Dvar Torá: Beyond the Four Mitzvot / Além das Quatro Mitsvot

PORTUGUÊS: O texto em português segue abaixo do texto em inglês.

For two years, I taught rabbinical students at the Ibero-American Institute for Reform Rabbinical Training — Chumash (the Five Books of Torah) one year, Nevi'im (the Books of the Prophets) the next, with largely the same cohort of students across both. When the Nevi'im course came around, I asked them to write a drashah on any haftarah from the liturgical cycle. One student thought he had found a clever shortcut. He opened his paper by noting, correctly, that a parashah and its haftarah typically share a name or a theme — and from that observation he pivoted entirely to the Torah portion, never once returning to the Prophets, which was the subject of the class. It was smart. It was creative. It was completely off topic. I failed him.

I tell you this as a confession. Pay close attention as I speak, and you may notice the precise moment I pull the same trick. You have been warned.

This week's parashah is Tetzaveh — “to command,” "to give an order." The opening verse reads:

וְאַתָּה תְּצַוֶּה אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל

V'atah tetzaveh et bnay-Yisrael

“You shall further command the Israelites.”[1]

The word tetzaveh shares its root with a word you all probably know: mitzvah. In its most technical sense, a mitzvah is a “commandment” — an “obligation”, an “order.” In Aramaic, however, the everyday language of the Talmud, the word carries a different resonance: “connection,” “attachment,” “link.”[2] And in the English of a contemporary Jewish household, when a parent says to their child, “that was a real mitzvah, standing up for that classmate who was being bullied,” the word has shifted again — now meaning something closer to “a good deed” than to a legal obligation. Three languages, three meanings: commandment, connection, kindness.

Hold that range of meanings in mind, because something happened this week that genuinely irritated me.

An Instagram post on Purim, published by an organisation connected to the international Progressive Jewish movement, listed what it called the mitzvot of the holiday. There was a technical error. Purim has four mitzvot: hearing the Megillah, sharing a festive meal, sending portions of food to friends — mishloach manot — and giving gifts to those in need — matanot la'evyonim. The post listed all four, but muddled the distinction between the last two in a way that missed the point of both.

That inaccuracy is not really what bothered me.

Progressive Judaism has staked its identity on the conviction that meaning-making matters more than mechanical compliance with laws that may no longer speak to the lives of contemporary Jews. That emphasis is not a compromise — it is a principled position, and it is ours.

Two brief examples. The central mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah is to hear the shofar. In years when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, the shofar is not blown until after Shabbat ends, at the very close of the services. Imagine someone who spent weeks doing genuine t'shuvah: honest self-examination, sincere apologies, real repair. They came to shul, prayed with full attention, weeping from a recognition of their own failures. Then, for whatever reason, they had to leave before the shofar was blown. Would you truly say that person had failed their religious obligation?

Second example. Rabbinic Judaism constructed an elaborate architecture of Shabbat law — thirty-nine categories of forbidden work, the melachot, with commentary branching endlessly from each one. The Mishnah itself concedes the fragility of this structure: “the laws of Shabbat are like mountains suspended by a hair, for they have little basis in Scripture and yet the laws derived from them are numerous.”[3] One rule is clearly grounded in Torah, though: the prohibition against lighting fire.[4] And yet every person who drove a petrol-powered car to shul this evening technically violated that law. Does anyone here believe that coming to shul on Shabbat goes against the spirit of Shabbat?

These examples illustrate a genuine fault line. Orthodoxy places its emphasis on faithful transmission and performance of the law. Progressive Judaism places its emphasis on the meaning behind the law and its relevance to living human beings. Neither approach is without complications — but they are genuinely different, and we should not pretend otherwise. So when a Progressive organisation frames Purim primarily through the language of “the four mitzvot,” something has gone wrong. It feels, to borrow a word from the season, like wearing someone else's costume.

Which brings me to Purim — and to why this holiday matters so much, right now, in this city, in this country.

Purim is a Diaspora story. It unfolds in a Jewish community living as a minority under foreign rule, subject to the goodwill — or the malice — of those in authority. It is a story about antisemitism, about the compromises Jews make in pursuit of proximity to power, and about what happens when Jews who were once powerless find themselves holding power.

Beyond the reflective possibilities that Purim offers, traditions of the festival that extend far beyond the “four mitsvot” have much to teach us. For example, the tradition of wearing costumes on Purim (which is not a mitsvah in that narrow sense of the term) contains powerful possibilities. When I lived in the United States, I met some female Jewish students at the University of Illinois who chose to wear a hijab during Muslim awareness week — not as a casual gesture, not as costume or cultural appropriation, but as a deliberate act of solidarity, a way of experiencing firsthand the hostility that Muslim women faced simply by being visibly themselves. When we dress as someone else — with imagination and some humility — we open ourselves to the question of what it feels like to live inside a different skin, even if only for a few hours during a Purim celebration.

For years, I considered mishloach manot a silly tradition. Every Purim, people fill baskets with the most ultra-processed food they can find: sweets, biscuits, things wrapped in plastic that no one particularly needs. I did the same. And then one year, following the example of a dear teacher and friend, Rabbi Ebn Leader, I decided to do something different. I spent time in the kitchen and cooked fifty individual meals — fish, roasted vegetables, couscous, a dessert — and gave them away as mishloach manot. What I had not anticipated was the impact. Not on the recipients alone, but on me. Seeing the way people responded to receiving something made with genuine care, a real token of appreciation, changed the way I understood the tradition entirely. Mishloach manot is not about the basket. It is about the act of saying: I thought about you. I made something for you. You matter to me. The mitzvah — in the fullest, Aramaic sense of the word — is the connection itself.

And yet the violence at the end of the Book of Esther is not something we can dress up or celebrate our way past. The Orthodox Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz reportedly refused to leave Israel permanently for one reason above all others: it was the only country in the world where he could guarantee he would never have to celebrate Purim[5]. His method was precise. On Purim itself, he would remain in Jerusalem, which as a walled city observes the holiday a day later, on Shushan Purim. Then, the following day, he would travel to Tel Aviv, where Purim had already been celebrated. He thus arranged never to hear the Megillah, never to drink in celebration of what he saw, at its core, as a mass killing — the slaughter of Haman, his ten sons, and, according to the text of Esther chapter 9, over 75,000 enemies of the Jewish people throughout the ancient Persian empire. Leibowitz, as was his way, was simply being direct: he saw Purim, at its foundation, as a celebration of violence.

