Fully Human: Us and Them
Let’s be clear: our prayers matter. Our voices matter. It may not be making the same headlines, not with the same urgency, but we are no less committed to bringing our family home. Seventy-nine beloved souls are still being held hostage in Gaza. We want them home. Now. Let’s talk Torah — but let’s not leave behind the most important action we can take on their behalf. Our hearts. Our mobilization. Our refusal to let the world look away. Until the very last hostage is home. They are the ones in our eyes. They are the ones we wear on our hearts. They are the ones for whom we pray, without distraction, without ceasing.
This week, we read Parashat Beshalach — the story of our redemption. We are reminded 36 times in the Torah, more than any other mitzvah, that the Exodus is meant to shape our moral vision. We know the soul of the stranger because we, too, have been strangers. (see Ex. 23:9 for one example)
Judaism’s history of exile and marginalization is a mandate for empathy and solidarity. Zionism, at its core, stands against xenophobia, racism, and all forms of hatred. It is a movement for dignity, for safety — not only for ourselves but for all.
Yes, there are relentless attacks on Israel’s legitimacy. Yes, antisemitism is on the rise. We will fight with fierceness as long as it takes to stamp out these hatreds. But our pursuit of our own dignity must never come at the expense of another’s. That’s not how this works. Zionism is not the claim that only we deserve a home — it is the demand that all people deserve a place to belong, to see every human as fully human.
This is why we fight. Not because we long to fight, but because we long for a world where we no longer need to. A world where our full energy can be devoted to justice, to kindness, to lifting others up.
And so, I ask you: Do not relent. Do not give any ground on Jewish dignity. The right to be fully human, with a home, with a future, with our Torah in our hands and our hearts wide open.
My daughter landed in Israel this morning. She sent a picture from the arrivals hall at Ben Gurion Airport with one Hebrew word: חזרתי — “I have returned.” She carries me in her eyes, and I see her in mine.
And in this moment, I refuse to close my eyes to the rest of the world. We cannot — must not — entertain the idea that only we matter. Erasing the dignity of Palestinians because of the devastating pain their leaders have caused me, us, my family, my homeland — that is not who we have ever been, nor who can allow ourselves to become.
We assert that our lives matter, our families matter, our hostages matter — not at the expense of others, but in concert with the dignity of all people. Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze, Bedouin — we are all bound together, in the eyes of tunnels who murdered these souls indiscriminately and dragged them into tunnels. But we are all bound together in a shared and full measure of humanity too. That’s what justice looks like.
This is what it means to cross the sea together, as we do inthis week’s Parasha. To refuse to leave anyone behind.
On this 489th day of captivity, on this day when we still reel from the trauma of our people being slaughtered, we must not slow down in our pursuit of justice. And we must not forget the humanity that is meant to animate it all.
We have come too far to be anything less than fully human.
So I bless you, friends, to feel this truth to your core. To be fierce in your pursuit of universal dignity. To demand the return of every hostage, without diminishing the dignity of another.
Because when their story gets better, our story gets better.
And isn’t that the dream? That every human being gets to be home?
May we never stop pursuing that world. And may we see it speedily, in our days.
