antisemitism

Shmot for TAA

I’ve been a little sick, so the service was lay-led this week. This is the drasha I would have given, had I been in shul January 18, 2025.

Some years ago, when I was relatively new to Torah learning and eager to explore, I was doing parsha study with a group of friends, and we came to Shmot chapter 1, verse 8. 

וַיָּקׇם מֶלֶךְ־חָדָשׁ עַל־מִצְרָיִם אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יָדַע אֶת־יוֹסֵף׃
And there arose over Egypt a new king who knew not Josef. 

Familiar from my family’s rendering of the Pesach seder, this was a verse that felt like I’d always known it; but that day, for some reason I saw something radically different from our normative understanding. Cautiously at first, and then with the unearned confidence of the misguided, I made an impassioned argument that this pasuk—I would have called it a line back then—was full of rosy optimism. It speaks, I said, of the possibility of new beginnings. Perhaps it was because I grew up in the shadow of an extravagantly talented older brother, a spectacularly gracious older sister, and a brilliant and adorable younger sister. The idea of finding myself in a place where I wasn’t automatically filed under the category of So-and-so’s Sister sounded refreshing. I thought: maybe it was good that the new king didn’t know Josef; maybe it would give the Israelites a chance to reinvent themselves, independent of Josef’s skill, cunning, and power. It’s good to wipe the slate clean and start fresh, right?

We kept reading that day, and I began to see it differently. 

The new king who knew Josef neither by deed nor by reputation had no way of understanding that it was because of Josef’s skill and foresight that famine didn’t wipe out the entire known world. To this new king, Josef’s descendents—the Israelites, our people—were a nuisance, a growing minority, a foreign presence. To this new king, they were immigrants, outsiders. 

The language in the passage is telling. The verse right before the new king is mentioned, says:

וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל פָּרוּ וַיִּשְׁרְצוּ וַיִּרְבּוּ וַיַּעַצְמוּ בִּמְאֹד מְאֹד וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ אֹתָם׃
And the Israelites multiplied and swarmed and increased and grew strong very very much. And the land filled with them. (Exodus 1:7)

The careful reader might remember the word יִשְׁרְצוּ from the story of creation, day five, when God fills the seas and the earth with, among other things, creatures that creep and crawl. The dehumanization begins.

The fifteenth-century Rabbi Avraham Saba, known as the Tzror haMor, interprets the new king with great disdain for the Egyptian citizenry. His view was that the Egyptians wanted nothing to do with any king who might have favored Josef. Therefore they purposely disrupted the typical hereditary transfer of power and installed a new king, one who was purposely chosen because he knew not Josef.

The Tosafists of Da’at Zkenim suggest something darker still. Because the text doesn’t explicitly say that the old king has died, these medieval scholars imagine that the so-called new king isn’t even new. Rather, they suggest a scenario where the citizens try to influence their ruler to attack the Israelites. He resists their suggestion, and so they depose him. Three months later he makes his way back to power by promising to attack. Under the influence of mob rule, the king renounces his own principles and becomes a new person, giving up some of his own humanity in the process. As we’ve talked about before, dehumanization cuts both ways.

Each of these commentaries is grappling with the question of how societies come to turn against outsiders. Sadly their dim view of the Egyptians echoes their contemporary real-life experience: during the Tosafist period, the study of Talmud was outlawed by the church and volumes of our sacred texts were burned in the street. And the Tzror haMor spent much of his life fleeing persecution and expulsion. Not unlike what happened to the Israelites toward the beginning of Shmot, his children were taken from him and forcibly converted to Christianity. 

It must have been all too easy for these sages to take the Hebrew name for Egyptians—Mitzrim—literally. The root word צר—narrow—practically shouts that the Israelites were squeezed into a corner. The narrow-minded people in power, and the narrow-minded people who influenced them, replaced knowledge and relationship with fear and contempt, resulting in a new king who did not know the worth of Josef’s years of service.

Clearly, the relationships we form and the reputations we earn can protect us. And in their absence, all too often, dehumanization takes root. Knowing is a potential antidote to the harm that dehumanization can cause. In people of good will, knowing one another and understanding each other’s stories can help us to see the best in each other, even when we disagree. This is the approach I am continuing to take with regard to the questions around antisemitism that have cropped up in recent months. The Beverly arrest last week brings home the fact that helping our well-intentioned neighbors to understand the role of antisemitism in Jewish history may be one of the most important tasks on my agenda these days. 

