Another Invitation from Kavana
Over the past few days, Rabbi Jay and I have continued to hear from many of you, and we are grateful for these conversations and messages. Our community, together with Israel and with Jews everywhere, is still reeling in the wake of last Saturday's barbaric attacks in Southern Israel. We are continuing to witness (and experience ourselves) quite the range of intense emotions: sadness, grief, anger, worry, fear, and more. And, of course, events are still unfolding in heartbreaking and horrifying ways: as funerals are conducted for the slain while the fate of hostages remains uncertain, as Israel mobilizes for a ground invasion of Gaza, as a humanitarian crisis of enormous magnitude looms for Palestinians, as Jewish institutions brace in the face of threats of a day of violence against Jews worldwide. This may be the hardest week I can remember in my lifetime, and I expect future generations will look back on this as a watershed moment in both Jewish and human history.
On some level we are -- of course -- "in this together." But, it's also been interesting to me to note that even within the Kavana community -- a small subset of a small subset of the American Jewish community -- our responses to this week's events have varied considerably. Perhaps this is to be expected -- that with a tragedy so enormous and multifaceted, different individuals are focusing on different pieces and processing in very different ways. This week, I've observed that within our community, we have folks who are drawn to rallies and those who need quiet vigils; those who've been glued to the videos and images on their screens, and those who can't bear to look. Our Kavana community includes Israelis-in-America and American Jews who once made aliyah, lots of individuals with relatives in Israel, and also a handful with Palestinian roots and/or deep ties with Gaza... and these personal backgrounds and relationships absolutely lend themselves to different lenses on the world, different opinions about this fraught moment.
This week, as we encounter Parashat Bereishit, the first portion of the Torah, I am thinking once again about a famous midrash that appears in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 38a). It entertains the question of why God only created a single human being, adam ha-rishon. Here's a piece of that midrashic text:
The Sages taught in a baraita (Tosefta 8:5): The fact that Adam the first human was created alone serves to declare the greatness of the supreme King of kings, the Holy Blessed One, as a person stamps several coins with one seal, and they are all similar to each other. But the Holy Blessed One stamps all people with the seal of the first Adam, and not one of them is similar to another. As it is stated: “It is changed like clay under the seal and they stand as a garment” (Job 38:14).
This midrash underscores that -- while we all share common ancestry (in adam ha-rishon, the first human being) -- we are minted as individuals, and "not one of us is similar to another."
Kavana has always aimed to hold difference well. We have proudly built a diverse community, and we've been particularly successful at establishing a wide tent when it comes to religious practice and theological belief, offering an array of options and celebrating the "multiple entry points" into our Jewish community. Holding a spectrum of political views, particularly on Israel, has always been more challenging but we have managed. Right now, though, we are fragile and our sensitivities are heightened. We may have to work harder to be compassionate and tender with one another, to give the benefit of the doubt, to maintain the close community bonds about which we care so deeply.
My colleague Rabbi Sharon Brous wrote the following to the IKAR community earlier this week, and I echo her sentiments as I share these words with our Kavana community: "And lastly, please let us be tender with ourselves and each other. Take a break from social media when it becomes too much. Instead, reach out to one another to check-in. Call your family and friends in Israel and let them know you stand with them in sorrow and solidarity. Call a Palestinian friend and share your hope for a better future. We can’t take each other’s pain away, but we can make sure none of us navigates the pain alone. Let us hold each other with love and grace."
With prayers that this Shabbat will bring us closer to the shalom (peace) and shleimut (wholeness) that we and the world surely need right now... and I look forward to sharing hugs and tears with many of you in the morning,
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum
