Doesn’t everyone just love the word sin? I know I don’t. Sin is a loaded word. I find it intimidating, scary, and perhaps a little bit shameful. It is uncomfortable to consider all the ways I fail those I care about and contribute to the brokenness of our world. However, just because something is uncomfortable doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth doing. After all, how can I improve myself if I can’t take an honest look (at least once a year) at all the ways in which I fall short?

Every year I remind y’all that Yom Kippur is a day of forgiveness for our communal sins. If we have harmed another person directly, we should apologize to that person directly and work to repair the relationship. On Yom Kippur we confess the collective sins of the Jewish people, hoping, praying, and trusting that God will forgive us and accept us back in love.

The two main prayers of confession are – “We Are Guilty” and  – “For Our Sin” As it happens, we may not have committed many of the sins mentioned in these prayers. We also may not consider many of the actions we’re confessing to be sinful – our culture is very different from that of the ancient world. However, some categories of sin – such as speech-based sin – are still relevant today. The ancient rabbis understood just as we do that speech can be one of the most potent and harmful forms of sinning out there.

The prayer Ashamnu has 22 phrases, each corresponding to a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is an alphabetized catalog of sins. I count 5 explicit instances of speech-based sinning: dibbarnu dofi – we’ve spoken slander; tafalnu sheqer – we’ve spoken lie after lie; ya’atznu ra’ – we’ve advised wrongly (or advised evil); kizavnu – we’ve deceived; and latznu – we’ve mocked. If you include other phrases that could apply to speech acts, such as angering, rebelling, betraying, causing others to sin or become evil, sinning deliberately or sinning carelessly, committing abominations, making errors, or just being guilty in general, that’s at least 9 more. Whether explicit or implicit, most of the sins in Ashamnu can describe speech. This is an extraordinary number.

A similar focus on speech occurs in the prayer Al Cheit. We have sinned through: bittui s’fatayim – utterance of the lips; dibbur peh – using (or misusing) our mouths; viddui peh – only confessing verbally when actions of repentance are required (we might call this a “lip service” confession); tifshut peh – foolish talk; tum’at s’fatayim – impurity of the lips; kachash uvkhazav – false denial and false promise; lashon hara’ – evil talk (or slander); latzon – scoffing; siach sif’teinu – prattle of our lips; rechilut – gossiping; shevuat shav’ – swearing in vain. Like the Ashamnu prayer, Al Cheit mentions many other kinds of actions that can be applied to speech more broadly.

I don’t know about you, but I find this list of speech-based sins absolutely overwhelming. I have gossiped, scoffed, lied, deceived, and spoken badly of someone not just in the past year, but probably also this past week. I don’t even know how to track the full impact of my speech-based sin: often it is not directed against someone but contributes to a negative culture more broadly.

I think the rabbis were onto something when they lifted up speech-based sin as both extremely harmful and extremely hard to avoid. And the rabbis lived long before social media…. Nowadays, many speech-based sins aren’t even directly attributable to humans – the AI bots have learned from us how to sin with words! They’re having entire conversations without us!

So why does this matter? Let me tell you one place where I see the most harmful effects of sinful speech impacting the Jewish people and our campus today.

Three years ago when I first learned about October 7th, I was horrified. I had lived in Israel for two and a half years and thought of the many friends I still had there. Were they okay? Were their families okay? As a rabbi and a chaplain, the most pressing work right after October 7th was listening to y’all students talk about how Oct 7th impacted you personally. For so many of us here tonight, when we speak about Israel, we’re not talking about some abstract, far away other:  we’re talking about family and friends – people near and dear to our hearts.

As I listened to students share after October 7th, it quickly became clear to me that there was a second emotional crisis unfolding: the repeated fracturing of friendships, many of which were caused or exacerbated by social media. I repeatedly heard from students who identified as Zionists that they wanted others to know they didn’t want Palestinian civilians to suffer. And I heard from several pro-Palestinian students (Jewish and non-Jewish alike) that they wanted to express their criticisms of the government of the state of Israel without being antisemitic. Many of them approached me for advice on how to do so.