In times of narrowness, it takes courage to allow ourselves to be known, but it could be our best hope. The moment may not call for grand gestures—after all, the quiet, subversive heroism of the midwives Shifra and Puah is a reflection of tremendous courage. Rather, what I believe this moment demands of us is to gently and thoughtfully articulate why antisemitism is a problem that merits earnest attention—whether it’s in the form of online threats backed up with a supply of ammunition or in the form of local government wavering on its commitment to stand up side by side with the Jewish community. The more we cultivate our allies—in relationship, through quiet conversation—the deeper we can sink our roots into this place we love.

In about two months’ time, we will recall Queen Esther’s courage in letting herself be known, when Haman’s ruthlessness and hatred, coupled with Achashverosh’s gullibility threatened the safety of the Jews of Shushan. Soon we will read this famous line evoking the power of knowing: 

מִי יוֹדֵעַ אִם־לְעֵת כָּזֹאת הִגַּעַתְּ לַמַּלְכוּת
Who knows if perhaps you reached your royal position for such a time as this. (Esther 4:14)

Who knows indeed? My teacher Nehemia Polen taught me that the world can change on a dime, maybe even for the good. Perhaps in such a time as this, our courage in allowing ourselves to be known can lay the groundwork for that very change. Perhaps my naive understanding of the new king who knew not Josef can be redeemed, to reveal the possibility of a renewed energy for genuine connection and sincere solidarity.

Midweek Musings from Gloucester Daily Times

(This weekly column rotates among local clergy members on Cape Ann. This week it was my turn. Read it on the GDT site here.)

Jewish tradition makes a big deal about gratitude. The first words (or at least, the first official words) that we say each morning are words of thanks. Modeh ani l’fanecha—I am grateful before you, eternal giver of life, who has mercifully returned my soul to me. Your trust in me is great. This blessing we recite daily reminds us that, as one of my congregants likes to say, every day we get to wake up is a good day. The gratitude continues throughout the day, with some Jews holding to the tradition of saying 100 blessings per day. Any moment can be a source of appreciation, elevated from its daily-ness through the conscious act of blessing.

Of course, we know that life is complicated. It’s true that every day we get to wake up is a good day, but many of us wake up to physical or psychic pain, or we wake up to difficult relationships or uncertain economic circumstances. Being grateful is easy when everything is going well, when the world outside our windows is lovely and makes sense. But sometimes the landscape is blurred by disappointment, insufficiency, and regret. 

It has been a difficult period for the Jewish community. Since October 7 of last year, we have been reeling from Hamas’s ruthless attack, and from the slow but quickening boil of antisemitism that has followed. This antisemitism has been at times merely rhetorical and at times shockingly violent. Even in wonderful, peaceful Gloucester, the echoes of world events are cause for concern, and for reawakened trauma. 

The warning attributed to George Santayana, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” turns in my mind as I rearrange the words. Perhaps the Jewish version might be: Those who cannot forget the past are doomed to relive it.

They say that history doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes. For my people, that means an age-old pattern of making our way in a society, settling into a community, only to watch relationships curdle and our safety come into question. When the world gets unsettled, so do the Jews. We know all too well that things can be going along well, until suddenly we’re in first century Rome, or in fifth century Minorca, or in eleventh century Mainz, or thirteenth century England, or seventeenth century Vienna, or Kentucky in 1862, or Kishinev, or Weimar, or waking up to the sound of explosions and gunshots one October morning in southern Israel, after a night of dancing to trance music at the Nova Music Festival.

To be Jewish is to carry this history in your bones.

And yet to be Jewish is also to say a hundred blessings every day. Telling the lachrymose version of the Jewish story is one way, but turn the lens and you see things differently. This people, this culture I cherish, has survived for millennia. Another way to see Jewish history is as a tale of innovation and thriving, of faith and vitality, punctuated by occasional catastrophe. Our sorrows are ancient, but so is our resilience.

The great first-century sage known as Rabbi Akiva was no stranger to loss, uncertainty and heartbreak, having lived in the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, which was itself a violent antisemitic attack. In Mishnah Brachot (6:8), Rabbi Akiva taught, “Even if a person’s entire meal is overboiled vegetables (shelek), they should make three blessings afterward, [i.e. the traditional Jewish grace after meals].”

When I first encountered this text, I was puzzled. I hadn’t given much thought to blessing things that were unappealing. And yet—upon reflection, I began to see Rabbi Akiva’s wisdom. You might not enjoy the soggy vegetables as you’re eating them, but afterward, your belly is full. Sometimes having enough is truly enough. Stirring up our gratitude in the complicated moments can help us notice what’s worth blessing.

When life is difficult and anxious-making—as it surely is for the Jewish community at this moment in history—leaning on our practice of blessing can help us to hold steady. Blessing what is before us—even blessing the difficult—is like a lifeboat in a stormy sea. It cannot change the weather, but it gives us something to hold onto.