D'var Torah

Happy Thanksgiving and almost Shabbat Shalom everyone,

This e-letter had to go out early this week because of the holiday, so as I’m writing this, negotiations are still in process to free some of the Israeli hostages held by the Hamas terrorists. My hope and prayer for this Shabbat is that at least 50 of the women and children hostages will be released unharmed this week. We continue to pray for the release of all hostages, and I stand with Israel and our fellow Jews in praying for peace and strength for those who are suffering.

The Torah portion this Shabbat is Vayetzi, the story of Jacob, who goes off into the world after last week’s story of trickery and deception with Esau. In Vayetzi, Jacob, who is on his way to work for his uncle Laban, meets Rachel and wishes to marry her. But Laban tricks Jacob into marrying his eldest daughter, Leah after seven years of labor. Jacob then works for another seven years to also marry Rachel. The parasha ends with Rachel and Jacob bearing their son, Joseph. It is in this parasha that God promises the land of Israel to be for Jacob and his descendants. 

Having just returned from Eastern Europe with 72 other members of our congregation exploring Poland, Hungary, Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic, I can’t help but see a connection between this Torah portion and what we experienced. In the parasha, Jacob “goes out” of his homeland into the world where life was escaping the wrath of his brother. He sets out on a journey to find a better place, to escape the dangers of his home. 

Everywhere we’ve lived since then, Jews found themselves in danger. And when we’ve settled in new places, we also found people who did not want us there. In Eastern Europe, 6 million Jews were wiped off the earth because they believed in that covenant that Jacob reaffirmed with God in this parasha. Stepping onto sacred soil in Auschwitz, Birkenau and Treblinka underscored how fragile our lives are in any place we’ve settled. Poland had over 3 million Jews before World War II. Afterwards, just a few thousand. 

What made this trip for me different from previous trips to Eastern Europe was the juxtaposition of the tragic events in Israel on Oct 7. We stood at monuments dedicated to the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust where it was written: “Never Again.” Yet, we see the scourge of antisemitism in this world rising as perhaps fellow Jews felt in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. We said kaddish for victims of the Shoah, whose souls we felt as we stood in those ancient synagogues and we also said Kaddish for our 1300 fellow Jews, Israeli’s, American’s, Europeans, who died in the deadliest Jewish terrorist attack since the Holocaust on Oct. 7.

It felt surreal that we were studying our history, but at the same time, feeling the antisemitism in the present day that has surged to an all-time high.

Jacob ventured out into the world on a journey to escape danger and find a new home. Since then, we’ve been on a similar journey. On this Thanksgiving and this Shabbat, may we be grateful that we live in a world far from the way things were in Europe in the 1940s, but with the hope that hatred and bigotry will someday truly end.

Cantor Michael Shochet