D'var Torah

Facing the climate change disaster means facing one another with respect and sincere empathy. Only then can we manage the amount of work it will take to fix that in which each of us has a stake.

A truly free people accepts its covenants without coercion. As we work for a better world, one of true dignity and equality for all, it’s important to remember that.

Perhaps this midrash holds out a hope that any of us can be transformed to meet the needs of the moment. And perhaps we can find a way to change the course of today’s story so it does not have to end in wholesale destruction.

Community knowledge is the strongest tool we have, and we must learn how to both respect and harness it. When we seek to make change in the world, we must ask ourselves: Who might know what needs to happen even better than I do?

For me, acknowledging what I cannot see lies at the heart of community building. It helps me feel connected to the humanity of people in my circles and in the broader world, as ultimately the invisible heaviness of experience is one of the things that I know to be true of being human.

We have been counting the days since October 7, counting the unbearable number of lost lives, counting the number of hostages, counting the number of people who became refugees in their own land. We count and we count and we count. And we tell a story. Each and every one of us.

[Unders stress,] we are often functioning far from our cores, where we can access our unique strengths and talents, offer our best selves, and hear – and perhaps even seek – other voices.

We are returning from the mountain to the plains; from our highest ideals to the practicalities of daily living; from the most fundamental expression of holiness to where we are now.

The path of peace is not an easy one; it cuts through the binary of right or wrong, victim or oppressor, hero or villain, us or them. The path of peace does not choose favorites, does not leverage one over another, does not create hierarchies. The path of peace has no sides.

How we love our neighbor is by fighting for a society in which we would be glad to live no matter how little privilege we had.