Bikers, Betach, and the Blessing We All Need

The roar of motorcycles shattered the quiet desert air just before Shabbat.

A gang of burly Israeli bikers rolled into the parking lot of a small field school near Midreshet Sde Boker. Leather jackets, dusty boots, tough faces. Not exactly the crowd you expect to encounter at a peaceful Shabbat retreat. Later that night, they entered the communal dining room wearing jeans and t-shirts. One biker stood up, filled a cup with wine, and the others followed his lead. Then, almost in unison, they each took the folded pink dinner napkins from the table and carefully placed them on their heads as makeshift kippot.

And then they made Kiddush.

My friend leaned over to his wife and whispered, “I think that’s the holiest Kiddush I’ve ever heard.”

That scene captures something deeply Israeli and deeply Jewish: the difference between betach and keri, between confident Jewish identity and cold, disconnected Judaism.

Parshat Bechukotai presents these two radically different ways to live.

The first comes from the verses of blessing. “Vi’shavtem la’vetach b’artzechem - And you shall dwell securely in your land.” But the tochacha, the curses, later warns of a second possibility. If we walk with God with keri, that’s how God will treat us.  

Keri is a difficult word to translate. The Sages associate it with kar, coldness. Others connect it to mikreh, happenstance, coincidence, randomness. A Judaism of keri is hesitant and unrooted. It lacks warmth, confidence, and certainty. Jewish identity becomes something occasional rather than essential.

Betach is the opposite. Betach means secure, confident, rooted. Not simplistic or naïve, but clear about who we are and where we belong.

I think about this distinction when I remember my encounters with the late Aryeh Ben Yaakov, who was the gruff, no-nonsense spokesperson for Kibbutz Misgav Am. Perched directly on Israel’s northern border, Misgav Am is not a place for illusions. The dangers are visible to the naked eye, and sadly it has been in the news again in the recent fighting with Hizbollah.

Aryeh made aliyah from Cleveland in 1961 at age twenty-one. After serving as a paratrooper in the IDF, he built his life on the kibbutz and spent decades speaking passionately to visitors about Israel and the Jewish people. Aryeh never liked talking much about himself. But he spoke unapologetically about Israel. “Why do I live in Israel? I’m Jewish. This is home for the Jewish people. It’s a miracle. It’s wonderful. Israel is Jew Land. Whenever you come, we’ll be ready for you.”

No squishiness. No embarrassment. No apologetics. Betach.

That confidence does not come because Israel is easy. Israel is messy. Jewish life is messy. There are political divisions, religious tensions, moral complexities, and painful realities. But the Torah never promises neatness. It promises betach.

The Midrash explains the verse: “In your land you will dwell securely, but outside the land you will not dwell securely.” These words resonate deeply in the world around us. The diaspora doesn’t feel as secure as it used to. But is Israel all that secure? Safer than the diaspora?

Perhaps the Midrash means something deeper. Only in Israel does Judaism become fully natural. Outside Israel, Jewish life often requires resistance against the surrounding culture. We build extraordinary schools, shuls, camps, and communities, but it still takes effort to swim against the current. In Israel, Judaism saturates ordinary life. The calendar is Jewish. The language is Jewish. The streets are Jewish. Even secular Israelis often carry Judaism instinctively and organically.

That is why only in Israel can a gang of bikers stop everything Friday night to make Kiddush. Because somewhere deep inside, Judaism still feels natural. And maybe that is why one of the most common Israeli responses to almost any question is simply: “Betach!” Will the plumber come tomorrow? Betach! Will things somehow work out? Betach! Will Am Yisrael survive the latest challenges and threats? Betach! It is not always rational. Sometimes it is completely unrealistic. But it reflects a national posture of rooted Jewish confidence.

And that is precisely what our generation desperately needs.