If we only took our cues from social media or just the media landscape more broadly, we might think that we can either support Israelis OR Palestinians, that we could either support the return of the hostages OR work to safeguard Palestinian civilian lives, or that we need to choose between supporting a Jewish, democratic state OR the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. I don’t believe that we have to make these choices. Our minds are big enough to hold two ideas simultaneously and our hearts are big enough to care for the whole world.

Another error of social media is that it creates an echo chamber that encourages us to be in relationship only with people who agree with us. Social media encourages a latent human tendency to demonize those who are different. Somehow, engaging with people who hold different views than you do has come to be a thing we should do, rather than a thing we get to do. Yes, conversations highlighting differences of opinion can sometimes be uncomfortable and even downright excruciating. But they can also be generative and even delightful. After all, how would we ever learn anything if we only ever heard opinions we agree with? How would we grow?

When we can engage with others who hold different views than we do from a place of mutual respect and curiosity, our conversations and communities become elevated. Engaging with different voices helps us to develop empathy and wisdom. When we can approach these conversations from a place of psychological and physiological safety, they can broaden our minds and open our hearts. We can learn and we can grow. I cannot tell you how many times my own thinking on various topics has become far sharper when I have engaged with those I disagree with. I also cannot tell you the number of times I have been surprised and touched by someone else’s story. Hearing differing perspectives – when practiced in an atmosphere of mutual respect and safety – is a gift.

If I had to pick one of the biggest communal sins of the Jewish people from the past several years, it is that we have too often used our words to tear each other apart for having different views on Israel. We have failed to speak respectfully to one another. We have failed to listen. We have failed to honor the good intentions of others. We have failed to see the humanity of the person who disagrees with us, or the deeper universal values at play behind their specific politics. We have failed to see how learning to understand different opinions – including the opinions of those among us who may just want to be Jewish and not think too much about Israel – can strengthen our community. We have failed to create safe spaces to discuss our differences constructively. And we have failed to open our hearts to each other. We have put politics over relationships.

I want to be clear. I do not believe that we caused this situation on our campus. It is a symptom of a much broader, systemic issue facing the global Jewish community today. However, we do have the opportunity to change how we speak to one another on this campus. We can choose to take a different path together.

On Yom Kippur we confess the collective sins of the Jewish people, hoping, praying, and trusting that God will forgive us and accept us back in love. It is an opportunity for a fresh start. My invitation for us all gathered here tonight is that we may also consider what it might mean to confess our collective speech-based sins to each other. My hope is that this confession might break open our hearts so that we can better connect with one another. I pray that we can work together to build a stronger Jewish community, one based on mutual respect and honoring differences, one that elevates each other and our conversations, and one in which all can trust that we will be accepted in love.

Finally, I want to acknowledge that I have used a lot of words to give this message to you! I am sure my own words have been imprecise and imperfect. I pray my message will be received according to the intention with which it is given – to strengthen the Jewish community in love. And if I’ve said anything tonight that resonates with you – whether you agree or disagree, whether you understand or you have no idea what I’m talking about and want to know more, or if you feel unseen or unheard by what I have said – I invite you to reach out. Let’s talk. I am sure that I have something to learn from you. And together we can create a new story about how we talk about Israel together on campus and beyond. To echo the ancient words of the psalmist (adapted from ) yehiyu l’ratzon imrei finu vehigiyon libeinu lefanecha Adonai tzureinu vego’aleinu – may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you Adonai, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Even now when I think of that moment – twenty-five years later – my shoulders become tense and my stomach begins to churn. I feel the emotional echo of that moment in my body. So much history has unfolded in the past twenty-five years, and yet my memories of Sept 11, 2001 still feel real. As many of y’all know, modern psychology teaches us that trauma lives in our bodies, but the body-based nature of memory can still surprise me.

One of the most potent symbols and practices of Rosh Hashanah is the blowing of the shofar. However, because of the rabbinic prohibition on blowing the shofar on Shabbat, this year most traditional communities will wait until the second day to hear the shofar. Rather than experiencing Rosh Hashanah as a day of shofar blowing (Yom HaTru’ah, ), we will experience it as a day of remembering shofar blowing (Zicharon Tru’ah, ).

As anyone who has heard the shofar knows, hearing its blasts constitutes a profound embodied spiritual experience. The shofar represents birth, alarm, victory, and a demanding invitation that we wake up to the reality of our lives. When the shofar is not sounded on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, we feel its absence and we long for its return.

The spiritual invitation of a shofar-less Rosh Hashanah is to lean into memory. Just as we remember traumatic events in our bodies, so too can we remember transcendent moments, such as hearing the shofar. Because we do not have the sound of the shofar to help us direct our attention inward, we must rely on our memories. We must choose to remember so that the shofar – even in its absence – becomes a force for good in our lives.

A shofar-less Rosh Hashanah reminds us that we have choices about what we remember and how we remember it. Memories of trauma may live in our bodies, but so do memories of joy, connection, hope, and resilience. When remembering Sept 11th, 2001, I may always feel an echo of the emotional experience I felt on that day. However, rather than focusing exclusively on my grief, I can expand my awareness to include the gratitude I felt at not having to experience that moment alone. I was with my friend, and we were able to experience that difficult moment together. My heart warms at the memory.

As we move into a new Jewish year, I invite all of us to remember that we have family, friends, and communities that can be with us through hard times. Look around – many of the people in this room may be your friends (or your future friends!). Each of you has the opportunity to experience the ups and downs of college life with each other.

I know that there are many broken and unfinished parts of this world, but I am grateful that we can have partners in this journey called life. And I pray that the memory of all the lives lost on Sept 11th, 2001 may be for a blessing. May their memories inspire us to do the work of building a better future together.

Note: A different version of this piece appeared originally in .

Welcome to Â鶹ĘÓƵ! Welcome first years, welcome back returning students, and welcome families. We are so very glad that you have chosen to be here with us.

This week’s Torah portion (parshah) is called . Ki Teitzei means “when you go out”. In the parshah, this going out refers to war and is immediately followed by laws governing the taking of captives. The parshah then provides an extensive collection of commandments.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that while I imagine that moving into Â鶹ĘÓƵ may have been a rough or challenging experience for many of you, it probably didn’t feel like going to war. At the very least, I hope it did not! However, I imagine that going out from the homes and families you have grown up in has also involved taking care of an extensive list of seemingly unconnected details, just like the parshah.

In looking over these detailed commandments, one struck me as essential to thriving here at Â鶹ĘÓƵ. says “If you see your brother’s [or your fellow’s] donkey or ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it; you must raise it together.”
At first glance, this verse may not appear to be relevant to our lives. I am unaware of any donkeys or oxen present on Â鶹ĘÓƵ’s campus, although if senior administrators know differently, please let me know! [Correction: apparently have been an issue!] However, if you bear with me, I will show you why this verse still matters for us here today.

The Talmud () – an ancient collection of commentary on rabbinic law considered authoritative for traditional observance even today – connects this passage with a similar passage from : “When you see a donkey of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless help raise it.”

According to traditional rabbinic interpretation (), the verse from Exodus commands us to remove undue burdens from animals, even animals belonging to people who hate us. This command shows us that we should alleviate animal suffering whenever possible.

However, the verse from this week’s parsha in Deuteronomy is understood to command us to put a load back onto an animal if its load has fallen off. This verse teaches us that we should not just care for the animal, but also for the owner of the animal, honoring their intentions to build a secure life for themselves. The verse also clarifies that we are meant to put the load back onto the animal with the owner. We are meant to care for the economic success and flourishing of our fellows with our fellows.

So why does this matter? These laws in these verses matter in three ways.

First, many of us live our lives carrying heavy emotional burdens. We are not donkeys or oxen, but college life can sometimes be a lot to bear. If the Torah asks us to alleviate animal suffering, how much more so would it want us to assist each other in relieving our own suffering? We at Jewish Life (Betsy, Boaz, Jay, Sarah, Tal, and myself) want you to know that we are here for you and will be here for you whenever you need us.

Second, college is also a time of growth and opportunity. There are some burdens (such as the responsibilities and privileges of adulthood) you will want to take on! Classes, internships, study abroad, leadership experiences, Greek life, clubs – these are aspects of college life that I know many of you are already excited about! We are also here to help you grow in the ways you want to grow and support your flourishing!

