This week’s Torah portion is Vayak’hel, “And he gathered,” which recounts Moses gathering together the Israelite community to begin the work of building the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary. I was blessed to experience my own “gathering” this week in Atlanta with the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. Due to both the pandemic and then the movement-wide convention in 2022, this was the first time we’d had our rabbinic gathering since 2017. It was our largest one ever, with over 140 colleagues from across North America, Europe and Israel. I am slightly biased, but I have to say that my Reconstructionist colleagues are among the most thoughtful, kind, and hilarious people on the planet. We engaged in difficult and meaningful conversation about Israel/Palestine, learned from one another about topics from divorce to artificial intelligence to anti-racism, danced and sang together, and much much more. It was truly a nourishing, inspiring time together.
One of the most poignant moments for me was attending a workshop with my friend and colleague, Rabbi Donna Kirschbaum, who has visited CDT in the past to discuss her work with the Israeli peace organization Women Wage Peace. Donna was a dear friend of Vivian Silver, a longtime Israeli activist for peace and justice who was murdered on October 7 in her home on Kibbutz Be'eri. Donna paid tribute to her friend, somehow managing to share the depth of her pain at Vivian's horrifying demise while refusing to dehumanize those who perpetrated the crime. She spoke of Vivian’s commitment to taking concrete action whenever a problem posed itself, and her refusal to ever be dissuaded from her work.
In the words that another friend of Vivian’s, Shifra Bronznick, shared after her death: “Vivian would be passionately advocating for peace right now…She never gave up on bridge-building. She never gave up on making change. She never gave up on people… She always focused on people, children, what motivated them, what meant something to them.” I encourage all who are interested to learn more about Vivian’s life (you can do so here) and the organizations she helped found, including Women Wage Peace, which – along with its Palestinian sister organization, Women of the Sun – has been nominated for this year’s Nobel Prize.
In Vivian’s spirit, I am proud that our movement joined this week with the other members of the Progressive Israel Network (including T’ruah, New Israel Fund, J Street, Americans for Peace Now, and more) in a statement to the Biden administration, saying “We firmly believe that there is no military solution to this conflict; the only future for Israelis and Palestinians is a shared future; and we must raise up, not shut down, our shared humanity in this moment. To that end, we, members of the Progressive Israel Network, stand together in support of your efforts to seek a viable path out of this nightmare — a bilateral ceasefire that brings a stop to fighting, a release of all hostages, and a surge in humanitarian assistance. We also turn to you for further leadership in laying out a plan for peace, security, freedom, and self-determination for all.” You can see the full text of the statement here.
With blessings of Shabbat peace, and in honor the power of "gathering" together for the sake of continuing the work that Vivian and her counterparts in the Israeli and Palestinian communities are so dedicated to,