We live in an age of Jewish keri, anxiety, cynicism, detachment, and coldness. Many Jews feel uncertain not only about Israel, but about Judaism itself. Everything feels tentative and conditional. People are afraid to speak clearly, believe deeply, or stand proudly. The Torah warns us what happens when Jewish life becomes cold and accidental, but it also offers another possibility: Betach.

We must strive to live as Jews with warmth instead of cynicism, with conviction instead of embarrassment, and with rootedness instead of drift. To believe that Torah matters, Israel matters, the Jewish people matter, and that humanity created in the image of God is still worth believing in. Not because life is easy. Not because every question has a simple answer. But because Judaism was never meant to be lived accidentally.

We need to create homes where Judaism feels joyful and natural; to bring warmth into our observance instead of robotic routine; and to say “yes” more often to Jewish opportunities. Most importantly, we must refuse to live Jewish lives of keri, cold, distant, and disconnected.

The future of the Jewish people has never been built by Jews who lived accidentally. It has always been built by Jews who lived betach. Betach in who we are. Betach in our mission. Betach in our future.

Betach always wins.

Did You Count Today? Did Today Count?

Are you still in it?

Today is 29 days, 4 weeks and one day, of the Omer.

Counting the Omer between Pesach and Shavuot might be the closest thing we have a to a mitzvah “marathon.” Some people get all psyched up for it with creative strategies of how to keep counting daily – move the watch o the other hand, online alert, posted notes everywhere. Others, knowing their limitations, give up before it gets started.

Obviously, I am a proponent of counting. We all should be in it to win it. At the same time, sefirat ha-omer presents a religious conundrum. We try our best, but we’re not perfect. Judaism believes in second chances – today is Pesach Sheini, the make-up date for those who missed the first Pesach.

Why all the Omer pressure? What really happens if you miss a day?

Halakhically, the answer is straightforward. If you forget to count at night, you can still count during the day without a beracha and then continue the next night with a beracha. But if you miss an entire day, you keep counting, just without the blessing.

Behind that practice lies a deceptively complex and fundamental dispute.

The Halakhot Gedolot focuses on the Torah’s phrase “sheva shabbatot temimot - seven complete weeks.” The period of the Omer is one integrated whole. Miss a day, and the structure is compromised. Like a Torah scroll missing a single letter, the entire effort is no longer complete.

R. Hai Gaon, however, sees each day differently. “Count fifty days” means fifty distinct mitzvot. Miss one day? You’ve lost that opportunity but nothing more. Tomorrow still stands, untouched and intact.

The halakhah preserves both views. If we miss a day, we continue counting (like R. Hai Gaon), but without a beracha (out of concern for the Halakhot Gedolot). This isn’t compromise. It’s a contradiction the halakha refuses to resolve because it’s describing the way a Jew is meant to live in time.

There are two ways to experience a life. You can live it as a whole, or you can live it as a series of moments. Judaism demands both at the same time.

The Halakhot Gedolot forces us to see the big picture. Our life is not a collection of disconnected days. It is a single unfolding mission. Every moment matters because it contributes to something larger than itself. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch taught that redemption is only a beginning, never an end. What matters is not the moment of inspiration, but what we build from it. A life only becomes meaningful when its pieces form something whole.

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik describes Jewish existence as standing at the intersection of past and future. Counting creates continuity. It transforms time from a blur into a direction. This is why the Omer demands temimut, wholeness. Not perfection or flawlessness but continuity. A life that adds up.

And yet, R. Hai Gaon pushes back.

Don’t hide behind the big picture because the only place your life actually happens is today. Missed yesterday? That matters, but it doesn’t define you. Judaism is not all-or-nothing. It does not allow a single failure to collapse the entire structure of your life. Every day is its own arena. Every day is its own calling. The Omer is not just a long journey; it is 49 separate opportunities to stop drifting and start choosing.