Finally, you may have heard the phrase – all of the Jewish people are responsible for one another. I believe that forming relationships – with mentors and with each other – is the most important part of the college experience. I know that it can sometimes take time to make friends at college and to find your place. It is totally normal to feel anxious about making friends. If you do feel this way, know you’re not alone!

As you and your families adjust your being in college, I hope all of you gathered here today know that you will always have a home with Jewish Life at Â鶹ĘÓƵ. We’re here to help you let go of or manage the burdens you don’t want, take on the burdens you do want, and help you form the relationships with one another that will sustain you through college and beyond. We are so happy that you have chosen to make your home with us. Kol yisrael arevim zeh bazeh. Let us all take care of one another. Shabbat shalom.

In the Jewish calendar, we are well into the season of teshuvah, translated both as “repentance” and “turning back.” It is a heartbreaking time for deep reflection on our individual and collective moral failures.

In this week’s parsha, Ki Tavo, Moses instructs the Israelites on the curses and blessings that God will bestow upon them based on whether they follow God’s commands. These passages present a system of spiritual physics based upon our behavior. If we do x, we will receive y. If we obey God’s commands, we will be blessed (). If we sin, we will be cursed ().

Those of us with lived experience know that the reality of sin, punishment, merit, and reward is more complicated than our parsha’s formula. First, it does not explain how those who commit egregious moral transgressions still prosper in this world. Second, it implies that any evil that befalls the faithful is a natural consequence of immoral behavior, rather than the inexplicable tragedy we know it to be. Finally, this formula can give us a false sense of control over our lives, leading us to disappointment.

Rashi points to a more complicated way of understanding our parsha. One of the blessings the Israelites will receive for obedience is in : “Blessed shall you be in your comings and blessed shall you be in your goings.” teaches that this verse means that your exit (goings) from this world should be like your entry (comings) into this world – without sin, belo’ cheit (cf. ).

This interpretation raises two important questions. First, Biblical Hebrew has a rich vocabulary for describing sin. Cheit does not describe a severe transgression or rebellion – instead it connotes missing the mark. How can it be that any human being can live without sometimes falling short?

Second, this interpretation reveals a logical contradiction. The reward for following God’s commands is sinlessness. How can it be that the reward, sinlessness, precedes the behavior that merits the reward?

This week’s parsha presents an incomplete picture of sin, punishment, merit, and reward because it does not include teshuvah. If the blessings and curses from our parsha describe spiritual physics, teshuvah is all about spiritual metaphysics.

Engaging in the practice of teshuvah is not simply acknowledging our wrongdoings, making amends with those we have harmed, and committing to live differently in the future. These actions are fundamental components of teshuvah, but there is something much deeper going on.

Millennia ago, David modeled for us the heart-transforming nature of teshuvah. In Psalm 51, he acknowledges his sins, transgressions, and iniquities in a litany of confessions. He asks that God give his soul a good scrub: “Wash me thoroughly of my iniquity, and purify me of my sin” (). He then asks God to create his heart anew, much like a newborn: “Fashion a pure heart for me, O God; create in me a steadfast spirit” (). He then teaches that “True sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; God, You will not despise a contrite and crushed heart” ().

David teaches that the most important component of teshuvah is a broken heart. The breaking of our heart center is what allows the divine flow to wash over us from within and purify us from sin. Teshuvah is heart-breaking and ego-busting. We have limited to no control over this aspect of the process – we cannot purify our own hearts.

Despite our lack of control, our divine bath doesn’t end with our feeling refreshed. Instead, we must become active participants in our own teshuvah, working to repair relationships with those we have harmed and committing to live differently in the future.

For Ashkenazi communities, the prayers of start this Saturday night. Sephardic communities have already been saying these prayers since the beginning of the Hebrew month of Elul. These prayers are an invitation to go deeper and let our hearts break with our pain for the world and our own individual and collective culpability.

My prayer for us all this year is that we experience the mystical power of teshuvah purifying us from within. And I pray that our purified hearts strengthen us in our renewed commitment to work for a better world in the coming year.

