Parshat Behar
SERMON PARASHAT BEHAR MAY 22, 2025
Rabbi David Edleson Temple Sinai South Burlington, Vermont
1. What was your first thought when you heard about the killings? Be honest.
2. What is your fear level when you come to Jewish events these days?
I first read about the murder of Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26 late Wednesday night when it came across my Instagram feed. I’m not proud of my first reaction. I read a sentence or two and then kept scrolling. I didn’t want to deal. Instead of sadness, I felt something like irritation that here we are again. After a minute or so, I scrolled back up and read some more, but even then, I am ashamed to say I felt mostly numb. I didn’t think to send out something until late yesterday afternoon a reporter asked me if we were having a vigil.
I fear many of us are developing a bit of numbness. After Pittsburgh, and October 7, and October 8, and City Hall, and Poway, and the situation on some college campuses, not to mention the devastation in Gaza and the divisions inside Israel, Jews and those in our community are tired and a bit numb. It’s natural to develop a bit of a callous. It feels like a survival mechanism.
I know I’ve experienced this before, when I was much younger and people in my gay community started dying from AIDS. At first, each time we heard it was a gut punch, but after a while, you just learned to nod, shake your head and keep moving. But here’s the thing: those feelings that we ignore don’t disappear; they find ways of coming back in unexpected ways and at inopportune times. Mine came back in the form of panic attacks and unexpected attacks of sobbing. Others went to drugs, or cults, or just turned into bitter people. That latter is what I worry about most.
We don’t want to be bitter, and it can be hard not to be sometimes. But I don’t believe the world needs more bitter old Jews.
The Torah teaches us that we sometimes need to tear away the callous that grows over our hearts because of hardship. In a beautiful echo of this week’s Torah portion, in Deuteronomy, Moses says that “The earth and all that is it in it belong to God, but even so, God chooses to love us. Therefore, tear away the callous that is on your hearts and stiffen your necks no more.”
I decided to read more about Sarah and Yaron. Sarah grew up in a Reform temple in Kansas City, was very active in her Hillel in College, and after college did an internship in Israel with an organization called Tech2Peace that worked to create dialogue and connection between Jews and Palestinians in the High Tech Industry. When she came back to the US, she became involved with the AJC, The American Jewish Committee. She began working at the Israeli Embassy shortly after October 7.
That’s where she met Yaron, who was born in German, but whose family moved to Israel, where he served in the IDF before coming to the US to build a career in diplomacy. Yaron’s dad is Jewish but his mother is Christian, and Yaron was Christian. He and his family were part of a Messianic Jewish Congregation in Jerusalem.
They were going to Israel next week so Sarah could meet Yaron’s family, and Yaron was going to propose. He had just bought the ring. They were in love.
Both of these young people were peace makers, and wanting to devote their lives to coexistence and to peace.
The event they were attending was the American Jewish Committee’s Annual Young Diplomats Reception. It brings together young Jewish professional in the DC area with young diplomats from across the globe. This year’s theme was “Turning Pain into Purpose” and focused on how humanitarian aid could better be provided in the countries in the Middle East and North Africa where they are so desperately needed.
This is who the terrorist shot repeatedly. When they came to arrest him, he shouted, “Free, Free Palestine.” He was a member of two radical pro-Palestinian groups and he had posted a manifesto saying that the activist slogan of “Bring the War Home” needed to be actualized.
While the press has focused on their work at the Israeli Embassy, it is far from clear that the killer knew that when he fired. He knew they were coming out of a Jewish sponsored event at a Jewish venue for young Jewish professionals. It could have been any of us, or our children living in DC, or another city in America.
While no one’s speech is directly responsible for brutal murders like this, it is also true that the rhetoric used by so many anti-Israel activists normalizes the idea that killing Jews is ok.
Intifada Revolution means killing Jews.
Honor the Martyrs celebrates killing Jews.
From the River to the Sea entails killing huge numbers of Jews.
You can’t call for the dismantling of the Jewish state and think that is going to stay neatly in the lines of non-violence. How could it?
Given the long history and deeply rooted nature of antisemitism in Western society, how could it be? Over and over again through our history, leaders have given speeches blaming the Jews for all sort of things, riling up the masses, and then when it turns violent, they shrug and say they didn’t mean people should actually be violent. They abhor violence and had just being speaking metaphorically. This is how blood libel works.
Violent rhetoric creates violent acts. Violent rhetoric gives permission, even inspires violence. It incites violence, especially against a group like Jews, or like Blacks, or like LGBT people against whom there is a long-standing cultural animus.
When the Jewish community expresses our concerns, we are dismissed as exaggerating, or of bringing it on ourselves, and of using antisemitism to limit free speech. I am all for free speech, but when mobs of people are marching around espousing violence and dehumanizing one group of people that has long been victim to violence, we should respect them enough to take them at their word.
And people of good conscience who want to support Palestinian rights and nationhood have a duty to ask those they are allied with to cool down the rhetoric and find slogans that don’t celebrate murder. After all, that is what they are calling Israel out on.
It can be exhausting being Jewish these days. Between all the holidays and hate, I get tired. I still haven’t quite recovered from Passover. But you know what brings me back up? You. Jews. I love Jews, even bitter old Jews We are funny, and strong, and smart . We are too stubborn to give up. We are a people that knows how to survive and thrive in the face of hate, and we have never been stronger than we are today.
Israelis also help tear the callous off my heart. The ones out protesting month after month, the young people who showed up in masses to defend the country, the people who jumped into action to help one another in a crisis when the government was missing in action. Their ability to still dance and enjoy life in the midst of all of this.
And Shabbat is designed to help tear the callous off our hearts. It is a time to push the news of the world away for 24 hours, and step into relationships, into prayer, into study, and into reflection. Shabbat invites us to feel and Jewish joy in the face of attacks is one of the most brilliant protests against hate ever envisioned. WE lean into the joy of life to remind us why life is so precious.
So tonight we mourn, but we also celebrate who we are and our commitment to find meaning and joy in this life, so help us God. We choose life.
Shabbat Shalom.
David