I am proud to belong to a religious movement in which I do not need to replicate that itinerary and leave the place I live in order to avoid the challenges I find in our own tradition. I can face Purim directly: celebrate the thwarting of an antisemitic massacre, and at the same time grieve, with full moral seriousness, that the very Jews who were once powerless chose, the moment power was within their reach, to answer the threat of violence with violence on a devastating scale. That grief does not cancel the celebration. The celebration does not cancel the grief. Holding both without resolving the tension too quickly is, I would argue, what Progressive Jewish maturity looks like.

Most contemporary scholars understand the Book of Esther as a literary work — a diaspora novella rather than a historical chronicle[6]. Its function in the Jewish canon, and Purim's role in the Jewish calendar, must therefore be to allow us to have these deeply important and often difficult conversations — conversations that are avoided, intentionally or unintentionally, when we restrict our focus to “the four mitzvot.”

I did not expect fifty meals to teach me something I did not already know; perhaps in the same way that my students did not expect to learn so much by walking across a university campus dressed in the clothing of another community. But that is usually how it works — the tradition you dismissed turns out to be the one that was waiting for you. Purim is full of those surprises. A holiday that looks, from the outside, like costumes and noise and too much sugar turns out to be one of the most morally serious days in the Jewish calendar: a story about power and powerlessness, about survival and its costs, about the difference between a gift and a transaction. This year, I hope you find at least one moment in the celebration when the costume slips and something true shows through. That, in the end, is what the tradition has always been asking of us.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Purim Sameach.

[1] Exodus 27:20.

[2] Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson and Rabbi Patricia Fenton (eds). Walking with Mitzvot.

[3] Mishnah Chagigah 1:8.

[4] Exodus 35:3

[5] Shaul Maggid, “The Dark Side of Purim,” The Forward, 10 March 2014: https://forward.com/opinion/194161/the-dark-side-of-purim

[6] See, for example, Adele Berlin, “The Book of Esther and Ancient Storytelling,” Journal of Biblical Literature 120, no. 1 (2001): 3-14

Dvar Torah: Finding Living Waters in Old Wells

In this week’s Torah portion, Toldot, we find Yitzchak in a peculiar position. He is a patriarch in transition, caught between the towering legacy of his father, Avraham, and the future turbulence of his sons, Yaakov and Esav. In the middle of this family drama, the Torah pauses to tell us a story about infrastructure.

We read that after Avraham died, the Philistines stopped up the wells that Avraham’s servants had dug. They filled them with dust. When Yitzchak returns to the region, he faces a choice. He could walk away from those blocked sources of life. He could try to dig entirely new wells in random places, rejecting the past. Instead, the text tells us:

“Yitzchak dug anew the wells of water which had been dug in the days of Avraham his father... and he called them by the same names that his father had called them.” [1]

This act of re-digging is a powerful metaphor for Progressive Judaism. We do not simply live off the water of the past, often, we find the ancient wells stopped up. They are filled with the dust of history, of irrelevance, sometimes of ethical problems that make the water inaccessible or undrinkable to us. Yet we do not abandon the tradition entirely to dig in foreign soil. We clear away the debris. We dig down through the hard earth to find the mayim chayim, the living water, that still flows beneath.

Tonight, I want to talk about a well that we, as a community, are currently re-digging: our mikveh, Mikvah Libi Eir, here at Bet David.

For many in our community, the word mikveh does not conjure images of spiritual refreshment. It conjures images of dust. It brings up associations of an intrusive, obsessive, and often sexist policing of women’s bodies. For many of us, the mikveh is a well that was stopped up a long time ago, and we have been quite content to walk on by.

We must acknowledge that discomfort. We cannot re-dig the well if we do not admit that there is dust in it.

The classical halachic literature about mikveh focuses almost entirely on laws for married women: counting days, avoiding touch, immersing in order to resume sexual relations. [2] There are spiritual readings there too, but the frame is clear: this is about policing sexuality, and it sits inside a male-defined system where women are often literally unnamed.

For centuries, the mikveh was almost exclusively associated with niddah, the laws surrounding menstruation. The book of Leviticus details a system of tumah (impurity) and taharah (purity). In the original biblical mindset, these were not moral judgments. You were not “bad” or “sinful” if you were impure; you were simply in a temporary state, usually involving contact with the mysteries of life and death, which prevented you from entering the Holy Temple. [3]

History, however, did not stand still. The Temple was destroyed. Most purity laws fell away, we no longer immerse after touching a lizard or attending a funeral. But the laws regarding women remained. And, as the feminist theologian Rachel Adler powerfully articulated, the system became distorted.

In her early career, in the 1970s, Adler wrote a famous essay defending the mikveh. She argued poetically that the cycle of immersion was a universal human experience of death and rebirth, a way to touch the divine rhythm. [4] But twenty years later, in a brave act of theological honesty, she wrote a retraction titled In Your Blood, Live. She looked at the reality of how mikveh was actually lived in the Orthodox world and realised her earlier theology was a “theology of lies”. [5]

She realised that in the lived reality of Jewish history, the laws of niddah were not a spiritual cycle shared by all. They became a system where women were the class of people designated as “impure”, while men remained “pure”. The mikveh became a place where women were inspected, where their natural cycles were treated with suspicion, and where the primary goal was to render a woman “kosher” for her husband’s sexual access. [6] You also have halachic treatments that, even when they try to be pastoral, still talk about menstruation with the language of danger, confusion, and suspicion, piling stringency upon stringency out of fear and ignorance about women’s bodies. [7]

This is the dust that the Philistines, or perhaps history itself, has thrown into the well. It is the dust of exclusion, the dust of treating a woman as an object rather than a subject, the dust of associating the female body with defilement. It is no wonder that for generations of liberal Jews, the mikveh was rejected as a relic of a patriarchal past.

But here is the challenge of Yitzchak: if we just walk away, we leave a powerful tool buried in the dirt. If we reject the mikveh entirely, we lose one of the few tactile, full-body rituals our tradition possesses. We lose the feeling of being held by the water, suspended in the womb of the world.

As Progressive Jews, we must avoid two extremes. On one hand, we must avoid the “fetishism of tradition”, the idea that we must do things exactly as they were done in 19th-century Europe for them to be “authentic”. That preserves the dust along with the water. On the other hand, we must avoid the “absolute rejection of tradition”, the idea that because a ritual has a difficult history it is irredeemable. Progressive Judaism’s path is not simply to stand in the middle between these options. Our task is to seek in the Jewish tradition those elements that align with our values, recognise the age in which we live, and add meaning and texture to our lives.