Views expressed in this column are the author’s own and not necessarily those of Â鶹ĘÓƵ. The original article appears in .

works to strengthen interfaith partnerships and civic engagement within American society. ILS is the largest annual gathering of its kind, fostering relationships among faculty, staff, and students and training them in core skills for interfaith work.

This year’s theme, Chords of Democracy, explored the intersection of music and pluralism in American society. Each religious and spiritual community brings its own music to our collective civic conversation – through relationship building, intentional dialogue across difference, and identification of shared values and common goals, our traditions can work in harmony to continue to create a more perfect union.

The Truitt Center delegation included first-year multifaith interns Addison Anderson ’28, Omar Khamis ’28, Tess Trayner ’26; second-year multifaith intern Rocco Albano ’26, Associate Chaplain for Jewish life Rabbi Maor Greene, Associate University Chaplain Rev. Julie Tonnesen, and Interim Assistant Sirector for Jewish Life Communications and Development Carly Gray Adler. Students learned about the vision, knowledge, and skills of interfaith leadership, while staff learned strategies for fostering learning environments for pluralism, developing student interfaith leadership, and managing conflict.

Brian Pennington, director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society and professor of religious studies also attended the summit. As a recipient of an Interfaith America grant last year, he developed “Bridging Faith and Health,” a religious literacy certificate program for the School of Health Sciences, Brian participated in the summit’s Faith and Health track to explore local communities of faith as public health assets.

“One line that really stuck with me throughout the conference was that pluralism is not just diversity but diversity in action,” said Addison Anderson, on how her own understanding of diversity has evolved. “Each person at that conference or on this campus has a unique story, perspective and belief system that makes our community diverse. Only by highlighting those differences can we build a stronger community and foster mutual respect and understanding.”

Similarly, Tess Trayner describes how they learned that “religious plurality isn’t about tolerating or ignoring difference. It’s about building community with people who may have insurmountable differences and embracing that reality. It means having dialogue on difficult topics, learning to respect, relate, and cooperate across worldviews.”

The Jewish calendar understands the three weeks between the 17th of Tammuz and 9th of Av as a time of intense mourning, when we remember the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Because of my childhood experiences, I used to have trouble associating destruction with summer. Not this summer.

During a late June heatwave, I used our local river – the Eno River – as a mikveh. On the Fourth of July, my family and I enjoyed a pool day with splash contests, coin-diving, and a greased watermelon competition. Two days later, our region, like Texas, was inundated in a . Flooding has happened throughout human history. However, with the onset of climate change, the intensity and frequency of flooding has dramatically increased, including just this week in the New York area.

The flooding killed several people including a member of our synagogue. It severely damaged homes, roads, and properties. Our local pool was eight feet underwater. The Eno River has been contaminated from leaked sewage and other pollutants. Riverside trails are closed indefinitely as officials evaluate the damage. I don’t know the next time I will be able to immerse in the Eno River safely.

It has felt like the three weeks started early.

On this first Shabbat of the three weeks, we will read a special haftarah: . Jeremiah was sent by God to warn Judah and Jerusalem of their impending destruction. He had the unenviable task of proclaiming to the people that their lives were about to rupture in ways they could not imagine.

In , God tells Jeremiah,

See, I appoint you on this day
Over nations and kingdoms:
To uproot and to pull down,
To destroy and to overthrow,
To build and to plant.
I used to read Jeremiah as a failed prophet. He was sent to warn Judah and Jerusalem of their impending destruction. Despite his warnings, they did not repent. Jerusalem was destroyed and its leaders taken into exile.

These days, I read Jeremiah differently. It may be that the destruction Jeremiah was tasked with proclaiming was unavoidable. Jeremiah was appointed to tell the truth of the devastation that would befall Jerusalem and to encourage people to find a way to live beyond it. It was never within Jeremiah’s power to avert disaster.

From this perspective, Jeremiah was a wildly successful prophet. He correctly proclaimed doom and hope. He did not deny the truth of the traumatic events facing Jerusalem. But as they unfolded, he was also able to give people hope amid the destruction of everything that they had ever known.

