From the Rabbi's Desk

I begin this article with a personal prerogative: Happy Birthday Ayelet. Today is her 16^th birthday and I could not be more delighted and prouder to have the honor to celebrate her. The פרשה/portion this week, וירא/Vayera, was her פרשה for her בת מצוה/Bat Mitzvah and it’s one she and I have always enjoyed debating at length and looking more deeply into its messages. One of the most admirable qualities Ayelet has is her hunger for justice and her inability to accept our world as it is. When injustice shows its ugly self, we can either accept it or fight against it. The sad fact is that as we age, we become more accepting of the flaws of our world and less steadfast in our convictions that the world must do better. We become cynics, and in our cynicism, we abdicate our responsibility and obligations to others.

In בראשית יח:יז/Genesis 18:17 God asked if God could hide from אברהם/Avraham what was about to happen. The question was being asked about the cities of סדם and עמרה/Sodom and Gomorrah and their impending destruction. God told אברהם/Abraham about the plans and אברהם immediately challenged God: Abraham came forward and said, “Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty? What if there should be fifty innocent within the city; will You then wipe out the place and not forgive it for the sake of the innocent fifty who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty, so that innocent and guilty fare alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” (בראשית יח:כג – כה) The audacity to question God is something that cannot be lost on us. The fight that אברהם engaged in was a losing battle. After negotiating for some time, he managed to persuade God to not destroy the towns if 10 righteous people could be found and 10 such people were not found. We must see this urge to fight for justice is ingrained in our Jewish DNA. This example is one of the earliest and the legacy is alive and well.

Towards the end of the תורה/Torah we find the critical commandment: צדק צדק תרדוף/Justice Justice you shall pursue. (דברים טז:כ) These words have always been a driving force of our people. I had a professor in Rabbinical School who would say time and again that the תלמוד/Talmud is obsessed with capital J Justice. We, as a people, are constantly looking for a just world. We’re constantly putting justice ahead of so many other values and needs. We’re caught in this mad pursuit of justice that’s a deep source of strength for our people. In בראשית רבה לט:ו we learn that God loved אברהם because of this fight. “Rabbi Azarya in the name of Rabbi Aḥa began: ‘You love righteousness and abhor wickedness. Because of this, God, your God, has anointed you over your counterparts with the oil of joy’ (Psalms 45:8). Rabbi Azarya interpreted the verse regarding Abraham. When our forefather Abraham arose to seek mercy for the Sodomites…” It’s incumbent upon all of us to look at the world around us and see what needs to be repaired and what needs our love and care and advocacy.

I began by wishing Ayelet a happy birthday and I conclude by expressing my gratitude to her for always pushing me to be better and to fight for a better world. What I accept through complicity, she rejects with all of her being. We all need to be more like אברהם and fight for justice. We all need to look for the chance to make our world better for other people.

Our new Reimagining OVS Team is hard at work and we look forward to watching as our newly formed Social Action and Chesed Team begins its work for our community to follow in the footsteps of אברהם. Please be on the lookout for regular updates from the Reimagining OVS Team in our eblasts.