So, how do we re-dig this well? How do we find the mayim chayim, the living waters?

First, we shift our language and our theology. The old language of purity and impurity is broken. To the modern ear, “impure” sounds like “dirty”. Rabbi Miriam Berkowitz teaches that in a world without a Temple, we are all technically “impure” (tameh met), and that is fine. It has no practical consequence. [8]

Instead of purity, let us speak of kedushah, holiness. When we frame the mikveh this way, it ceases to be about “cleaning up” a woman. It becomes a moment to pause and sanctify the body. It becomes a way to say that our physical selves, our aging, changing, miraculous, sometimes broken bodies, are vessels for the Divine image.

Second, we democratise the ritual. In the traditional model, the mikveh is almost exclusively for women observing niddah and for converts. In the Progressive vision, the well is open to everyone. The water does not discriminate.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, we expand the purpose. If we go back to Torah, the word mikveh appears already in the first chapter of Bereishit: “God called the gathering of the waters, mikveh ha-mayim, ‘seas’.” Water is not yet about purity or impurity. It is the raw material of life. One beautiful Progressive Israeli collection on mikveh reminds us that water appears in the story even before plants and animals, as the condition that makes life on earth possible. [9] Later, midrash and poetry connect water to Miriam’s well in the wilderness, to the tears and hopes of our ancestors at the be’er, to the rains that are a sign of blessing in Eretz Yisrael. [10] Water is promise, not punishment.

We must reclaim that promise, and the mikveh as a space where we can recognise that life changes all the time. We move from checking for spots of blood to checking the state of our souls. We move from a ritual of obligation to a ritual of transition. [11] This shift has been embodied over the last twenty years by Mayyim Hayyim, a community mikveh in the Boston area founded by Anita Diamant, which has transformed the way mikvaot are understood in the liberal Jewish world.

Think about the transitions in your own life. We are good at marking the beginning of things, birth, marriage, B’nai Mitzvah. We are less good at marking the middle, the end, or the healing.

Imagine a mikveh for celebration. A person marks a 50th birthday, a first year of sobriety, a new relationship, or a long-awaited retirement. They immerse to mark the passage of time, to thank God for Shehecheyanu, for keeping them alive to this season.

Imagine a mikveh for healing. A woman has just completed chemotherapy. Her body has been a battlefield for months, poked by needles, scanned by machines, filled with toxic medicines to save her life. She feels alienated from her own skin. She comes to Mikvah Libi Eir not because she is “dirty”, but to reclaim her body. She immerses to wash away the smell of the hospital, to weep in the safety of the water, and to rise up feeling whole again. [12]

Imagine a mikveh for closure. We know how to break a glass to start a marriage. How do we mark a divorce, or the end of a long relationship, or the decision to step away from a job that shaped our identity? Immersion can be a physical enactment of letting go. As the water touches every part of the body, it symbolises the washing away of anger, grief, and a past chapter, allowing the individual to emerge ready for what comes next. [13]

Imagine a mikveh for identity. A person marking a gender transition uses this ancient Jewish ritual of transformation to sanctify a new name and identity, saying to the community: “This is who I am, and this body is holy.”

This is what it means to re-dig the well of Yitzchak. We use the same physical structure, the gathering of living waters that must be natural, untouched by human hands in its collection, connecting us to the rain and the earth. [14] But we allow the water to flow for us. We reject the idea that the mikveh is a place of judgment. We reject the idea that it is a place where women are policed. We reclaim it as a place of mayim chayim, of living waters for living people.

This is the opportunity that sits before us at Bet David with Mikvah Libi Eir. We have dug this well. Now we must have the courage to use it.

I invite you, men and women, young and old, to rethink what this space can mean for you. Regardless of your level of observance, you can feel the power of water. You just have to be human. You just have to have a body that carries the stress, the joy, and the dust of living in this world.

Sometimes, we need to wash that dust off. Sometimes, we need to be held by something larger than ourselves. Sometimes, we need to hold our breath, go under, and emerge feeling like we can breathe again.

Yitzchak re-dug the wells of his father, but he drank from them in his own time. Let us do the same. Let us not leave the well stopped up. Let us clear the earth, and may you find that the water deep down is sweet, cool, and very much alive.

Shabbat Shalom.

[1] Genesis 26:18.
[2] Barbara Kadden, Teaching Mitzvot: Concepts, Values and Activities (A.R.E. Press, 2003), Chapter 15, “Immersing in a Ritual Bath”, pp. 89–90.
[3] Barbara Kadden, Teaching Mitzvot, Chapter 15, “Immersing in a Ritual Bath”, p. 89.
[4] Rachel Adler, “Tum'ah and Taharah: Ends and Beginnings”, Response: A Contemporary Jewish Review (Summer 1973).
[5] Rachel Adler, “In Your Blood, Live: Re-Visions of a Theology of Purity”, Tikkun 8, no. 1 (1993), p. 205.
[6] Adler, “In Your Blood, Live”, p. 199.
[7] Rabbi Miriam Berkowitz, “Reshaping the Laws of Family Purity for the Modern World”, teshuva for the CJLS (2006), p. 2.
[8] Berkowitz, op. cit., p. 5.
[9] Parashat HaMayim: Immersion in Water as an Opportunity for Renewal and Spiritual Growth (IMPJ, 2011), p. 11.
[10] Parashat HaMayim, p. 13.
[11] This approach aligns with the philosophy of Mayyim Hayyim around using mikveh to mark life transitions, as reflected in their published ceremony resources. Check www.mayyimhayyim.org
[12] Susan Grossman, “Mikveh and the Sanctity of Being Created Human”, teshuva for the CJLS (2006), p. 70.
[13] Parashat HaMayim, p. 72.
[14] Kadden, Teaching Mitzvot, p. 89.

More Questions and Fewer Certainties

(A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "Por mais perguntas e menos certezas")

Between immediate obedience to Divine commands and vigorous protest against them, Avraham embodies strikingly different forms of religious leadership in this week's parashah, Vayera. When God reveals the plan to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because their sin is overwhelming, Avraham challenges God's ethics in the strongest possible terms: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?!".[1] On the other hand, when, a few chapters later, God demands that Avraham sacrifice "his son, his only son, the one he loves, Yitzchak",[2] our patriarch consents without question, takes his son and walks with him to the place God had indicated for the sacrifice. If not for Divine intervention at the last moment, when the sacrificial knife had already been raised, Avraham would, in fact, have followed God's instruction and ended the life of his own child.