If you transpose the book of Jeremiah onto our times, Jeremiah could be prophesying about the climate crisis. We have all heard the warnings from climate scientists, and yet we have so far been unable to avoid barreling towards irreparable harm to our planet. Jeremiah’s language of “uproot” and “pull down” doesn’t even feel like a metaphor when surveying destruction from flooding.

However, Jeremiah doesn’t just proclaim uprooting, pulling down, destroying, and overthrowing. Jeremiah also encourages Judeans to build and plant. He encourages resilience in the face of unspeakable tragedy. He encourages hope amidst despair.

Before destruction comes, it is hard to imagine or prepare for it. But after destruction comes, it can be hard to find hope.

The season of the three weeks is an invitation to find a dynamic balance between hope and despair. Not only can we imagine destruction on a scale we have never seen, we can also imagine what it might look like to build, plant, and thrive after the unimaginable has occurred.

Views expressed in this column are the author’s own and not necessarily those of Â鶹ĘÓƵ. The original article appears in .

In working with my students, I often wrestle with the question of how to create a common set of expectations for my students while also honoring that they are arriving with a diverse range of experiences, backgrounds, skills, personalities and interests. As their supervisor, I must balance setting and upholding shared norms with honoring individual differences.

This week’s Torah reading, , shows how the ancient Israelites also struggled with balancing upholding shared communal norms across personal differences.

The parsha presents a novel legal situation for the nascent Israelite community. A half-Israelite man has profaned God’s name. For a full Israelite, this would mean execution. However, should this outsider be held to the same legal standard?

The answer, conveyed from God by Moses, is a resounding yes. However, this is not the end of the matter. Moses quickly launches into a longer explanation on the law of retribution (). The law of retribution teaches that the punishment should fit the crime: In cases of bodily damage, “an eye for an eye” and “a tooth for a tooth.” In cases of death, “a life for a life.” Moses concludes, “You shall have one law for stranger and citizen alike: I am Adonai your God.” ().

The meaning of this verse seems obvious: It does not matter if a person is a native or foreigner—the law is the same for everyone. However, the ancient practice of the law of retribution and the meaning of Leviticus 24:22 are anything but clear-cut.

From biblical times and through the rabbinic period and beyond, a person would have received damages for an injured eye, tooth, or limb in the form of monetary compensation. This is because not all organs or limbs are of equal value-–after all, would the eye of a blind person hold the same monetary value as one for a person who sees ()? Rabbinic law has a complex system for determining the precise sum and there was no uniform amount of money that would have been paid ()

Saying that the law is the same for the stranger and the citizen alike does not mean that every case has the same result. Instead, it means that the law must be applied equally to everyone. Equal application of the law does not result in uniformity of judgment because every case is different.

In working with my students, I have learned that having a standard set of expectations around participation and performance is crucial. Much of the work of the internship supports the broader work of our multifaith center. Students who do not meet these expectations add to the workload of their fellow cohort members and professional staff. If unaddressed, such behavior leads to low-quality work and resentment among the team.

However, my students are all different. A student majoring in communication design can create a quality flier for an event in 15 minutes – a potentially impossible task for a student of a different major. An extroverted student may engage with others more easily, while an introverted student may naturally have keener listening skills. Finally, some students may need adjustments to their expected participation in planning certain religious festivals because of restrictions stemming from their own religious traditions.

Finding a balance between having a common set of expectations and allowing for individual differences is a dynamic process. In supervising students in their multifaith work, finding this balance is essential. Like in Parashat Emor, there is one law for everyone; however, the application of that law will look different in each individual case.

Views expressed in this column are the author’s own and not necessarily those of Â鶹ĘÓƵ. The original article appears in .

My experience reading the news these days is the opposite of looking at my friend’s mirror. I struggle to find a sense of hope, joy, and beauty. I see the world moving further away from caring for the most vulnerable of society – the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan. I do not see myself or my values reflected in the new world order that is forming.

This week’s Torah portion, , reminds me of my friend’s mirror. Buried within a detailed record of every item donated to construct the Mishkan and the high priest’s clothing is a description of a reflective plate on the high priest’s diadem (). The plate was made of the purest gold and had incised upon it, “Holy to Adonai.”

