(M)oral Torah

Today a fierce battle rages over the telling of American history. Politicians on either side of the political spectrum are fighting to control the historical narrative taught to children in schools. Is the story of America one of heroic struggle and benevolent, exceptional rule? Or is it a story of a colonizing power that exploited, oppressed, and exterminated non-white peoples?

The lesson of Matot-Massei is very simple: If we want to move forward, we must first begin to acknowledge the people behind the comforts and luxuries of our everyday lives. We must acknowledge that our healthcare system is no longer truly about care, but about profit.

According to the Netziv, the brit is meant as a healing salve. God knows the ways committing acts of violence may leave a permanent scar on those who commit them. Perhaps God is speaking from experience. 

Rabbinical Student and T'ruah board member Kelly Whitehead on Juneteenth and collective memory.

We are not bound to the worldviews and ideologies of those who came before us, but neither can we discard the ancestors with whom we disagree. How do we engage in the often difficult spiritual task of recognizing the image of God in the forebears with whom we deeply disagree, without capitulating to or validating the ideologies they espoused?

To put our trust in the gods of militarism and brute strength, to conflate the presence of God with armed combat, is to succumb to idolatry, to assimilate into a culture that conflates might and morality, violence and virtue.

Just as the Menorah is juxtaposed to the appointment of the Levi’im, so too do we have a responsibility – not just to our veterans, but to those who died defending this country.

Everyone in Jerusalem – every Palestinian resident and citizen, every Jew, every activist standing in solidarity across lines of difference...was at one time a child, ready to receive a parent’s tender blessing given in love.

But whether or not the Sinai wilderness was ever ownerless as the midrash suggests, in North America, the so-called wildernesses never have been. Those places — and indeed every square mile of North America — have always been, and continue to be, the home of specific tribes of Indigenous peoples.

That’s how I found myself chanting and marching, yelling to children that they were not forgotten, that they were loved – while holding the hand of my youngest son, whom I love so much it hurts. Having a child is like letting your heart walk around outside of your body.