Across the centuries, both stories have been held up as models of virtue and religious conduct. Many commentators, pointing to the near-sacrifice of Yitzchak, have stressed that not only was Avraham willing to carry out the Divine instruction, but Yitzchak was also willing to be sacrificed, if that was God's plan. From this perspective, and from the lessons drawn from this biblical passage, devotion that rises above one's personal wishes and needs is the religious ideal to be sought. If Avraham was tested in this episode, these commentators argue, then he passed with distinction.

However, at least since Talmudic times, and despite attempts by rabbinic leadership to sideline this approach, a critique of Avraham's ready acceptance of the Divine order to sacrifice his own son has also featured in how commentators read the near-sacrifice of Yitzchak.[3] For them, Avraham's challenge to the revelation of Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction reflects a healthier posture in relation to authority, even Divine authority. In particular, for Avraham, seen as an iconoclast, one who would overturn idols and who was unafraid to stand against general consensus, such a stance would be more in keeping with his life story.

I think about these stories and how they relate to different theological models, not only the external Divine Voice that Avraham heard, which instructed him to leave the place he lived and build a new home in a land that God would show him, but also the inner voice, the one that comes from the Divine spark in each person. When do we listen to our inner voice almost without asking questions, and when do we challenge it intensely? When are our certainties so strong that we accept their premises at face value, without any questioning, like dogmas whose validity is beyond dispute and whose very acceptance becomes a form of unexamined devotion? When, on the other hand, do we ask the uncomfortable questions, unsure where they will take us, with a trembling fear that we might, in fact, be betraying our inner voice and who knows what else in the process?

These ancient tensions between obedience and questioning echo powerfully in our own time, particularly in how we engage with strongly held beliefs. In the age of social media, we define ourselves by the causes we champion, often speaking out with unwavering certainty. Like rival supporters whose clashes sometimes turn violent, a pattern we know too well across our sporting landscape, we share our side's arguments without questioning their validity, scrolling past opposing views without considering the wisdom they might contain. We become both perpetrators and targets of abuse, hardening positions and deepening divisions.

I take inspiration from Avraham's courage in challenging God over Sodom and Gomorrah, and from the lessons we can draw from that example. The dialogical relationship with the Divine that is established there is one of the Torah's most moving passages for me. In our beautifully diverse society, where we encounter different convictions and traditions constantly, this lesson feels particularly urgent. May we all learn from him to have the courage to ask more questions and hold fewer certainties, to break the cycles of abuse and violence into which our stances sometimes harden. May we pursue dialogue and ubuntu, the recognition of our shared humanity, and welcome each person's pains, traumas, joys and convictions, so that we can foster debates marked by greater respect, deeper understanding, and genuine fruitfulness.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] Gen. 18:25
[2] Gen. 22:1–2
[3] See, for example, chapter 5 of J. Richard Middleton, Abraham's Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job and How to Talk Back to God.

A Warning and a Sign of Hope: The Two Truths of Noah's Ark

(A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "A esperança que supera o desespero")

Some years ago, a very good friend of mine, Rabbi Ariel Kleiner, and I led a study group together on the parashah with midrash and art in my living room. In only the second week of the project, we encountered Parashat Noach, which tells the story of Noah's Ark and which we are reading again this week. Rabbi Ariel and I had radically different understandings of how the biblical text related to contemporary reality. For me, focusing on the Divine decision to destroy the world through a flood, this was a warning to our society of how the irresponsible behaviour of one generation had led the planet to its near-destruction; for him, focusing on the end of the story, when the waters subsided and Noah, his family, and the animals came down from the ark, this was a story about hope, an example of how, even after the worst catastrophes, there is the possibility of reconstruction.

Very much in the spirit of rabbinic debates, the truth is that we were both right! This story from the Torah is as much about destruction as it is about reconstruction; it is a warning and also a sign of hope, and in both these aspects, profoundly necessary in our times.

“The earth had become corrupt before God and was filled with violence” [1] seems like a description of the reality in which we live, which brings us dangerously close to disasters, whether through the depletion of natural resources, the worsening of social and international conflicts, or our inability to demonstrate empathy for the situation of others when crisis situations demand coordinated action, be it the coronavirus or natural disasters. We have been losing our sense of responsibility towards the collective; environmental devastation breaks records every year, without us managing to slow down the speed at which we destroy natural resources. After some decades in which it seemed the world had learned a lesson from the tragedies of the first half of the 20th century and sought to curb radical nationalisms, neo-Nazi movements and other currents based on hatred of the “other”, including many antisemitic movements, have reappeared in various parts of the world. Liberal democracies, based on civil society and respect for institutions, also seem to be experiencing a deep crisis. The multilateral system of international relations, which sought to avoid new conflicts through cooperation between nations, is crumbling, and conflicts between the major powers are increasing. Seen from this perspective, our situation is desperate.

In Jewish tradition, however, despair gives way to the possibility of t’shuvah, the transformation of our conduct which makes possible our return to the best version of ourselves. Despite acknowledging our tendency to be seduced by our eyes and hearts, there is an inherent optimism in the Jewish worldview that we will reform our conduct and, in this process, help to transform the world. Rabbi Ariel was right: the story of the Flood does not end with the destruction of the world, but with its reconstruction and with the hope, brought by the dove, of a very different life. Thus, the Torah does not allow discouragement at the current state of affairs to lead us to give up: it did not permit it in Noah's generation, and it continues not to permit it in our own day.

The Torah reading cycle is just beginning, offering all of us a new opportunity to re-engage with the central text of our tradition and, through this encounter, to seek to transform the world into a just place for all.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] Gen. 6:11

Dvar Torah: The Many Colours of the Sh'mah Israel

(A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "Dvar Torá: As muitas cores do Sh´má Israel")

Shabbat Shalom,

During my rabbinic training, I studied at two different institutions. I began at Hebrew Union College — the academic institution of the Reform Movement — on its Los Angeles campus, and completed my studies at Hebrew College, a pluralistic rabbinic seminary near Boston.

While I was still in Los Angeles, I took a class with Rabbi Stephen Passamaneck. In addition to teaching rabbinical students, “Dr P,” as we affectionately called him, was also a chaplain for the Los Angeles Police Department — and he often brought his firearm to class, placing it on the desk for all of us to look at and be scared by it. Many students left his classroom in tears after some particularly harsh comment, and he took pride in causing that reaction. But eccentricities aside, what stayed with me most from the two semesters I studied with Dr P was a single statement of his: “The Torah means what the Rabbis say it means.” Here, he did not mean the future rabbis he had in front of him, but the Rabbis with capital “R”. He was talking about Hillel, Shammai, Rabi Yohanan, Rashi, Maimonides….