The Zohar says that this gold plate was actually a mirror that reflected the character of anyone who looked at it. Rather than seeing the gold plate as an ancient Near-Eastern fashion item, the Zohar recognizes that the plate does not just label the high priest as holy. Instead, everyone who sees themselves reflected in the plate also sees that they are holy.

Mirrors have long been an important metaphor in Jewish mystical traditions. Earliest traditions may go all the way back to : God speaks to most prophets in dreams, riddles, and ˛ú˛ąłľłľ˛ą°ů’ałó – this could be translated as either in a vision or in a mirror (cf. ). However, God speaks with Moses mouth-to-mouth (directly) and ˛ú˛ąłľłľ˛ą°ů’ełó, which means clearly or in a clear vision.

Jewish tradition holds that everyone except Moses sees the world in a distorted, incomplete fashion – through a mirror. We all have our own biases, filters, and preconceived notions of the world. We also perceive others as distorted reflections of ourselves, a phenomenon we now call psychological projection.

One of the main goals of Jewish mysticism is to polish our mirror. Through prayer, contemplation, and introspection (), we can come to perceive reality more clearly.

Like my friend’s affirmation mirror, adds a wrinkle to how we might understand the metaphor of mirrors. The mirror-plate does not just reflect our character, but it also adds the written affirmation that we are holy. This affirmation corrects any potential distortion an onlooker may have had about their worthiness – they, too, are holy to God.

Nowadays, the construction of our sacred communities looks different than in Biblical times. For starters, rabbis do not go around wearing reflective gold plates on their heads. However, rabbis and lay leaders alike are still constructing communities in which all who participate can see themselves as holy, valuable, and belonging.

For many of us, it can be challenging to see ourselves reflected in the news today. If a person only determines their self-worth by the media they consume, they will have a distorted sense of self. When societies do not care for the vulnerable or let everyone know that they have inherent worth as human beings, it becomes even more important that communities of faith do so.

It is upon us to build and strengthen communities that reflect our values. We must find ways to continue to affirm to each other and to reassure the vulnerable: “You are loved” and “You are holy.”

Views expressed in this column are the author’s own and not necessarily those of Â鶹ĘÓƵ. The original article appears in .

Many of us have heard the story of the Exodus, but it deserves a closer look. The children of Israel are enslaved in Egypt. Hearing their cries, God rescues them. Freed from Pharaoh, the Israelites are now free to serve God. God graciously offers them laws (i.e., the Torah) that will make their lives and society awesome – yay! This is a great story. However, this may not be the whole story.

How free are the Israelites, really? After all, they’ve gone from being Pharaoh’s slaves to refugees wandering around in the wilderness. They are dependent on God for food, water, protection and direction. In fact, slavery and service are the same word in Hebrew, avodah. This raises an uncomfortable moral question – are Israelites freed from Pharaoh only to become enslaved to God?

Approximately 1600 years ago, three ancient rabbis wrestled with a similar question (). The first rabbi (Rabbi Avdimi bar Ḥama bar Ḥasa) expands on the biblical text and describes how when Israel was standing at Sinai, God “flipped the mountain up over their heads like a tub” and said to them “If you accept the Torah, great! But if not, there will be your burial.” Here the image of the mountain held over the heads of the Israelites shows how desperate their situation was – they would likely die if they did not accept God’s offer.

The second rabbi (Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov) responds and asks if Israel has been coerced into accepting the covenant. If so, wouldn’t the entire Torah be void? After all, legal agreements entered into under force or duress are invalid. This teaching questions the entire moral foundation of Jewish law.

The third rabbi (Rava) claims that while the original covenant at Sinai may have been invalid, the Jewish people fully accepted the Torah during the time of Esther (). During those days their acceptance wasn’t motivated by coercion, but gratitude. The reading of this verse may be a stretch for us – in Esther the verse refers Jews joyfully accepting the obligation to observe Purim, not the entire Torah. This rabbi is basically saying, “well yes, the circumstances of the original covenant may have been a tad suspect, but don’t worry, everything is fine now.”

