sea: A Reflection for the Seventh Day of Pesach
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Friends, as we prepare to enter the final sacred days of Pesach—tonight marking Shevi’i shel Pesach, the Seventh Day of the Festival—we find ourselves standing at the edge of memory and hope, with our hearts turned toward the Sea.
Tradition teaches that on this very night, in the middle of our ancestors' journey to freedom, the Sea of Reeds split. It’s easy to summon the image—perhaps Charlton Heston in “The Ten Commandments,” or Val Kilmer’s Moses in “The Prince of Egypt”—staff raised, sea parted, miracle revealed. A cinematic flash, a divine snap of the fingers.
But the Torah tells a deeper, slower, messier truth.
The sea didn’t split in an instant. It was not a pyrotechnic moment. The Torah tells us that when Moshe lifted his hand over the water, a ruach kadim, an east wind, blew all night long. And only then did the waters recede. It wasn’t magic. It was process.
A process shaped by terror and uncertainty, by complaints and confusion. The Israelites cried out, afraid, cornered by Pharaoh’s army. Moses, too, was unsure. “Be still,” he told the people. “God will fight for you.” But God pushes back: “Why do you cry out to Me? Tell the people to move forward.”
Move forward. Into what? The water hadn’t moved. The miracles hadn’t come.
And then—then came the human moment that changed everything.
The midrash tells of Nachshon ben Aminadav, who didn’t wait for the miracle. He walked into the sea—waist-deep, chest-deep, neck-deep. He believed, before it made sense to believe. He stepped in before it was safe. That’s when the waters parted.
Not because of a staff. But because of faith. Of courage. Of human partnership in divine work.
And so, friends, what do we learn as we prepare to cross our own seas?
We learn that miracles don’t come all at once. They take time. They take risk. They take us.
We have prayed. Oh, how we have prayed—for healing, for peace, for release, for redemption. If miracles came from words alone, the world would already be whole. But our prayers are not incantations. They are declarations. They are commitments. Our prayers are the seeds of our actions.
When Moses stood at the sea, God didn’t say “Stand back and watch.” God said: “Go.”
So go we must. Not alone. Not leaving anyone behind. When Pharaoh asked, “Who will go with you?” Moses replied, “Our elders and our children, our sons and our daughters.” Everyone.
Freedom means everyone.
And let me say it plainly: if we call it freedom but we’ve left someone behind—someone poor, someone disabled, someone forgotten, someone who looks or loves or prays differently—it’s not freedom. Not in the Jewish sense. Not in the holy sense. Not the kind we sing about at our Seders.
I want no blood on my door if it means someone else must suffer. I want no celebration if it means someone else is left mourning. Yes, we sometimes must fight for freedom—but never with joy for the fight itself. Never with pride in the pain.
So this is my promise, and I invite you to make it with me:
I will step into the sea.
I will not do it alone.
I will hold the hand of someone who needs me, and I will let others hold mine.
I will remember that my freedom is meaningless unless it includes yours.
I will stand in the breach, even when I’m afraid, because faith demands courage before certainty.
And when I pray, I will listen for the echo of my own voice telling me what I must do.
The sea is waiting, friends. The wind has begun to blow. The moment is upon us.
Let’s show up for each other.
Let’s split the sea—together.
Apr 17, 2025
Apr 16, 2025
Cups Not Yet Full: A Seder Reflection
Cups Not Yet Full: A Seder Reflection
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Yesterday, for the seventh year, I was honored to represent UJA at Citi Headquarters in New York City at their annual Pesach lunch-and-learn where I was blessed once again to share Torah with hundreds of employees from all over the world. From London. From Tel Aviv. From across the United States. Jews, non-Jews, colleagues, strangers. A global room filled with stories.
And there’s something profound that happens in that room each year. Amidst the corporate environment, people show up—earnestly, fully—to share their traditions and listen deeply to one another. This year, like last, I felt that sacred crackle of what real interfaith effort can be, moved that such depth could be part of a workplace environment.
Last year, when I spoke, I shared a core ritual of the Seder—how we spill drops of wine from our cup when we recite the Ten Plagues. Some use a pinky, some a spoon. My wife has a tradition of pouring directly from her cup, deeply emotional each time. Why do we do this? Because even as we celebrate our liberation, we recognize that freedom—holy and deserved—came at a human cost. We diminish our joy, if only by a few drops, in radical empathy for those who suffered in our story. Because our joy cannot be complete if it stands on someone else's pain, even those who caused us terrible pain.
That moment in the Seder teaches us that even in our most triumphant telling, we are commanded to remember the intrinsic worth of others. Freedom that ignores human suffering – even the Egyptians who oppressed and terrorized our ancestors - isn't true freedom from a Jewish perspective. We are not permitted to erase another's humanity, not even in moments of our own pain.
Last year, I shared these thoughts in that room at Citi, pointing to the immediate and horrific applicability in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. And after we finished, as people were heading off to lunch, a young woman approached me, tears in her eyes. She introduced herself and said, “I have lost many family members in Gaza during this war. I’m grateful that you said something about them.” I was thunderstruck, so moved that she understood how much I meant what I had shared, that her Gazan family’s loss mattered so deeply to my Jewish heart.
I was overwhelmed. Even in my pain—and we are still in pain, still fighting—I had spoken with love and respect for her family. We hugged and cried on each other’s shoulders. It was one of those sacred, human moments that stays with you. I told her then, and I believe it even more now: I want her to have a full cup too. I want her to know that her family is loved, that their lives are not worth less than my own family’s.