In other words: we could, as an intellectual exercise, go through the text, turn it over and over, and try to discover the original meaning of each phrase — even each letter — of the biblical text. But when it comes to the implications of Torah for contemporary Jewish life, what matters are the interpretations given by the rabbis of the Mishnah, the Talmud, the midrashim, and the early codes of Jewish law — people who lived at least eight hundred years ago.

Dr P was certainly right when it comes to matters of Jewish law and practice. It’s no use debating the original intention of the Torah when it says three times, “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk.” The rabbinic interpretation — that this verse prohibits mixing (not just cooking) meat and milk (not just the kid in its mother’s milk) — became so deeply ingrained in Jewish communal life that I often struggle to show students that this is not necessarily the literal meaning of the text.

When the topic leans more toward theology, however, the door opens wider for later generations to revisit meanings ascribed by earlier sages. One of the most famous theological declarations in all of Torah appears in this week’s parashah:

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל, ה׳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ, ה׳ אֶחָד

Sh’ma Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad

Hear, O Israel: ה׳ is our God, ה׳ is One.

If I were to survey you on what these six words mean, I imagine most would say you understand them — that they are the foundational declaration of Jewish monotheism. In the end, many people understand the Sh’ma as the Jewish way of saying there is only one God.

But is that really what the text is saying? Today I’d like to explore a few interpretations beyond the conventional one and invite each of you to reconsider what this verse might be teaching us.

Rashi, the 11th-century French commentator — whose interlinear glosses in the Talmud are indispensable to our understanding of that work — believed the Sh’ma required a similar kind of interpretative expansion. For him, the verse should be understood as: “Hear, O Israel: ה׳, who is our God now, will one day be recognised as the One and Only God throughout the world.” He concludes his comment by quoting a line we know from the Aleinu:

בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא יִהְיֶה ה׳ אֶחָד וּשְׁמוֹ אֶחָד

Ba-yom ha-hu yihyeh Adonai echad u-sh’mo echad —

“On that day, ה׳ shall be One and God’s name shall be One.” [1]

Rabbi Avraham Samuel Benjamin Sofer, who lived in 19th-century Hungary, asked why God’s name appears twice in the Sh’ma. Wouldn’t it be simpler, he wondered, for the verse to say, “Hear, O Israel: Adonai is our God and is One”? According to him, Moses’s aim in repeating God’s name was to underscore that everything in our lives comes from God — our successes and our failures, the times when we are lucky and those when everything goes wrong. Even though all things may come from God, the Torah instructs us clearly to distinguish between good and evil, between that which leads to life and that which leads to death — and to choose what is good and life-giving. [2]

Rabbi Art Green seems to agree, but he goes even further:

Hear, O Israel. The core of our service is not a prayer but a call — a call to our fellow Jews and fellow human beings. In it, we declare that God is One — which means that humanity is one, that life is one, that joy and suffering are one — for God is the force that unites all of it.

There is nothing obvious about this truth, because life as we live it seems infinitely fragmented. Human beings appear isolated from one another, divided by the fears and hatreds that make up human history. Even within a single life, one moment feels disconnected from the next. Memories of joy and wholeness offer little comfort when we are depressed or alone.

To affirm that all is One in God is our supreme act of faith. [3]

Feminist theologian Judith Plaskow takes this exploration even further. She writes:

On the simplest level, the Sh’ma can be understood as a passionate rejection of polytheism. (…)

This understanding of the Sh’ma, however, does not address the issue of God’s oneness. It defines “one” in opposition to “many, ” but it never really specifies what it means to say that God/Adonai/the One who is and will be is one. Is God’s oneness mere numerical singularity? Does it signify simply that rather than many forces ruling the universe, there is only one? (…)

There is another way to understand oneness, however, and that is as inclusiveness. In Marcia Falk’s words, “The authentic expression of an authentic monotheism is not a singularity of image but an embracing unity of a multiplicity of images.” Rather than being the chief deity in the pantheon, God includes the qualities and characteristics of the whole pantheon, with nothing remaining outside. God is all in all. This is the God who “forms light and createsdarkness, who makes peace and creates everything,” because there can be no power other than or in opposition to God who could possibly be responsible for evil. This is the God who is male and female, both and neither, because there is no genderedness outside of God that is not made in God’s image. On this understanding of oneness, extending the range of images we use for God challenges us to find God in ever-new aspects of creation. Monotheism is about the capacity to glimpse the One in and through the changing forms of the many, to see the whole in and through its infinite images.

“Hear O Israel”: despite the fractured, scattered, and conflicted nature of our experience, there is a unity that embraces and contains our diversity and that connects all things to each other. [4]

Marcia Falk, the poet-theologian who had the immense chutzpah to rewrite the entire siddur, including its biblical passages, usually wrote texts in Hebrew and in English that are not direct translations of each other. She reframed the Sh’ma as follows:

שְׁמַע, יִשְׂרָאֵל: לָאֱלֹהוּת אַלְפַי פָּנִים, מְלֹא עוֹלָם שׁכִינָתָה, רִיבּוּי פָּנֶיהָ אֶחָד

Sh’ma Yisrael: La-Elohut alfei panim, m’lo olam sh’chinatah, ribui panehah echad.

which translates to:

“Hear, O Israel: The Divine has many faces, whose presence fills the world —

the multiplicity of these faces is One.”

or in its version in English:

“Hear, O Israel — The divine abounds everywhere and dwells in everything;
the many are One” [5]

It is Marcia Falk’s vision that comes to mind when I recite the Sh’ma. In her words, we recognise the connection we share through God, while also embracing the vast diversity within God. As Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik — the leading voice of Modern Orthodoxy in North America — expressed it, “The white light of divinity is always refracted through reality’s dome of many colored glass.”

On this Tu b’Av, the Jewish festival of love, we celebrate all colours, all shapes, and all expressions of love — recognising that the Divine dwells within them all.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] Rashi’s commentary on Deut. 6:4
[2] A Torah Commentary for Our Times, vol. 3, pp. 110–111.
[3] Ma’ayan Niguer (manuscript), p. 12.
[4] My People’s Prayer Book, vol. 1, pp. 87–99.
[5] Marcia Falk, The Book of Blessings, pp. 170–173.

