Now I know it has never been particularly popular to stand on the bima and defend the actions of the Hebrews in the Golden Calf incident. But as you know, when everyone agrees to condemn something, it's always worth another look.
Read moreParashat Bo: Freeing the Hard Heart
I know it might not sit well to look at Pharaoh this way; it feels too sympathetic toward the arch-villain of our collective imagination as he holds firm against the inevitable tide of emancipation. But the parashah seems to invite it. After all, it opens with bo el-Par'oh, - "come to Pharaoh," not lech el-Par'oh, "go to Pharaoh." The vantage point is Pharaoh's; he is the fixed point and Moshe - and we - are being invited into his world.
Read moreShlach Lecha: On Grasshoppers, Giants & Flotillas
But nothing in our tradition has taught us how to hold power. How to be giants. Instead, we’re left to be giants who think like grasshoppers, or grasshoppers who have grown to gigantic proportions. And it is that constant, deep fear of being crushed underfoot that has informed and, arguably, poisoned so much of our policy in Israel.
Read moreBehar-Bechukotai: Of Oil Spills and Old Covenants
He asked me why the people didn't believe Noah when he told them that it would rain until they were destroyed by flood. (After all, according to our sages, Noah took 120 years to build the ark, giving the people around him plenty of time to repent. But they scoffed at him.) My cousin answered the question, saying it was because they had never seen rain, since rain isn't mentioned in Torah before this point. And so they had no reason to believe a cockamamie story about water falling from the sky. This is a revealing insight. We don't believe in danger that we haven't personally experienced.
Read moreThe Immensity of Absence
The answer for me and many of my generation is, I think, to learn to see the invisible. I traveled to Poland three years ago. I was prepared to see the camps, and I was moved when I saw them. But weighing much more heavily on me, and staying with me even to this moment, was the immensity of what I didn't see.
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