Rabbi Guzik is on sabbatical. Please enjoy A Bisl Torah from our Rabbinic Intern, Moe Howard.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, addressed our Sinai Temple congregation last Shabbat. The “torrent” of antisemitic hate, he said, is alarming in its pervasiveness, touching every corner of our lives. “Perhaps what’s most terrifying, most shocking,” he admitted, “is the fact that we’ve almost become numb to it.”
That we are inured to the rising tide of antisemitism is dismaying—but it isn’t shocking. It’s a story as old as our people. “Say to the Israelites,” God tells Moses: “I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage” (Exodus 6:6). The word for “burdens,” sivlot, is related to the word sovlanut, “tolerance.” Their tolerance of the suffering inflicted upon them, teaches Rabbi Simcha Bunim, was the Israelites’ true burden. They had grown so accustomed to a reality of blame, shame, and fear that they came to see it as normal.
It is not normal, God said, to be enslaved. Nor is it normal, said Jonathan Greenblatt, to be harassed, intimidated, and assaulted on campus, in the synagogue, or at the beach. We must fight this new status quo with our voices, our votes, and our values—but first we must fight the inclination within ourselves to remain indifferent.
It was when the Israelites were no longer willing to bear their burdens that redemption was soon at hand. How long are we willing to bear our own?
Shabbat Shalom.