Dvar Torah: This Is Our Fire — Faith Without Withdrawal

Many years ago, I visited a village in Brazil where Indigenous people were living. The community’s chief welcomed us on his porch and began speaking about their traditions, culture, and the challenges they faced in modern society. As he spoke, a woman—visibly drunk—appeared. She interrupted him, declaring, “Don’t believe what my brother tells you. He’ll say we are Native Brazilians, but we’re not. Native people are lazy. We’re hard-working people.”

Then she walked away.

That moment has stayed with me ever since. It revealed something profoundly painful: the extent to which prejudice can be internalised. That woman had absorbed the harmful stereotypes directed at her people and turned them inward, believing that the only way to assert her value was by denying who she was. Her self-worth, in her own eyes, could only be affirmed by separating herself from her own identity.

During my time here in Johannesburg—short as it has been—I’ve witnessed a parallel dynamic. I’ve been surprised by how often people are puzzled when they meet someone, like me, whose parents were both born Jewish, and who nonetheless identifies proudly as a Progressive Jew. There is an assumption, often unspoken but sometimes explicitly stated, that Progressive Judaism is a second-rate form of Jewish identity, a refuge for those who "couldn't make it" in Orthodoxy. This idea is not only mistaken—it is deeply damaging.

Let me say it clearly: Progressive Judaism is not a consolation prize. It is not a fallback option for those who found Orthodox conversion too long or too burdensome. It is a bold, ideological choice—a way of living as Jews in honest dialogue with the world we inhabit.

Progressive Judaism affirms the spiritual dignity of women’s voices. It embraces the love between people of all genders as sacred and holy. It welcomes religious leadership without regard to gender. It finds holiness not only in silence, but also in the sound of musical instruments lifting our spirits. It recognises the spiritual value of closeness and intimacy, of celebrating life with those we love.

More than anything else, Progressive Judaism is committed to machloket leshem shamayim—sacred questioning. It sees idolatry not only in golden calves, but also in the rigidity of ideas that are never allowed to be challenged. It honours tradition not through blind repetition, but through studied engagement and conscious choice.

If these are your values, then you belong here. Regardless of your background, your lineage, or your journey—welcome home.

Rabbi Nancy Wiener once wrote about Liberal Judaism in the United States—what we might call Progressive Judaism here in South Africa:

“To be a liberal Jew is to live in a world of choices. To be a liberal Jew is to be held responsible for your actions. To be a liberal Jew is to strive to make every aspect of your life a reflection of your values. To be a liberal Jew is to believe that you are inextricably linked to your ancestors, yet bound to the contemporary Jewish community, responsible for transmitting a meaningful and responsive Judaism to generations to come.”[1]

In this week’s Torah portion, we read of Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aaron, who bring an eish zarah—a “strange fire”—before ה׳ and are consumed by Divine flame. Their fate is shocking, but not uniformly seen as a condemnation. In Midrash Tanchuma, Moshe responds by telling Aaron: “Now I see that they were greater than you or me.” According to this view, their deaths were not a punishment for wrongdoing, but a sign of their extraordinary closeness to the Divine. Their souls were so drawn to God that they could not remain tethered to this world—an idea echoed in certain mystical traditions as well.

Nadav and Avihu’s path of withdrawal is still followed by many: a religious life of withdrawal, asceticism, and self-denial, in pursuit of spiritual transcendence. But that is not the path of Progressive Judaism.

We believe that holiness is not found only in some lofty realm beyond, but here—in this world. In the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel, to be religious is to live in radical amazement, to stand in awe before the mystery and wonder of existence. We encounter the sacred not by retreating from life, but by engaging with it fully—through the laughter of children, the struggle for justice, the beauty of a sunset, the dignity of the marginalised, and the daily acts of compassion and courage that define human goodness. The task of Progressive Judaism is not to escape the world, but to transform it—to let our amazement lead us to responsibility, and our wonder give rise to ethical action.

Ours is not the path of Nadav and Avihu. Ours is the path of those who walk with open hearts and open minds, who refuse to abandon the world, and who insist that Judaism must speak in the voice of justice, compassion, and relevance.

Progressive Judaism is not a diluted tradition—it is a powerful expression of Judaism’s most enduring truths. It is not a fire that consumes, but a flame that illuminates.

May we continue to walk proudly in its light.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] Wiener, Nancy H. Beyond Breaking the Glass. CCAR Press, 2001. p.1

The Fire That Consumes and the Fire That Iluminates: A Jewish Reflection on Religious Fundamentalism

In Parashat Sh’mini, two young priests, Aharon’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, bring אֵשׁ זָרָה, aish zarah, a “strange fire” before ה׳ and are instantly consumed by Divine flame. The Torah does not tell us exactly what their sin was, only that they acted in a way not commanded by God [1]. Their death is jarring, a moment of tragedy interrupting what was meant to be a day of joy, the inauguration of the Mishkan.

Across generations, our sages struggled to understand this story. Rashi quotes Rabi Ishmael suggesting they entered intoxicated [2]. Kohelet warns: “Do not be overly righteous… why destroy yourself?”[3]. Their sin, it seems, lay not in rebellion but in excess, in zeal untempered by discipline or humility.

In our time, Rabbi Donniel Hartman has written powerfully about what he calls “God-intoxication” – the idea that when religious people become so consumed with serving God that they forget their responsibilities to other human beings, faith turns from a source of goodness into a source of harm. He warns:

“For the God-Intoxicated person, the awareness of living in the presence of the one transcendent God demands an all-consuming attention that can exhaust one's ability to see the needs of other human beings. This religious personality is defined by strict non-indifference to God. The more we walk with God, the less room we have to be aware of the human condition in general, and consequently, our moral sensibilities become attenuated.” [4]

This Shabbat, as we read of Nadav and Avihu, the world also mourns the loss of Pope Francis, a man who spent his papacy challenging the assumption that religious leadership must come wrapped in certainty. Wikipedia+1 His courage lay not only in what he affirmed, but in what he dared to question. He opened space for dialogue where others closed doors. He sought holiness not in doctrinal purism, but in compassion, justice, and service.

In many ways, Francis embodied what Jewish tradition upholds as its ideal religious leader: one who walks humbly with God [5], who fears arrogance more than doubt, who sees every human being as b’tzelem Elohim, created in the image of God.

The death of Nadav and Avihu reminds us that religious zeal and certainty, when not grounded in humility and restraint, can lead to disaster. The life of Pope Francis reminds us that religious leadership, when imbued with empathy and doubt, can lead to healing. Together, they offer a stark moral contrast between the fire that consumes and the fire that illuminates.

