Parashat Yitro - I Will Be Welcoming

 This week has been focused on last Shabbat hostage situation. It was also a week of covid tests for travel and hugging friends for the first time in two years. 

I drove Keren back to DC between the snow storms Sunday and Monday. Sean and I arrived home late last night, and he left again this morning. Jesse made the challah dough and we shaped it together. Jesse wanted to make a shofar calling out at Sinai. For me it is a call to come together, to stand against our enemies. This Shabbat, Jews around the world will gather in synagogue, in person, to say we are not afraid. Anna Salton Eisen, a founder of Beth Israel in Colleyville, said she will not be afraid. Instead, she said, “ I feel, really, better.’ Because I know that if I’m in trouble, they’re coming to help me.” I thank Ms Eisen for her words.

Simple braids can illustrate the interconnectedness of us all. 

At Har Sinai we gathered to see the thunder and hear the lightening, cascading down our challah. Whatever your thoughts on revelation at Sinai, Jews have a collective memory of a mystical event, and event that changed us a people. Last shabbat, and every trauma, changes us more. But we will gather again. We will gather in defiance. We will gather in love. We will stand strong in the face of fear and of hatred. We will go on into the future.

We have been besieged by covid for two years. I will not be besieged by fear. I pledge to continue to welcome the stranger, as Rabbi Cytron-Walker did and promised to do again. 

There is so much more to say, but Shabbat is almost upon us. I wish you a particularly peaceful Shabbat, in company of others if possible. And, if you need a hug, I have had three negative covid tests. In the meantime, I send you a virtual one.

Shabbat shalom.