That’s why this period became associated with inner work. There is a tradition of linking each day to Kabbalistic sefirot, the various ways God can be experienced in this world. It isn’t about mysticism for its own sake; it’s about discipline. Focus. Growth that is specific, not abstract. Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira taught that even without mastering Kabbalah, a person can approach each day with intention: refine a trait, repair a relationship, take one step forward. Not someday. Not in theory. Today.

And this is where the Omer becomes uncomfortable.

Because most of us don’t live this way. We wait for big moments. Big decisions. Big inspiration. A life, however, is not built in dramatic leaps; it’s built in ordinary days that we usually ignore. The Omer refuses to let us ignore them. It demands that we notice time. Name it. Count it. And once we count something, we can no longer pretend it doesn’t matter.

The Rav writes that a truly free person is one who can “weave every thread of time into a glorious fabric.” A slave survives the day. A free person uses it. Freedom is not about what we escape; it’s about what we build. What we build is determined by what we do with an ordinary Tuesday, a forgettable Wednesday, a night when no one is watching and nothing is demanded.

The halakhic tension now becomes clear. A missed day matters, but it doesn’t get the last word. Life must be held together as a whole, but it is lived one day at a time. We are accountable for continuity, and we are responsible for today.

So the question of the Omer is not technical. It’s existential. It is not Did you count? But Did this day count? It is not Did the day pass? But Did you use it?

Because if we string together enough days that don’t count, eventually, our life won’t either. And if we learn to count them - really count them - then slowly, almost imperceptibly, a life of purpose begins to take shape.

Keep counting!

Not Good PR, Good Jews: Kiddush Hashem Today

Is it good for the Jews or bad for the Jews? Does it make Jews look good or make Jews look bad?

We often judge actions, behaviors, and, especially, headlines through this prism.

I remember in elementary school, our teacher would tell us to behave on our trip to the museum since people will judge all Jews based on how we behaved. That’s a lot of pressure on a 7-year-old!

Being the “Chosen People” means having a unique responsibility. God gave us the Torah which includes the mission of being a light unto the nations. In particular, the Torah commands us to create Kiddush Hashem, sanctify God’s name in the world, while avoiding Chillul Hashem, desecrating God’s name.

We’ve gotten used to speaking about Kiddush Hashem and Chillul Hashem in the language of optics.

When Jews act nobly, it’s a Kiddush Hashem. We’ve made Judaism look good. When Jews act badly, it’s a Chillul Hashem. We’ve given Judaism a black eye. There’s truth in that. But if that’s all it is, then Kiddush Hashem becomes a kind of religious public relations strategy. And that is simply not how Judaism treats it.

The Talmud (Yoma 86a) gives a definition that is both simple and unsettling. It does not speak about headlines or global perception. It speaks about how a Jew lives. If a person learns Torah, speaks pleasantly, conducts business honestly, people say, “Fortunate is his teacher…this is Torah.” That is Kiddush Hashem. If not, that is Chillul Hashem. Rambam goes even further. For someone identified as a Torah Jew, even behavior that is technically permissible but ethically off can constitute Chillul Hashem. The bar is not legality; it is moral refinement.

In other words, the metric is not: What story is being told about us? The metric is: What kind of people are we?

We are living in a moment the Talmud or Rambam never had to imagine. Today, Jews and the State of Israel live under a magnifying glass. A single act, even by a fringe individual or group, can become a global headline within hours. There is intense scrutiny, not always fair, often selective, sometimes deeply biased.

So, we find ourselves pulled in two directions. On one hand, we feel the need to defend, to say: this is not who we are, this is not representative, this is a distortion. And that instinct is correct. But on the other hand, there is a temptation to minimize, deflect, or even avoid criticism altogether because “airing our dirty laundry” only makes things worse. And here is where we must be careful. If our primary concern is how Jews are perceived, we have already shifted the conversation away from Torah and toward optics.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks often returned to a simple but demanding idea: Judaism is a religion of responsibility, not victimhood. Yes, we are sometimes judged unfairly. Yes, there are double standards. But none of that lowers the bar. If anything, it raises it. Kiddush Hashem is not achieved when we successfully manage perception. It is achieved when we embody integrity - especially when it is difficult, especially when no one applauds, and especially when the world is watching with a critical eye.