As Jews, we do not turn away from passion in our service of God. But we are taught to balance zeal with discernment, certainty with inquiry. We light sacred fire, the fire of Shabbat candles, of Torah study, of protest against injustice, not to burn ourselves or others, but to bring light unto the world.

May the memory of Pope Francis be for a blessing. And may we, in our own traditions, continue to resist the dangers of fundamentalism, not by rejecting God, but by putting love, humility, and human dignity at the centre of our service.

Shabbat Shalom,

[1] Lev. 10:1
[2] Rashi on Lev. 10:2
[3] Ecclesiastes 7:16
[4] Donniel Hartman, Putting God Second: How to Save Religion from Itself, p. 46.
[5] Micah 6:8

One light or many lights?

(A previous version of this text was published on this blog in Portuguese under the title "Uma luz ou muitas luzes?")

The other day, I was watching an old episode of one of those satirical news programmes that blend current affairs with humour. The topic being discussed was the numerous human rights violations involved in Qatar’s preparations for hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2022 [1]. During the segment, a FIFA official stated that the organisation found it challenging to work with democratic governments due to the multiple stakeholders involved in negotiations, whereas authoritarian regimes made hosting large-scale events much easier. While the candour of this remark is shocking, it reflects a belief held by many: that a single, unified vision ensures greater coherence within a group (regardless of its size) compared to the complexity of multiple differing perspectives. In contrast, others argue that engaging in dialogue and debate between diverse viewpoints ultimately strengthens processes, even if it makes them more complex and time-consuming.

This week’s parashah, Tetzaveh, opens with instructions regarding the lighting of lamps that were to remain perpetually illuminated in the Mishkan [2]. However, the very next verse instructs Moses and Aaron to light the lamps from evening until morning. Faced with this apparent contradiction, various commentators questioned whether the lights were meant to remain burning at all times or only during the dark hours. In a classically Jewish (and rabbinic!) approach, they resolved the dilemma by affirming that both interpretations were correct. A single lamp remained lit throughout the day, while the other lamps of the menorah were kindled only from dusk till dawn, when the darkness of night required additional light for the sacred space.

There are moments in our history that are marked by clarity: when we all agree on our goals and the best paths to achieve them. In such times, a single source of light may be sufficient, aligning us in a shared direction. However, Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994) warns us of the dangers of such unanimity turning into totalitarianism:

“A shared language and discourse is, according to many naïve individuals today, the description of an ideal situation: all of humanity united as a single bloc, without differentiation and, as a result, without conflict. But those who truly understand will know that nothing is more threatening than this artificial conformity: a city and a tower as a symbol of concentrating all humanity into a single thought—where there are no differing opinions and no disputes over values. One cannot imagine a greater tyranny than this, nor a sterility more intellectual and moral than such a state.” [3]

Returning to the instruction in this week’s parashah, during the darkest hours of the day, multiple lamps were lit to generate the necessary illumination, even if the resulting light was more diffuse than that of a single flame. Similarly, in situations where diverse opinions naturally emerge, it is crucial to embrace multiple voices, even if this makes the process slower and more intricate. The clarity offered by a single viewpoint often pales in comparison to the richness and depth that arise from contrasting perspectives. Russian philosopher Vladimir Lossky articulated this idea particularly well regarding theology, though his argument holds true in many other fields of knowledge: “There is nothing more dangerous, more contrary to true theology, than a superficial clarity at the expense of deep analysis.”

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, a key figure in Modern Orthodox thought in the United States, expressed a similar idea in a metaphorical and theological perspective: “The white light of divinity is always refracted through the dome of reality, composed of many coloured panes of glass.”

As we seek light amidst darkness, may we never forgo the glow of our own candle, and may we learn to appreciate the strength that arises from the multiple flames of the menorah.

Shabbat Shalom!

[1] https://youtu.be/UMqLDhl8PXw

[2] Ex. 27:20

[3] Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Earot leParshiot haShavua, Ch. 2: Bereshit - Noach

Por mais perguntas e menos certezas

(uma versão em inglês deste texto foi publicado neste blog com o título “More Questions and Fewer Certainties”)

Entre a obediência imediata às ordens Divinas e a sua contestação vigorosa, Avraham apresenta modelos bastante distintos de liderança religiosa no texto da parashá desta semana, Vaierá. Quando Deus lhe revela que destruirá a cidade de Sodoma e Gomorra porque seus crimes são muito graves, Avraham questiona a conduta ética de Deus nos termos mais fortes que se pode conceber: “O Juiz de toda a terra não agirá com justiça?!” [1]. Por outro lado, quando, alguns capítulos mais tarde, Deus exige de Avraham que sacrifique “seu filho, seu único filho, aquele que você ama, Itschác” [2], nosso patriarca consente sem questionar, toma seu filho e caminha com ele até o local em que Deus havia indicado que o sacrifício deveria acontecer. Não fosse por uma intervenção Divina no último minuto, quando a faca do sacrifício já havia sido levantada, Avraham teria, de fato, seguido a instrução de Deus e dado fim à vida de seu próprio filho.

Ao longo dos séculos, as duas histórias têm sido apontadas como modelos de virtude e de comportamento religioso. Não foram poucos os comentaristas que destacaram, apontando para o episódio do quase-sacrifício de Itschac, que não apenas Avraham estava disposto a seguir a instrução Divina, mas que Itschac também estava disposto a ser sacrificado, se este era o plano de Deus. Uma devoção acima de suas vontades e necessidades pessoais era, de acordo com esta perspectiva e com as lições tiradas desta passagem bíblica, o ideal religioso a ser buscado. Se Avraham havia sido testado neste episódio, então ele foi aprovado com louvor. 

No entanto, pelo menos desde os tempos talmúdicos e apesar de tentativas das lideranças rabínicas de boicotarem este tipo de abordagem, a contestação à forma como Avraham aceita a ordem Divina de sacrificar seu próprio filho também tem feito parte de como os comentaristas abordam o quase-sacrifício de Itschac. [3] Para eles, a forma como Avraham questionou a revelação da destruição de Sodoma e Gomorra reflete uma postura mais saudável no relacionamento com a autoridade, até mesmo com a autoridade Divina. Em particular, a Avraham, considerado um iconoclasta, alguém que não deixava ídolos sem serem revirados, que não tinha medo de se colocar contra o consenso geral, essa seria uma postura mais alinhada com sua história de vida.

