Rabbi Janine's Messages

This week we are lucky to have another Shabbat message written by our KHN Student Rabbi Miriam Ginsberg. Student Rabbi Miriam will be writing a Shabbat message once a month from now until the end of her internship with us. We are so fortunate to learn from her.

I look forward to celebrating Shabbat with you this Friday night at 7 p.m. Please also join us for Yizkor services for the final day of Passover this Sunday at 10 a.m. 

Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Janine Jankovitz 
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Dear Community,

This Passover, a part of the story that feels visceral and particularly poignant for me is when the Egyptians are hurled into the sea and drowned while the Israelites cross to safety. There is this terrible, zero-sum quality to it; Torah seems to be telling us that there was no other way - that their destruction was the inevitable cost for our freedom.

In feeling the weight of that awful setup, I always find comfort in this beautiful midrash in our Talmud, the story about how the angels, in the moment when the Red Sea split, were eager to sing and rejoice before The Holy One, and The Holy One said to the angels: “My creations are drowning in the sea, and how can you sing to me?”

I love that our tradition, which admittedly does contain a fair amount of vengeful and violent content, uses the Exodus story – THE canonical story of Jewish oppression – to teach us that every human life is sacred. That all humans are created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of the Divine – including the Egyptians, including those who we see as our enemies, including those who have done harm and done wrong. They are Divine creations too.

During our Passover seders last weekend, we acknowledged this. We removed drops of wine from our cups and spilled them on our plates as a way of remembering the suffering and loss of life that the Egyptians endured. Our joy and celebration of freedom was lessened because it came at the cost of Egyptian lives.

And still, I come back around to the question of, did – or does – it have to be this way? Yes, we can hold room in our hearts as The Holy One does for the Egyptians, we can refrain from rejoicing at their demise. But did they really have to drown for the Israelites to be free? 

This is a question I think many of us are wrestling with today, and I have to believe that zero-sum games are not the only way – or even any real way – to safety and freedom for all of us Divine creations here on earth. I have to believe that the only way is together, is not losing our own humanity or each other’s, that the only true or lasting liberation is collective.

As we move toward Shabbat this Pesach, I invite us to be brave, to keep our hearts open, and to resist the forces that seek to divide us. I shared these words by Aurora Levins Morales at a recent Shabbat, but am sharing them again here, since they hold the truth and vision that I believe this Passover is calling us to hear. 

This Time, by Aurora Levins Morales

They say that other country over there, dim blue in the twilight, farther than the orange stars exploding over our roofs, is called peace, but who can find the way? This time we cannot cross until we carry each other. All of us refugees, all of us prophets. No more taking turns on history’s wheel, trying to collect old debts no one can pay. The sea will not open that way. This time that country is what we promise each other, our rage pressed cheek to cheek until tears flood the space between, until there are no enemies left, because this time no one will be left to drown and all of us must be chosen. This time it’s all of us or none.

Kein y’hi ratzon, may it be so.

Shabbat shalom,
Student Rabbi Miriam