Rabbi Yehuda Amital spoke with particular urgency about this in the context of a sovereign Jewish state. For most of Jewish history, we did not have power. Now we do. And power introduces new religious challenges. When Jews are powerless, the primary test is survival with faith. When Jews have power, the test becomes what do we do with it. Rav Amital insisted that moral failures by Jews - especially in positions of power - must be confronted honestly. Not because of what the nations will say, but because of what those actions do to us.

The danger is not only Chillul Hashem in the headlines. The deeper danger is Chillul Hashem in the soul of the people.

Should we criticize our own? There is a real concern that repeated public criticism can feed distorted narratives. It can make it seem as though Jewish wrongdoing is more widespread than it is. It can unintentionally strengthen those who already seek to delegitimize. But the alternative - silence, denial, or reflexive defensiveness - is not the Torah way either. The prophets of Israel were the fiercest critics of the Jewish people. Not because they wanted better press, but because they wanted better people.

The key distinction is not whether we criticize, but how and why. Criticism must be truthful, not exaggerated, not generalized. It must be rooted in Torah values, not in the desire for approval. It must be directed inward toward growth, accountability, and change. There is a difference between moral clarity and performative condemnation.

There’s a story told about a rabbi who was once approached by a congregant upset about how Jews were being portrayed negatively in the media. “What should we do?” the person asked. “How do we respond to this Chillul Hashem?” The rabbi paused and said, “The best response is to ensure that in your business, in your home, in how you treat people, you are the opposite of what they are describing.”

Not a press release. Not a campaign. A life. Because at the end of the day, the most powerful Kiddush Hashem is not a statement; it is a human being.

We must learn to live with a certain tension. We need to firmly reject false generalizations and unfair narratives and, at the same time, to take full responsibility for real wrongdoing. We need to defend our people and, at the same time, to demand more from our people. We recognize that not every act represents Judaism and, at the same time, to insist that every act by a Jew still matters.

It is also true and important that countless acts of goodness go unnoticed. Quiet acts of kindness. Ethical restraint. Compassion in moments of conflict. Everyday decency. Part of Kiddush Hashem today is to live those values consistently and to make sure they are not invisible. Not as propaganda, but as truth. As a fuller, more honest picture of who we are.

Kiddush Hashem is not about controlling what the world thinks of Jews; it is about ensuring that when people encounter Jews, they encounter something that reflects God.

Sometimes that will be recognized. Sometimes it won’t. But the question we have to ask ourselves is not: “Did this make us look good?” The question is: “Was this good?”

If we only care about Chillul Hashem when others notice, we have already misunderstood it. And if we live lives of integrity - quietly, consistently, courageously, then even in an age of headlines, we will be doing what Jews have always been called to do: To sanctify God’s name not by managing perception, but by embodying it.

The Sound of Sirens

There is a sound that stops a country.

The siren is a raw sound, piercing, unadorned, impossible to ignore. In Israel, it does something remarkable: It creates silence. Twice within the span of a week, the siren wails across the land - on Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron. Highways halt. Conversations cease. An entire nation stands suspended between past and present, between memory and motion. And then, almost without transition, that same nation rises into the celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut.

The emotional whiplash is real, but perhaps the siren is the thread that holds it all together.

The practice of a siren to focus attention traces its roots back to World War I, when a businessman in Cape Town proposed a moment of silence to honor fallen soldiers. The idea spread across the British Empire and eventually made its way to pre-state Israel, where British-installed air-raid sirens became, after independence, instruments not only of warning but of memory. At first, they were used sparingly: when the remains of Herzl were brought to Israel, after a significant tragedy struck a kibbutz. But over time, something profound took shape. The same sirens once meant to signal danger were transformed into a national language of remembrance.

