Rabbi's Blog

Dear Haverim,

Chag Sameach.  I hope that your Pesach Seders were joyous, enlightening and fun.  As Pesach continues, it’s important to keep its dramatic challenge to each of us and the world at the forefront of our consciousness.

Freedom, liberation, breaking chains, inclusivity, feeding the hungry and protecting the marginalized are not simply political slogans, they are our religious demands, as well.   Pesach is about remembering and re-telling our story of slavery, not for self-pity or revenge, but to be sure that we are always walking in the steps of Moses and not Pharoah.

Living a life of privilege and relative safety in America is certainly a blessing, but it can’t become an excuse for ethical amnesia.  We all know what it means to be empathic and aware, but what’s called for is more than knowledge.  We must be willing to stand up to the Pharaohs in our society today, here and around the world, and say “no” to injustice.  We must refuse to be passive bystanders and, even though we face our own tzuris/troubles, we can’t turn aside from the injustice and pain in the world at large.

As the Yiddish saying goes: “Shver tzu zayn a Yid”/It’s hard to be a Jew; but not only because we are faced with anti-Semitism, Q-Anon conspiracy theories and violent right-wing domestic terrorists, but also because our tradition demands more of us, much more of us, than just protecting ourselves.  To be worthy of calling oneself a Jew is to apply the powerful ethical lessons of our sacred texts and history in every age.

The Jewish people have made the central story of being a Jew not the creation of the world, the salvation of the individual or submission to the Divine, but rather the Exodus from Egypt and the acceptance of morality at Sinai are our most precious touchstones.

That is our philosophy, our culture, our religion.  That is our purpose.  We also know that religion can inspire both the best in people and the worst.  Religious fanatics here in our country, in Israel, and around the world pose a grave danger to ethics, politics, minorities, peaceful co-existence and the civil rights of all of us, especially women and the LGBTQ+ community.

We want to be proud and inspired by Judaism and, yet, we also realize that there are too many religious chauvinists and supremacists even among our own people.

Pesach reminds us to be both the wise and the alienated child at the Seder, to be aware of both the blessings and curses of even our own tradition.  Few external enemies can hurt America and Israel more than the irrational and exclusivist doctrines of religious fanaticism.

Liberation also means freeing ourselves and others from the reactionary beliefs and behaviors of those who claim Divine authority for their continuing “power grab.”  Absurd piety and irrational beliefs are not cute and quaint; they are often dangerous and destructive.

This Friday evening, April 14 at 7:00 p.m., we will be reminded at Yom HaShoah and Yizkor services of the dangers of murderous hate and blind faith.  As we do each year, at our Holocaust Memorial Services, we will diminish our joy, declaiming rather than singing our traditional prayers, and using music only for Holocaust related melodies.  It’s an eerie feeling, but one well suited to the mood of the service.

We will also be inspired by Abe Gurko, who will speak and show a 15-minute preview of his new documentary “Won’t Be Silent.”  It centers around a recently discovered, long-lost piece of music that Wolf Durmashkin, a renowned composer and the youngest conductor of the Vilna Symphony, wrote while in captivity in a concentration camp in 1943. Wolf Durmashkin was Mr. Gurko’s uncle.

"Won't be Silent" embraces the loss and the courage of coming from the ashes of the Holocaust, and the modern-day adaptation of its music, by international musical artists from a wide variety of genres, keeps alive the powerful message of vigilance and resistance to hatred.  Mr. Gurko will also describe Leonard Bernstein’s visit to Europe after the Shoah to conduct “The Ex-Concentration Camp Orchestra.”

The stories that we will hear this Friday evening will focus on Jewish courage, resistance, music and family.  They will make us angry, proud and, hopefully, committed to living a life of “Never Again.”  (Click here to RSVP for our in-person services.  If you want to watch on Livestream, there’s no need to RSVP – just click the link on our homepage at the time of the service or anytime thereafter). 

Join us this Friday evening to honor our martyrs, heroes and victims, as we reflect on all of the millions of lives violently disrupted and ended in the Shoah.  (We will also say a “Mi Shebeirach” for the safety of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, arrested and falsely accused of espionage by the Russian government.  Is there no limit to Putin’s lying and despotism!)

Let us remember these poetic words as we prepare for Yom HaShoah:

Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway-Car

here in this carload

i am eve

with abel my son

if you see my other son

cain son of man

tell him that i

Zichronam livracha/May the memories of the 6 million Jews and 5 million other victims of the Shoah be for a blessing,

Rabbi Arnie Rachlis