ahausman

God says to Moses:

“I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: ‘I am Adonai. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, Adonai, am your God who freed you from the labors of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession, I Adonai’(*Exodus 6:6-6:8).”

Imagine, for a moment, if God had freed our ancestors from Egyptian bondage and gotten them across the Red Sea only to then deposit them in the Wilderness with the parting adieu “good luck to ya.” Despite the rousing seder song Dayeinu where we proclaim that anything that God did for our people would have been more than enough, we know that if it not had been for God’s constant and direct involvement, divine intervention, protection, sustainment, education, and guidance during the forty years in the desert, the Jewish people would most likely have been swallowed up by the sand dunes and consigned to the forgotten and overlooked dust-filled shelves of yellow-tinged history books. Yet because of God’s continual love and attention, we are still here, living as a vibrant and proud people.

The Promises of Redemption are far more than a meta-level teaching. They are a model for how we are to conduct ourselves at work, in the community, and at home.

To this end, in Kiddushin of the Talmud, we are taught the following: “…A father is obligated in regards to his son…to teach him Torah…and to teach him a trade. And some say: ‘A father is also obligated to teach his son to swim…’”(Kiddushin 29a.10) Rabbi Yehuda drives home the point proclaiming: “Any father who does not teach his son a trade teaches him banditry(*Ibid).”

If we simply do the bare minimum, strive only to meet the standard but not go beyond it, and just check the boxes when it comes to being parents, spouses, siblings and children, clergy and laity, and all other places where we are stakeholders, we create a malaise where we all suffer. However, if we do more than what is required of us, just as God did with our people, then the return on our investment is infinite.

No matter how good a job we’re doing as husbands and wives, moms and dads, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, employers and employees, and clergy and laity, parshat Va’eira and the Promises of Redemption therein present a challenge for each one of us – to step up our game, to do more than the minimum, to take our involvement to the next level, and to be fully involved and committed with the people and things we cherish and care about. Let us challenge ourselves to go above and beyond!

The 15 Victims of the Bondi Beach Massacre: Matilda (10 years old), Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Dan Elkayam, Holocaust survivor Alexander Kleytman, husband and wife Boris and Sofia Gurman, Peter Meagher, Reuven Morrison, Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, Tibor Weitzen, Marika Pogany, Edith Brutman, Boris Tetleroyd, and Adam Smyth

Those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country while deployed to Syria: SGT Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, Iowa, 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment Iowa Army National Guard; SGT William Nathaniel Howard, 29, Marshalltown, Iowa 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment Iowa Army National Guard; US Army civilian interpreter Ayad “Eddie” Mansoor Sakat, 54, a husband and father of four.

The victims of the Brown University and MIT shootings: Ella Cook, 19, of Birmingham, Alabama; Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, of Midlothian, Virginia; Professor Nuno Loureiro, 47, of Portugal

May their memories and legacies burn as brightly as the Chanukiyah, and as we look into the flames, may be inspired to remember them and carry on their noble legacies.

This D’var is also dedicated in grateful appreciation and humble thanks to Mr. Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Muslim shopkeeper, who valiantly and selflessly disarmed one of the terrorist gunmen during the Bondi Beach Massacre. He is more than deserving of the title “Righteous Among the Nations.” His bravery is an inspiration to all of us.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Urim Sameach- Happy Chanukah.

Despite all that is going on in the world, I pray this finds you all safe and well.

For me, one of the most powerful photographs in Jewish history was taken by Rebbetzin Rachel Posner, the wife of Dr. Rabbi Akiva Posner, in Kiel, Germany in 1931. On her window sill, she placed a simple menorah adorned with the Magen David, the Star of David, the symbol of the Jewish people. “So what?” you might ask. Well, across the street there was a large Swastika, the emblem of the Nazi Party, and of Germany itself during the rule of Adolf Hitler. By overtly and boldly placing the menorah in open view, she was not only following the rabbinic precept to display the chanukiyah (the Chanukah menorah) in plain view, but was also defying the Nazis and their disgusting ideology. A small, plain menorah it seemed, was standing up to the full might of the Nazis.

On the back of the photograph, the Rebbetzin wrote:

“‘Death to Judah’
So the flag says
‘Judah will live forever’
So the light answers.”[1]

What is terrorism?

My definition: intimidation, subversion, misinformation, coercion, threatening, stalking, shaming, harassment, vandalism, bullying, humiliation, silencing, isolating, ostracizing, doxxing, assault, and murder. These are the tools of terrorism and the weapons of the terrorist. The goal of the terrorist is simple: to silence anyone and everyone who opposes their agenda.

When the Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Seleucid empire carried out his reign of terror in Judea in the middle of the 2nd century BCE he and his minions used everything they had in their arsenal to cow the Jewish people into submission and even turn them away from Torah and God. Whether it involved erecting a statue of Zeus or sacrificing a pig in the Temple in Jerusalem to the destruction of Torah scrolls, the prohibition of brit milah (circumcision), and the executions of Hannah and her seven sons for refusing to bow before him, the Seleucids attacked every meaningful facet of Jewish life.