On Yom HaZikaron, the siren sounds for one minute at night, and two minutes the next morning. During those moments, Israel becomes still. Cars stop in the middle of highways. People stand at attention. Tears flow openly. It is not orchestrated; it is instinctive, communal, sacred.

But the story of sirens in Israel is more complicated today.

They are no longer only ceremonial. They are also urgent and sound far too often. Red alert sirens send families running to shelters. Ambulance sirens signal crisis. In recent times, the sound of the siren has become frighteningly routine. So much so that the tones of ambulance sirens had to be changed to avoid confusion.

For adults, the distinctions are painful but manageable. For children, they blur. A young boy hears a siren in his kindergarten on Yom HaShoah and is terrified, convinced it means danger, that he must run and hide. Only later does he learn that this siren is not about present fear, but past horror. Not about what might happen, but about what did.

Perhaps that confusion is not something to dismiss too quickly. Because in truth, the sirens of Israel are meant to hold both meanings at once. They are about danger and memory. About fear and dignity. About what has been lost and what still must be protected.

A siren is loud, but what it creates is silence. And in that silence, something begins to emerge.

This week, we read about tzara’at, the spiritual skin condition often translated as leprosy. It is a halakhic paradox that feels, at first glance, almost incomprehensible. A small patch of afflicted skin renders a person impure. But if the affliction spreads to cover the entire body - if it becomes total, the person is declared pure. How can this be?

The Maharal explains with a principle that feels almost counterintuitive: Sometimes, total collapse is not the deepening of brokenness; it is the end of it. When something is partially broken, it still clings to its previous form. It can be patched, perhaps, but it is still defined by its dysfunction. When something collapses entirely, however, when the old structure dissolves, it creates a kind of emptiness. And that emptiness is not void; it is possibility.

The Maharal reminds us that creation itself begins this way. Darkness precedes light. Tohu va’vohu, chaos, comes before creation. A seed must decay before it can grow. Redemption emerges not from stability, but from rupture.

This is what the siren captures. It is not a gentle sound. It does not comfort. It does not solve. It breaks. It pierces the routine of daily life and leaves, in its wake, a kind of emotional and spiritual exposure. For those two minutes, there is no distraction, no buffer. Just memory. Just loss. Just the unbearable weight of what has been.

Those moments do not end in silence alone. They lead somewhere. From the siren of Yom HaShoah, we carry the memory of absolute devastation - the kind that seemed total, consuming, and final. From the siren of Yom HaZikaron, we feel the ongoing cost of existence, the lives lost in defense of a state. Then, almost impossibly, we arrive at Yom Ha’atzmaut. Celebration does not erase the sirens; it emerges from them.

Like the metzora whose affliction has covered his entire body - who stands not as a deeper expression of impurity, but at the threshold of renewal, the Jewish people have known moments when brokenness felt complete. Those very moments, however, became the clearing from which something new could grow.

The siren is not only a memorial. It is a transition point. It forces a pause, a confrontation with the fullness of pain. And in doing so, it creates the conditions for something else to follow. Not immediately. Not easily. But inevitably. A people who can stand still together in grief can also rise together in hope.

The siren creates silence. But silence is not emptiness. It is an invitation for us to choose what to place inside those two minutes. Perhaps this year, when the siren sounds, we can be a little more intentional about what fills that stillness. To teach our children not only not to fear the sound, but to understand it, to know that this is what it means to belong to a people that remembers. To take a moment to say a name or to recall a story, a face, or a life that might otherwise blur into history. To reach out to someone for whom these days are not symbolic but personal, someone who carries loss not as memory but as daily reality. Perhaps most of all, we must allow the siren not only to stop us, but to shape us, to ask what it means to build a life, a community, a State worthy of the sacrifices we remember.

The siren will sound whether we are ready or not. When it fades, will we simply return to life as it was or will we carry something of that silence forward, and let it shape the way we live?