Eu penso nessas histórias e como elas podem se relacionar com outros modelos teológicos, não necessariamente com a Voz Divina externa que Avraham escutou e o instruiu a sair do lugar em que vivia e construir um novo lar em uma terra  que Deus lhe apontaria, mas também com a voz interna, aquela que vem da fagulha Divina em cada um. Quando damos ouvido ao que a nossa voz interna diz, quase sem fazer perguntas, e quando a questionamos de forma intensa? Quando nossas certezas são tão fortes que aceitamos suas premissas a valor de face, sem nenhum questionamento, como dogmas cuja validade é inquestionável e cujo próprio ato de aceitação se torna uma forma de devoção quase-religiosa? Quando, por outro lado, fazemos as perguntas incômodas, sem certeza de aonde elas nos levarão, com alguma trepidação de estarmos, de fato, traindo nossa voz interior e sabe-se lá mais o que no processo?

Na época das mídias sociais em que vivemos, nos definimos também pelas causas que abraçamos e pelas quais nos manifestamos de forma quase-obsessiva, algumas vezes. Repetindo o comportamento de torcidas de futebol, re-postamos os argumentos do nosso time sem questionar sua validade, passamos os olhos pelas postagens do outro time sem considerar a razão que possa existir nelas. E, como nos confrontos entre torcidas, que se tornam violentos com frequência inaceitável, nos tornamos simultaneamente abusivos e vítimas de abuso, radicalizando ainda mais as posições e as rivalidades.

Me inspira pensar na coragem que Avraham teve no seu desafio a Deus no episódio de Sodoma e Gomorra e nas lições que podemos tirar de seu exemplo. A relação dialógica com o Divino que se estabelece ali é das passagens da Torá que mais me tocam. Que possamos todos aprender com ele a ter a coragem de perguntar mais e ter menos certezas, para romper com ciclos de abuso e violência em que nossos posicionamentos algumas vezes se tornam, buscar estabelecer o diálogo, o reconhecimento da humanidade mútua, o acolhimento das dores, dos traumas, dos prazeres e das certezas que cada um de nós carrega, para estabelecermos debates mais respeitosos, compreensivos e produtivos.

Shabat Shalom! 

 

[1] Gen. 18:25 

[2] Gen. 22:1-2

[3] Veja, por exemplo, o 5º capítulo de J. Richard Middleton, “Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job and How to Talk Back to God”.

Orgulho na maioria e na minoria

Para o meu coração matemático, o livro de baMidbar, que em português é chamado de “Números”, é a oportunidade da unir duas paixões: os números e o judaísmo. Desta vez, tenho pensado sobre as aulas de matemática dos primeiros anos, ainda aprendendo sobre o significado de cada um dos símbolos e notações. Lembro-me bem da confusão entre os símbolos “maior” (“>”) e menor (“<”) e das regrinhas que usávamos para saber qual usar em cada situação. Uma regra dizia que a “boca aberta” do símbolo sempre deveria estar na direção da quantidade maior; outra nos ensinava a fazer um tracinho do braço inferior do símbolo – desta forma, um símbolo se tornava um “4” inclinado (o menor) e outro se tornava um “7” inclinado (o maior). Olhando hoje, com algum saudosismo, parece que naquele tempo era mais fácil determinar quais eram as maiores grandezas e quais eram as menores, mesmo que precisássemos recorrer a estes “truques” no processo.

Hoje em dia, os conceitos de “maior” e “menor” se tornaram bem mais complexos, especialmente se considerarmos seus derivados, a “maioria” e a “minoria”. Além dos conceitos numéricos, há situações de poder, nos quais quem está em maior número nem sempre tem mais destaque. Só como exemplo, pensem nas mulheres, que apesar de serem a maioria da população (51,1%), tem claramente muito menos poder que os homens.

Na parashá desta semana, Shelach Lechá, Deus indica a Moshé que escolha emissários para investigar a terra de Israel, na qual eles pretendem ingressar em breve. Das doze pessoas escolhidas, dez voltaram com um relato negativo; apenas duas reportaram que, apesar dos desafios, os israelitas tinham condições de, com o apoio de Deus, conquistar a terra. O grupo majoritário, ao defender que eles não conseguiriam vencer em combate, afirmava que os residentes da terra eram gigantes, que perto deles os hebreus eram como gafanhotos [1]. O povo em sua maioria seguiu a opinião dos dez enviados pessimistas, para indignação Divina. Moshé conseguiu convencer Deus a não matá-los todos logo ali, mas em resposta à falta de confiança daquela geração em si mesma, Deus determinou que eles vagassem pelo deserto por 40 anos, para que aqueles que entrassem na terra de Israel tivessem uma mentalidade distinta daquela visão derrotista.

Em seu comentário sobre esta parashá, o rabino Jeffrey Salkin afirma: “A opinião da maioria nem sempre está certa. (...) Muitas das grandes coisas da história mundial não aconteceram porque a maioria era a favor delas; muitas vezes é preciso uma minoria criativa de pessoas para convencer os outros a expandir sua visão.” [2] 

Vivemos em uma época de imensas e rápidas transformações. Da tecnologia ao meio ambiente, dos valores sociais aos modelos de negócio, o mundo nunca testemunhou tantas revoluções ao mesmo tempo. De um lado, muitos de nós nos sentimos confusos com tantas mudanças o tempo todo, com medo até. De outro lado, novas oportunidades têm sido criadas a cada dia; grupos que viveram silenciados por séculos, que se viam como gafanhotos indefesos frente a gigantes que os destruiriam se chamassem atenção, passaram a ter coragem de se expressar. Como a nova geração que pôde entrar em Israel, estes grupos historicamente silenciados passaram a demandar seu pleno reconhecimento, querem ser enxergados, reconhecidos, ouvidos e respeitados. Em alguns casos, são a maioria ou têm a maioria ao seu lado; em outros, talvez não sejam tão numerosos, mas querem o seu direito de pertencer plenamente. Afinal de contas, nossa tradição ensina que “salvar uma vida é como salvar todo o mundo” [3] ou seja, cada vida é única e tem valor, mesmo quando não está na maioria.

Nesta sexta-feira, teremos na CIP o Cabalat Shabat do Orgulho, uma oportunidade para vermos e sermos vistos, para escutarmos e sermos escutados, para amarmos e sermos amados, para respeitarmos e sermos respeitados. Maioria ou minoria, nos números ou no poder, que possamos todos nos sentir verdadeiros com quem somos e com a coragem de conquistar nossos sonhos, mesmo quando eles parecem inalcançáveis.

Shabat Shalom!

[1] Num. 13:33

[2] Jeffrey K. Salkin, “The JPS B’nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary”

[3] https://bit.ly/3PdnBgO