Sadly, during the last few days, we, the Jewish people the world over, have borne witness to the fact that the vile antisemitism of Antiochus is unfortunately alive and well in our midst. Whether it was a man screaming vile curses into the ear of a Jewish woman at restaurant in downtown Manhattan, a passenger kicked off an international flight for threatening a Jewish passenger, a stranger on a Brooklyn subway grabbing a Chabad yeshiva student by the coat making a gun sign with his fingers, and threatening to kill him, a menorah vandalized in Queens, a Chabad at Michigan State University having its windows smashed and sprayed with Swastikas, and a Jewish man getting stabbing in the chest in Crown Heights, it’s been a very long, painful, heartbreaking season of antisemitism.[2] And then, to cap it all off, on the first day of Chanukah, 15 people, including a Holocaust survivor, two Rabbis, and a 10 year old girl, were butchered as they celebrated Chag Urim, the Festival of Lights, at Bondi Beach, Australia.

We have to remember that the savagery and ruthlessness of Antiochus is only the first part of the story of Chanukah. What makes Chanukah, well Chanukah, is that Judah Maccabeus and his brothers, inspired by their faith in God, their devotion to Judaism, and the example set by their late father Mattathias, launched a rebellion against Antiochus and the Seleucids. Though outnumbered and outmatched, a small light against an overwhelming dark, the Maccabees eventually prevailed, reclaiming their land, the Temple, and their freedom.

Just as the yoke of the Seleucids must have felt crushing and unbearable to the Maccabees, so too does the scourge of antisemitism feel overwhelming in our day.

What then are we supposed to do?

Simply put- be brave! We must be brave, brave the Maccabees who came before us and passed on a noble legacy to us. But how are we to be brave?

Like Rebbetzin Posner in 1931, we must place the menorah on the window sill for all the world to see. We must take the encouraging and loving words that President Trump gave to the American Jewish community to heart: “Celebrate proudly- be proud of who you are.”[3] And finally, we must answer the call of Rabbi Eli Schlanger (z”l)(al Kiddush HaShem), one of the victims of the Bondi Beach massacre, who, when asked how to combat rising antisemitism in Australia in the months before his untimely death said this: “be more Jewish, act more Jewish, and appear more Jewish.”[4]

Chanukah, like so much of Judaism, is meant to be celebrated and honored in the public place. The second we withdraw into the dark and retreat into the silence, the terrorists have won. When they dictate our lives to us, they’ve accomplished their malicious agenda.

In this trying season, may Aveinu Malkeinu HaKadosh Barch Hu, God imbue each and every one of us with the same resiliency, grit, determination, and bravery as our Maccabean ancestors, Rebbetzin Posner, and Rabbi Schlanger to honor, uphold, and carry forth our beloved Jewish faith.

Wishing you all every bracha for a peaceful Shabbat and Chanukah Sameach.

A second story: a young man who is always glued to his phone is on a cross-country business trip when he gets a flat tire. There’s no cell service, no WiFi…nothing. He’s never done anything remotely mechanical in his life, but without any other option, he opens the car manual and proceeds to put on a spare.

A final story: a young woman is also on a cross-country business trip when her cars break down similarly in the middle of nowhere with a blizzard on the way. With no cell service, she walks to the closest farmhouse. She is hesitant to knock on the door given the fact that there are crosses on the front lawn, as well as political flags on the porch and religious iconography in the windows with which she vehemently disagrees, but with the snow and howling winds closing in and no other viable alternatives, she knocks on the door. The elderly husband and wife that open their home to her treat her like one of the family, so much so in fact, that she is reluctant to leave when the storm passes.

Months later, at a young professionals gathering at their shul, the four tell the Rabbi of their adventures…except, well… they kvetch (complain). “Oy, that fakata pipe”; “Can you believe I had to change a tire in the middle of nowhere”; and “that blizzard was horrific, it could have killed me.” The Rabbi counsels them: “Because of that burst pipe, you two put aside your differences and are now closer as a couple; because of that flat tire, you put down your phone and discovered the value of working with your hands; and because you were stranded in the middle of nowhere, you saw the graciousness and humanity of those with whom you disagree.”

Too often, when confronted with a challenge, a disappointment or setback, or an obstacle, we see it for that and that alone. In this week’s parsha of Vayigash (Genesis 44:18-47:27), however, we are taught that crucibles can in fact bring about brachot (blessings) or be brachas in and of themselves.

When Joseph reveals himself to siblings, they are in fear, believing that after 22 years [1] since they sold him into slavery, he is going to exact a merciless revenge on them for their treachery. Instead he comforts them:

“…do not be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me hither; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you. It is now two years that there has been famine in the land, and there are still five years to come in which there shall be no yield from tilling. God has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival on earth, and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance…” [*Genesis 45:5-7]

In other words, if they not had not acted duplicitously and malevolently, Joseph would never have ended up in a position of power where he could aid his family.

Many years ago, while I was in rabbinical school, I completed a summer unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at the Louisville VA. At the door of the VA’s chapel, there was a poem by an unknown soldier from the Civil War. The short poem read as follows:

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve . . .
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do greater things . . .
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy . . .
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men . . .
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life . . .
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for—but everything I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among all men, most richly blessed![2]

This poem has stayed with me since I first read it, serving as a reminder to always look for a silver lining and grow from all moments in life.

Perhaps, Rebbetzin Dena Weinberg (z”l) of Aish HaTorah put it most succinctly: “There are no problems, only opportunities for growth.”

In a few days it will be 2026. In this new year, Bizrat HaShem, with God’s help, may we resolve and challenge ourselves to look at situations, and indeed life itself, more positively, to find silver linings no matter how dark the storm clouds, and to seek out opportunities for growth.