Let’s listen closely and choose wisely.

The Challah Holds the Key

Who’s ready for challah again?

This week, however, it comes with a key.

There’s something curious about the first Shabbat after Pesach. After a week without chametz, the challah returns, but in some homes, it looks different. It’s shaped like a key. Sometimes there’s even a key baked inside.

It’s the Shlissel Challah.

At first glance, it feels like a quaint custom. Maybe even a little strange. But like many minhagim, it carries a powerful message - especially for this moment: the day after the Festival of Freedom, when we transition from inspiration to responsibility,

The idea traces back to Sefer Yehoshua.

When the Jewish people entered the Land of Israel, something dramatic happened. The manna, the miraculous food that sustained them in the desert, stopped immediately after that first Pesach. As the verse says, “On the day after the Pesach…they ate from the produce of the land.”

From that moment on, everything changed. No more food from Heaven. Now there would be plowing, planting, building. We leave a world of open miracles and enter a world of effort, where we work, but Hashem opens the door.

Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heshel, the Apter Rebbe, explains that on Pesach, the “gates” are open. Spiritual growth comes easily. Connection flows. But after Pesach, those gates begin to close - not as a rejection, but as an invitation. Now it’s our move. We make a key to remind ourselves we don’t need to open everything. We just need to open a little - through mitzvot, through Shabbat, through small, consistent steps, and Hashem opens the rest.

Pesach was a gift. Now comes the hard part. That “key” isn’t only about opportunity; it’s about how we live.

Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda Teitelbaum noted that the Shabbat immediately after Pesach usually coincides with Parshat Shemini, which discusses kosher food. His message is what we eat - and how we conduct our physical lives - is itself the key to serving Hashem in every area. Others connect the key to parnasah, making a living. After Pesach, when the manna stopped, sustenance would come through effort - but only with Hashem’s blessing. The key becomes a quiet prayer: Open for us the gates of livelihood.

Different explanations. One idea. Life is back in our hands but not fully in our control.

It’s easy to misunderstand this custom. Bake a key, get blessing. But that misses the point. This isn’t magic. It’s mindset. We return to work after Pesach - back to schedules, pressures, responsibilities. It’s easy to slip into thinking: it’s all on me. The key interrupts that thought. We must put in our effort but don’t forget Who opens the gates.

On Pesach, we are meticulous. Every crumb matters. Every detail counts. And then Pesach ends, and the intensity fades. The Shlissel Challah quietly insists don’t let that disappear. Take some of that Pesach passion with you. Bring a little more intention into your week. A little more awareness into your routine. Open just a little.

Maybe it’s one small thing this week: a more focused blessing or prayer, an extra minute of learning, a bit more responsiveness in how we interact with people or simply pausing to remember Who really runs the outcome.

Pesach showed us what it feels like when everything is open. Shlissel Challah asks a simple question: What will we do now that it isn’t? The challah sits on the table like a key. Not magic. Not a shortcut. A reminder. We’re back in the world of effort, but the doors are still there.

Even beyond the Jewish world, this custom has drawn attention, becoming something of a modern trend. But long before anyone noticed it, the message was always the same: We don’t control everything, but we’re still holding a key.

This week don’t just eat the challah; use the key.

If You Want Something Done Right...

If you had a time machine and could go back to any moment in history, where would you go?

Some would choose Creation. Was it a Divine act or cosmic explosion? Others would stand at Sinai, hoping to witness revelation firsthand.

In the spirit of the holiday, I would choose one moment above all: Keriat Yam Suf, the splitting of the sea. Drama. Terror. Faith. Redemption. And, as the Midrash tells us, a level of Divine revelation so intense that even the greatest prophets could not match it. It must have been breathtaking.

Here’s the problem: What actually happened?

The Torah gives us a clear, almost orderly narrative. The people panic. Moshe prays. God responds, “Why do you cry out to Me? Speak to the Children of Israel and let them travel.” Moshe raises his staff. The sea splits. The people walk through. The Egyptians drown.