Ever since I learned this teaching, it has sat with me. As a mostly observant Jew deeply committed to Jewish pluralism, I also think it teaches three lessons for our current times:

First, the ancient rabbis were not afraid to ask hard questions or state uncomfortable truths. These rabbis were responsible for constructing rabbinic Judaism from the ashes of the destruction of the Second Temple. Despite having committed their lives to God and Jewish Law, they brazenly question both.

Second, the rabbis are not interested in a Judaism that is characterized by coercion. While it is true that they believed all Jews are bound by Jewish law, there is a difference between voluntarily taking on an obligation and being coerced into agreeing to do something you don’t want to do. The ancient rabbis believed that Torah was both an obligation and a gift from God. Torah was and is meant to bless the Jewish people and, by extension, the world.

Third and relatedly, I believe the ancient rabbis would want us, Jews and non-Jews alike, to engage with Torah from places of curiosity, gratitude, connection, joy and wonder. Those new to Judaism may not know this, but in today’s pluralistic Jewish world, we are all Jews by choice. We make choices about which Jewish rituals and traditions we choose to practice. We choose how we understand the concept of obligation or even if this language speaks to us at all. Although our conceptions of Judaism are radically different from those of the ancient rabbis, I cannot imagine that they would want us to engage in Jewish rituals and practices simply because we feel like we would be bad Jews if we did not. We Jews should do Judaism because we love it.

My hope for everyone attending this conference is that we can explore various religious and spiritual traditions in the spirit of the ancient rabbis. I encourage you to ask hard questions with generosity of spirit – doing so is a sign of respect. I invite you to engage or not engage in activities as makes sense for where you are in your life right now. While I encourage you to attend as many conference events as possible, you don’t need to do so from a place of guilt. Instead, I invite you to engage from a place of curiosity, gratitude, and joy. Finally, I encourage you to make conscious choices about how you participate and show up as yourselves in this conference. I hope that our time and presence together will be a gigantic blessing for us all. Shabbat shalom.

I value robust policy debates that respectfully engage with a diversity of opinions. I do not expect that everyone in this country will accept my understanding of gender. However, over the past few years, I have observed the normalization of hateful rhetoric against trans / non-binary folks masquerading as policy debate.

Many of the students I serve are also genderqueer. Others are immigrants or budding climate activists. I find myself at a loss for words. I can’t tell them that everything will work out okay, because I don’t know that it will. The darkness we are experiencing is palpable.

This week’s parsha, , contains a lot of darkness and night. Darkness can be a source of fear, anxiety, and despair. However, darkness can also be a source of safety, hope, and freedom. Here are some passages with darkness or night:

• Locusts that darken the land ()
• A plague of darkness so thick it can be touched ()
• God telling Moses that God will go out around midnight among the Egyptians ()
• Israelites instructed to eat Passover sacrifice during the night () and burn leftovers by morning ()
• In the middle of the night God struck down the firstborns in Egypt, Pharaoh rose in the night and summoned Moses and Aaron in the night ().
• Finally, describing Passover: “That was for Adonai a night of vigil to bring them out of the land of Egypt; that same night is Adonai’s, one of vigil for all the children of Israel throughout the ages.” ()

The symbolic meaning of darkness and night in these passages is complex. On the one hand, darkness brings Egypt’s suffering, culminating in the death of all firstborns in Egypt, many of whom were innocent (; ). On the other hand, darkness brings freedom for the children of Israel. Darkness symbolizes uncertainty and change. It represents the grave, the womb, or both.

It is tempting to read the Passover story as an allegory, assigning contemporary figures into ancient roles. However, doing so elides the precarity of the moment: when living in dark times, there is no way to know what will happen. The night can lead to our destruction or our liberation.

My prayer for all of us experiencing darkness in these times is that like God and the children of Israel, we keep vigil. I pray that we gather together, honoring and celebrating who we are even as we continue to engage in respectful dialogue across lines of difference. I pray that we work for the safety of the most vulnerable of our society. And I pray that these dark times will eventually lead to freedom for us all.

Views expressed in this column are the author’s own and not necessarily those of Â鶹ĘÓƵ. The original article appears in .