On Sunday I’m flying to Israel, my third trip since October 7. This time I’m leading a solidarity mission with members of our Wise family.
We have three primary goals: 1) bearing witness to the atrocities, the stories of those who lost their lives, those who survived, and those who are still in captivity; 2) providing support through our presence, our labor, and our tzedakah; and 3) learning as much as we can about the current situation including possible ways forward that would include the return of the remaining hostages and the removal of the Hamas terrorist regime.
A few friends have asked me why I keep traveling to a war-zone. Generally one would endeavor to flee from a place of hostility and danger instead of the other way around. But that’s not true when we’re family. What wouldn’t you do for a family member? Most of us, I’m sure, would fly to the ends of the earth for a child, sibling, parent, or best friend. We’d make a loan, provide money for bail, donate blood for certain and probably an organ or two. That’s what we do for family and that’s why I’m going back.
This week’s Torah portion reminds us of the sacrifices we make for family and, sometimes, the sacrifices our family makes for the larger community. The parasha is named for Moses’s father-in-law, Yitro, who shares excellent advice to his son-in-law, encouraging him to delegate responsibility more so that he won’t tire himself out and be unable to fulfill his mission of bringing the Israelites to freedom.
Rabbi Michelle Fisher, the director of the MIT Hillel, notices one of the leadership tensions on display in this week’s parasha. Moses’s duties to Am Yisrael interfere with his duties to his spouse and children. It’s clear from the narrative that his work in Egypt freeing the Jewish People from bondage has taken him away from his wife, Tziporah, and his children, Gershom and Eliezer.
Each year when we return to our people’s master story, no matter how many times we’ve read it, something is different. We have changed. The world has changed. We see the story from a new perspective. This year, I’m thinking about that tension between what we’d do for our family and what we’d do for our people in light of a profound discussion happening in Israel today about the goal of returning the hostages and the goal of removing Hamas from power. There is a robust debate happening now about whether these two goals are somehow mutually exclusive. That is, in order to return the hostages quickly, we might need to leave Hamas in power for longer or even indefinitely. On the other hand, the swift military removal of Hamas might, God forbid, result in harm to the hostages.
It’s a terrible situation to find ourselves in. There is no elegant solution that I can see, just different not-so-great options. Ideally, we could rescue the hostages and remove the terrorists from the power in a fashion that would result in zero civilian casualties and no deaths or injuries on the side of the IDF soldiers. But clearly that is not possible.
Ultimately, the best we can do I think is endeavor with all our might to be there for our family, our people, and—more broadly—for our extended family which of course includes all people everywhere. These circles of concern mean that we start with our immediate family, the hostages, the survivors, the families of those who have suffered the ultimate loss, and our extended family in Israel that has experienced unspeakable trauma.
The way forward is fraught. The choices before us are difficult and painful. But we will do our best to make them wisely. We have no other choice. We’re family.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoshi