When I was growing up, there were two photographs that hung side by side on the wall of our dining room. One was of a vast field of white snow. Against the backdrop of that barren expanse, in the bottom left corner of the photograph, one could make out the small, dark figures of a family huddled together for warmth. The other was of an empty city street at night. Against the black-gray backdrop of that desolate urban landscape, in the top left corner of the photograph, blinked the flickering light of an old neon sign. “Notice,” my mother would remind me, “how — in the face of overwhelming cold — your eye is drawn to the place of warmth and human connection. Notice, how — in the face of overwhelming darkness — your eye is drawn to the point of light.”

I’ve been thinking about my mother’s reminder... As an amateur photographer herself, she was actually interested in the composition of the photographs, and the experience they elicited in the observer. But she was also, of course, saying something much broader about the human condition. Let your eye be drawn to the places of warmth, light, human connection. This is both a natural impulse, she wanted me to understand, but it is also a choice. And in this moment, it is an act of political and spiritual resistance.

This is what the people of Minnesota have been showing us all, have been teaching us all, over these last days and weeks. With daily acts of kindness and protection for neighbors. With well-organized, sustained and sustaining campaigns to provide food and shelter for those most vulnerable. With urgent calls for national solidarity efforts — to clergy, to businesses, to unions, to citizens from all walks of life.

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On Friday, hours before Shabbat began, I was arrested with 96 other multifaith clergy members and Faith in Minnesota leaders while protesting ICE in Minneapolis. “Who could have imagined such times as these?” we sang, in the words of local songmaker Sarina Partridge... Standing there among them, on erev shabbes in the cold, I thought about the Torah portion we would read the next morning in shul: parashat Bo, from the Book of Exodus. In it, the darkness of the ninth plague that befell the Egyptians is described as something that the oppressors—the mitzrim, which I’ll translate as “the ones of narrowed sight”—could actually touch. It was so thick that it kept them isolated from each other, unable to move. In contrast, the dwellings of those seeking liberation were full of light.

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Avot D’Rebbe Natan says, “If you have a sapling in your hand, and someone says to you that the Messiah has come, complete the planting, and then go greet the Messiah.” 

But why would we need to plant trees if the Messiah is here? I think this text is saying that we have a role to play in redemption: with what our hands and hearts nurture to grow... In times like these, it helps me to remember that redemption can start with something as simple as planting seeds. 

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In our Torah portion, the Song of the Sea is preceded by silence, when Moses tells the children of Israel to be quiet (Exodus 14:15). The midrash also probes the question of when to sing and when to refrain: the angels wish to burst out in song to celebrate the Exodus and the miracle at the sea, only to be shushed by God. In one version (Sanhedrin 39b), God questions how the angels can sing when human beings, the Egyptians, are dying. In another one (Shemot Rabba), God asks how they can sing when the Israelites are in trouble.

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This winter, Jewish educators are invited to challenge their thinking and deepen their practice through a short, innovative, online course offered by MaTaRoT: Hebrew College's Center for Jewish Professional Learning & Leadership. “Our newest short course, taught by talented educator Rabbi Batya Ellinoy`23 (right), focuses on weaving Jewish wisdom into our everyday lives to support and nurture our well-being and resilience — something we all could use as we care for our learners and ourselves in our sacred work as Jewish educators,” says Susan Morrel, Director of Field Experience and Senior Advisor in Jewish Education.

Watch a video introduction to Rabbi Ellinoy's course...