Clean. Structured. Predictable.
And then comes the Midrash and everything becomes far less orderly.

The sea does not split immediately. The people hesitate. They argue. They debate. Some say, “I’ll go first.” Others say, “No, I will.” Still others say, “Not me.” It’s a moment of confusion, of paralysis, of talk. Until one person acts.

That person, as we all know, is Nachshon ben Aminadav, the prince of the tribe of Judah. He doesn’t deliver a speech. He doesn’t organize a committee. He doesn’t wait for consensus. He just walks into the water. But nothing happens. He goes deeper - waist-deep, chest-deep, the water reaches his neck…his lips…his nostrils…and only then does the sea split.

If you want something done right, sometimes you have to do it yourself.

It is striking that the Torah never mentions Nachshon in this moment. Not a word. Officially, the miracle happens through Moshe, through Divine command. But the Rabbis insist on telling another truth: Behind the miracle of the splitting of the sea stands the courage of an individual who acted when no one else would.

The Torah tells the story of God’s power. The Midrash tells the story of human responsibility. And the second story is harder to live.

Perhaps that is why Nachshon’s role is hidden in the text but preserved in our tradition. If the Torah had told us explicitly that one man stepped forward and split the sea, we might think it’s easy. We might imagine ourselves in his place, confidently striding into the waves. But it’s not easy. It’s incredibly difficult to be the one.

There’s a famous scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian where a leader declares, “You are all individuals!” The crowd responds in unison, “We are all individuals!” Except for one voice: “I’m not!”

It’s funny because it’s true.
It’s easy to say we value individuality. It’s much harder to actually live it.

At the sea, there was no shortage of voices. There were opinions, intentions, even declarations of willingness, but only one person translated words into action. Nachshon didn’t wait for perfect clarity. He didn’t wait for guarantees. He didn’t wait for someone else to lead. He moved.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe taught that Nachshon understood something essential: God wanted the Jewish people to move forward toward Sinai. There was a sea in the way. So, he entered the sea.

That is the enduring message of the seventh day of Pesach.

We often wait for consensus, for permission, for the perfect moment. We talk, we plan, and we agree in principle. But seas do not split because of good intentions. They split because of action.

The challenge of individuality is not philosophical; it is practical. It is found in the moments when we are called upon to step forward while others hesitate. In our religious lives, our communities, our families, and our personal growth, we are constantly standing at the edge of some sea.

We ask: Who will go first? Nachshon answers: You.

Our tradition gives us countless opportunities to take that step, to stop being part of the chorus and become the voice, to stop discussing and start doing. In big moments and small, we are invited to act, to define ourselves, to move forward. Not just to believe. Not just to support. Not just to offer thoughts and prayers. But to step in.

To do; not just donate. To engage; not just endorse. To act; not just agree.

Pesach begins with the journey to freedom. It ends with a challenge: move. Because sometimes, if you want something done right…you have to jump in yourself. And if we do take that first step into uncertain waters, we just might split the sea.

Still Leaving Egypt

The Exodus happened in an instant, but the journey to freedom takes much longer than one night. 

Yes, it all starts in a big rush - matzah on our backs, doors flung open, a people rushing toward freedom. (We’ve all seen the movie!) But the initial journey stretches for forty years. Freedom, it turns out, is not a moment. It is a process. 

It's a long process.

We left Egypt quickly. But Egypt did not leave us so quickly.

The Torah’s name for Egypt, Mitzrayim, shares a root with meitzarim, narrow straits, constraints, confinements. Egypt was not only a place; it was a mindset. A set of internal limitations that told a people who they were - and who they could never become. To truly be free required more than crossing a border. It requires transcending those inner boundaries. 

We all need Yetziat Mitzrayim, to exit those boundaries. And that is a much longer journey. 