Just yesterday, I gave my Pesach talk at Citi again, touching once again on Pesach’s themes of universal human dignity learned from the particular Jewish story. And then, she stood up. In front of hundreds of people, she shared that last year’s Seder had moved her so deeply that she became a co-chair of Citi’s interfaith employee initiative. She has, since that day, helped organize Diwali, Christmas, Iftar—and this was her second Passover.
I sat in awe. That’s what it looks like when a community takes faith seriously, when humanity becomes the core expression of religion. And it affirmed the ancient ritual of spilling our wine—of reducing our joy in solidarity with sisters and brothers beyond the tribe.
Friends, I am morally obligated to fight for my family. I do so with conviction. And yes, that fight can make it harder to remember the humanity of the other. But I must. We must. Because the work of liberation will only be complete when everyone's cup is full.
Each year at the Seder, we open the door. As a child, I used to race to open it, certain I’d see Elijah the Prophet standing there, ready to usher in a better world. But somewhere along the way, I stopped expecting him. I grew jaded. The door creaked open, and I knew no one would be there.
But I’m working hard these days to believe again. To hope that when we open the door this year, Elijah and Miriam will be there, whispering that things are getting better. And I believe my sister at Citi is hoping for the same.
Maybe, if we remind ourselves of our shared humanity—if we insist on being seen fully and insist on seeing others fully—we will come closer to that world we dream about. A world where liberation is not a zero-sum game. Where every drop of joy lost is restored by our collective labor.
I’ve been looking at the faces of the 59 hostages still desperate to come home. I think of Tamir Adam, taken at 38 from Kibbutz Nir-Oz, and Muhammad Al-Atarash, taken at 39 from his community in Otef Azah. Two brothers from different families, both stolen from their rightful places in the world. We’ve got work to do to free them, and we will do that work.
May we do that sacred work with joy, broken hearts still beating, hands ready to open the door.
And may more people have more joy next year—because of the work we’ve done this one.
Apr 15, 2025
Apr 11, 2025
We Are Enough: A Pesach Reflection
We Are Enough: A Pesach Reflection
Rabbi Menachem Creditor
April 11, 2025
We are praying—praying with broken hearts—for our 59 brothers and sisters who remain captive. Twenty-four of them, we believe, are alive. And every one of them should be home.
How can we celebrate a holiday of freedom if they are not foremost in our minds and our souls?
Many of us will place a lemon on our Seder plates this year, as Rachel Goldberg-Polin suggested—a symbol both beautiful and bitter. The lemon doesn't replace the matzah or the maror. But it belongs at the table. It reminds us that while this is not the whole story, it is our entire moment. And one day, our descendants will ask: “How did you mark Pesach during the second year of captivity?”
We must tell the truth. We must hold it all.
This day is also sacred in another way: it marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald.
Some of us carry the trauma of ancestors murdered there. Some of us descend from survivors who walked out alive but never untouched. There are images and testimonies, but more than anything else, there are stories. They live in us. They demand to be told.
This year, the lemon is our new ritual object. A burst of color. A sting of truth. A commitment to remember and build meaning. Because that’s how we build life. That’s how we build a future.
And with all of this on our shoulders—freedom not yet won, memory that won’t let go—you might be asking:
How are we supposed to hold all of this?
How could we possibly be enough?
Let me share a small tradition from my family. Every year, ever since my children were little, we turn bedikat chametz—the search for leaven—into a scavenger hunt. I’d write terrible rhyming clues, some in the style of Dr. Seuss, leading them around the house.
Here’s the wild part: we clean our homes of chametz… and then we hide chametz… and then we bless the “search” for the chametz - we just hid.
Why?
It’s almost absurd. We create a ritual to find what we just put there. That cannot be about getting rid of chametz. It has to be something deeper.
I believe the heart of Pesach happens before the holiday begins. It happens in the moment we search. Because in the climax of that ritual, we say a short Aramaic declaration:
“All chametz in my possession—whether I’ve seen it or not, whether I found it or not—let it be ownerless as the dust of the earth.”
What a prayer. What a spell. Through words—through intention—we transform the burden we might have missed into dust. It’s magical thinking. Holy magic.
And what does it really mean, for those of us who live in history, conscious and overwhelmed?
It means: you are enough.
Even if you missed something.
Even if you feel like you’re fumbling through the pain and the rituals.
Even if the story is too big, and the moment is too much.
You. Are. Enough.
Say it with me:
We are enough.
We are enough.
We are enough.
Pesach is coming. The Seders are tomorrow night—and the night after.
Whoever you’re with, ask your questions.
If you're alone, ask them anyway.
Point to the matzah. Taste the maror. Sing the songs. Open the door.
We will fight for freedom.
We will tell our story.
We will lean to the left.
We will reach toward hope.
When we open the door for Elijah and Miriam this year, may they be one step closer.
This year, may we send our hearts to the east and sing our way forward.
This Pesach, may we be strong and free.
For our beloved sisters and brothers in captivity. For ourselves. For those we love. For our people.
And for our whole, broken, beautiful world.
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Pesach, Matzah, Maror: Telling Our Story from the Inside Out Rabbi Menachem Creditor April 8, 2025 This coming Saturday night and Sunday nig...
