A Moment in Time: Loyalty

Dear all,

Last Shabbat, in the wake of national conversations regarding loyalty, I shared the following with our community. May we find our moment in time to reaffirm our loyalties to the values we hold dear.

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Loyalty is kindness

Loyalty is bravery

Loyalty is commitment

Loyalty is covenant

Loyalty is about values

Loyalty is keeping a promise

Loyalty is guarding a confidence

Loyalty is telling your spouse that his or her haircut looks magnificent

Loyalty is embracing our principles

Loyalty is pursuing justice

Loyalty is our ancestors coming to this country because they believed in its vision

Loyalty is our fathers and grandfathers and mothers and grandmothers fighting for this country so we could be free

Loyalty is my grandfather reading has the Declaration of Independence every Fourth of July

Loyalty is standing up for Israel, the only democracy in the region

Loyalty is calling out both Israel and the United States when its leaders do not embrace values we share

Loyalty is Tip O’Neil and Ronald Reagan trying really hard to form a common goal in spite of their differences

Loyalty is remembering to say I love you even when we’re angry

Loyalty means hanging in there and even through difficult times

Loyalty is jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, bahai, Mormons…LGBTQ, asians, blacks, natives, immigrants, atheist, agnostics, believers, Democrats, Republicans, independence,… Loyalty is all of us under one roof, expressing different colors of a grand tapestry – But all with one vision in mind. That we want to make the world a better place rather than divide it.

Adoni sfatai tiftach – oh God, open my lips, that I may pledge allegiance of loyalty to pursuing goodness.

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With love and shalom,

Rabbi Zach Shapiro