This year, that journey feels heavier. We are not just telling the story of difficult departures. We are living them. In recent weeks, Israelis have found themselves on bewildering, circuitous journeys just to get home for Pesach - flying east to go west, crossing into Jordan or even Egypt, retracing ancient paths in reverse just to find a way forward. Back to Egypt…in order to make it to the Seder to experience leaving Egypt!

Layered on top of this are the meitzarim we feel everywhere: the strain of the war with Iran, the disruption of normal life, and the rising tide of antisemitism across the globe. A quiet, persistent unease has settled in. We feel it. And into that feeling, we sit down at the Seder and declare: “Ha lachma anya…This is the bread of affliction…Now we are slaves; next year we will be free.”

It’s a striking declaration. We are not slaves, and yet we say we are. Perhaps the Haggadah is teaching us something essential: We cannot understand freedom without confronting its opposite. We cannot appreciate expansiveness unless we have felt constriction. We cannot become free if we do not recognize the ways in which we are still confined. 

“Now we are slaves” is not a statement of fact. It is a statement of awareness that there are still parts of us that are not yet free. And that awareness will help set us free. 

Few embody this truth more powerfully than Natan Sharansky. As a Prisoner of Zion in the Soviet Union, he spent nine years in brutal imprisonment, repeatedly threatened with death. Yet, he insisted that he was the free one. During interrogations, Sharansky recounts telling anti-Soviet jokes to his captors. 

One of his favorites was how Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader known for his arrogance, crudeness, and senility, demanded that Soviet cosmonauts outdo the American astronauts who landed first on the moon by rocketing to the sun. Wouldn’t that be impossible as they would be incinerated? Brezhnev reassured them it would be ok as they would make the attempt at night…

They wanted to laugh but were too afraid. Sharansky said to them, “You cannot even laugh when you want to laugh, and you want to tell me that I’m in prison and you’re free?”

Sharansky modeled that freedom is not defined by our external conditions. It is defined by our inner world - our identity, our convictions, our sense of self. He reflected that it was precisely his Jewish identity that gave him that inner freedom. That connection to a people, a history, and a destiny allowed him to transcend even a prison cell. As he put it, identity gave him the strength to become free even in a Soviet prison.

The deeper message of Pesach is we did not just leave Egypt and then become a people. We left Egypt by becoming a people. Freedom and identity were born together. A Jew who knows who they are - who is rooted in the past and committed to the future - is not easily confined. Not by circumstance. Not by fear. Not by the shifting currents of history. When our identity weakens, so does our sense of freedom.

The wilderness was not a detour. It was the training ground. Because slavery, for all its cruelty, has a certain predictability. Freedom is far more demanding. It requires us to step into the unknown, to take responsibility, to choose who we will be. Again and again, the Israelites faltered. They complained. They longed to return. Because it is easier to live in Mitzrayim than to transcend it.

Our challenge this Pesach is not only to remember that we left Egypt but to ask ourselves: What Egypt still lives within us? What fears still narrow our sense of possibility? What pressures make us hesitate to live fully, proudly, courageously as Jews? What parts of our identity have we muted in the name of comfort or acceptance?

This year, we have seen Jews crossing borders, navigating uncertainty, determined to get to a Seder. In Israel, the Seder will likely be celebrated alternating between the dining room and the bomb shelter. There is something deeply powerful in that image. It is messy. It is uncomfortable. It is uncertain. And yet beneath it all is a quiet, stubborn insistence: We will get there.

That is the Jewish story. Not that the road is easy, but that we keep moving. Not that we are untouched by fear, but that we are not defined by it.

“Now we are slaves; next year we will be free.”

This year, perhaps, we understand those words more deeply. Freedom is not a given; it is something we must choose. Something we must cultivate. Something we must fight for externally and also internally. We must break through the meitzarim to reclaim our identity. We must live not as a people constrained by the moment but as a people shaped by redemption.

We are still leaving Egypt. Our existence is a journey, and, with God’s help, we are still on our way.