Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

Our Torah reading for this Shabbat begins with Moses gathering the People of Israel and proclaiming, “You stand this day, all of you, before the ETERNAL your God… to enter into the covenant with the Eternal, your God.” What follows—although not described explicitly in the Torah—is a ceremony reaffirming the covenant that God made with the Israelites forty years earlier at Mount Sinai.

Midrash Tanchuma, a rabbinic work dating to the 6th century CE, notes that the word for “stand” shares a linguistic root with the word “pillar,” and therefore declares, “Moses made them into a pillar.” What could that mean? Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (19th‑century Germany) explains that this hints that all Jews, from the most modest in stature to the most prominent in status, form the true foundation and enduring strength of the Jewish people. Leaders may come and go, he writes, but the real pillars of Judaism are the members of Jewish communities in every place and time. It is our responsibility to remain faithful to this covenant from generation to generation.

In these troubled times, with antisemitism and hatred of Israel on the rise in the United States and around the world, how can we—ordinary Jews—rise to the challenges of our own moment? How can each of us be a pillar of the community?

Antisemites seek to marginalize Jews and drive us from the public sphere. We can respond by living Judaism joyously and openly; by gathering in community and celebrating; by supporting, without apology, the right of a Jewish state to exist; by calling out antisemitism and hatred wherever we encounter them; by educating ourselves about Judaism and about Israel; and by building alliances and friendships with our fellow Americans who work to “banish hatred and bigotry, and to safeguard the ideals and free institutions that are the pride and glory of our country.”

Shabbat Shalom.