Dear Friends,
I recently encountered this reflection on social media; it hit me like a punch to the gut.
I am washing my face before bed while a country is on fire.
It feels absurd to wash my face, and equally absurd not to
It has never been this way, and it has always been this way
Someone has always clinked a cocktail glass in one hemisphere
As someone loses a home in another;
While someone falls in love in the same apartment building
Where someone grieves.
When we read the news, we are affected on a human level. And on a Jewish level, too: how can we help but be reminded of the invasions, pogroms, and expulsions of the Jewish past? For many of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters — whether Jewish or not — such violence is hardly consigned to the past. As I write this, millions of refugees amass in Poland and other friendly countries. Thousands of Ukrainian Jews have made (or will soon make) Aliyah, fleeing for the safe haven of Eretz Yisrael.
When we witness the horrific devastation of this unjust war, we feel helpless. Our lives march on while, simultaneously, human beings suffer half a world away. This cognitive dissonance — a mental tug of war — pulls us in two directions at once. It disturbs us. How could it not? As people of conscience, we feel an unresolvable conflict between our world and the world; between our safety and the role we might play to secure others’ safety.
I am grateful that people at TBT really care, and are ready to follow their words with actions. So far, we’ve raised thousands of dollars, donated life-saving supplies, become informed about Ukraine’s Jewish history, and gathered to pray and offer words of hope within our broader Shoreline Community. There will undoubtedly be refugees to support in months to come. Thanks to our TBT Ukraine-response task force, we have not been complacent. We can all get involved; we all have a role to play.
And conversely, for such a profound geopolitical issue, we can only do so much at once. That is why Rabbi Tarfon reminds us: The work is not all yours to complete; but neither are you free to desist from it. (Lo alecha ham’lacha ligmor; v’lo atah ben chorin l’hibatel mimenah). -- (Mishnah Avot, 2.16).
Among the gifts Ukraine gave to the Jewish world is the Hasidic movement. One of the early teachers, the great Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, taught: “The Exodus from Egypt occurs in every human being, in every era, in every year, and in every day.” Rabbi Nachman’s teaching will be on my lips this Passover, as I share in telling the story of our people’s journey from degradation to liberation; from oppression to freedom.
L’shalom - with fervent wishes for peace –
Rabbi Danny Moss