Exodus Redux

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

I’d hoped to have a new Jews Of The Universe offering today, but when the content of a piece is an ongoing collaboration, I’m not in full control of the timeline. And when the one I’m profiling is a macher of the highest order, whose time is severely limited, the need for patience is paramount.

But because it’s now officially scheduled for publication next week, I can announce with immense pride (no pun intended) that next Friday’s Jew Of The Universe will be Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah (better known as CBST). And while it’s still Pesach, I want to mention that Rabbi Kleinbaum has always reminded me of the intrepid Nachshon from the Exodus story. If you’re unfamiliar with his name, Nachshon was the first to step into the Red Sea — even before the waves separated and a dry path appeared for the Jews: an extraordinary act of bravery and faith.

To illustrate what I mean by this, I offer the following Facebook post from a few years ago:

Yesterday I met my son’s Sunday school teacher at the reform synagogue we joined not long ago. She’s an older woman – maybe late sixties – with a butch presentation: she had short cropped silver hair and wore a “men’s” suit and tie. She told me her given English name as well as the Hebrew one she had chosen for herself — Nachshon — and invited me to address her by either.

I told her I loved her Hebrew name and would gladly address her by that.

I could only guess what it meant to her, but afterward when the kids asked me why I’d chosen her Hebrew name, which was much harder to say, we had a conversation about what it might signify.

I said, “You know, it might be hard for you guys to believe, but when I was your age, it was very dangerous to be gay or trans or even to present yourself in the workplace in attire traditionally reserved for the opposite gender. It was dangerous socially, professionally, legally and even bodily. Many people were beaten or even killed for being gay or trans.”

The kids said it really was hard to believe, and I had a moment of feeling so grateful for how far we’ve come. Things are far from perfect, very far, especially under the current administration, and yet everywhere they go – their school, their shul, the climbing gym, any street or store or public place in town – they see non-binary people and same-sex couples living in no apparent fear.

That's the reality they've grown up in, oh so thankfully. But Lionel's teacher obviously hailed from the ranks of the old guard.

When the Israelites, pursued by the Egyptian army, came to the Red Sea, God commanded them to proceed. They balked in fear. Only Nachshon stepped forward and walked into the water. He was submerged in it up to his eyes before the waves drew back.

I told my children that things are the way they are now for the LGBTQ+ community because so many people of my own generation had the fortitude to stand and be counted as their authentic selves in the face of almost universal adversity and hostility. They risked everything to step forward into the fury of the sea, pressing on even as the waves rose up to their eyes, and it was in response to their brave bodies and souls that the water finally began to part.

So now let’s cut to today.

In every age and place, during the holiday of Pesach, we are encouraged to consider the ways that we’re still in Egypt.

We don’t have to struggle for any parallels this year.

Many of our hostages remain in the darkest corner of Egypt, as surely as Joseph languished in Pharaoh’s prison cell. But with absolutely no parallel between the extent of their suffering and ours, Jews in the diaspora are also in the darkness of Egypt right now.

I get beautiful, fervent, heart-mangling notes from readers every day, and this morning, one of them — Deborah Cohen-Maroni, who gave me permission to quote her with attribution — wrote to me:

I have lived in Israel for 40 years. I have always voted left, including voting Biden then Harris in the US elections. I am equally horrified by the current Israeli government and American government. I am scared for the future of Jews all over the world. Bernie Sanders and AOC are gathering crowds of 30,000 at a time and Sanders opened at Coachella with his anti Israel message to thunderous applause. Antisemitism is still growing. What will be?

The path between these two sides seems to narrow by the day. And when you picture the thin, wavering strip of sand across the Red Sea, with the immense and towering waves on either side: could there be a better metaphor for where we are as a community?

We can’t know what will be. We can only know what we will be.

I want to be Nachshon. I aspire to be Nachshon. There is safety and simplicity in being deeply and cozily ensconced on one side or another, but the moral price is far too high and the threat to our soul as a community is untenable.

And even on a strictly pragmatic and strategic level, throwing our lot in with the Trump regime is certain to end in unmitigated disaster — mark my words.

Look what’s happened already.

Bibi could not be prostrating himself before Trump more abjectly. He could not be more of a groveling sycophant, and what has been the upshot of that so far?

This is the best chance Israel will ever have to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, and Trump is not allowing it. He subjected Israel to 17% tarriffs even after Israel completely eliminated tarriffs on goods from the U.S. He summoned Bibi to the White House, ostensibly to discuss these two points, and Bibi hoped to leave with a green light for an Iran strike and a reversal of the tarriffs.

Instead Trump subjected him to the Zelensky treatment. Bibi is a monstrously self-serving human being but he’s no fool; he did not attempt to maintain a shred of dignity as Zelensky did, but understood that he was being forced to smile and nod as Trump blindsided him publicly in a breathtaking range of ways: announcing direct negotiations with Iran without Israel at the table; reaffirming the new tarriffs placed on an Israeli economy strained nearly to the point of breaking already; lavishing praise on Turkey’s Erdogan, who is a mortal enemy of Israel; and in the days since, refusing to let Israel go ahead with its ardently hoped-for chance to strike the nuclear plants of Iran.

As I posted on my own social media pages yesterday, the level of naivete required to believe that the Trump regime -- with their Nazi salutes from the national stage and dinners with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West at Mar-A-Lago -- is driven by a desire to protect Jews: it's nearly surreal.

He will turn on us the moment it serves him and in many ways, that’s already happening.

We must never allow ourselves to rationalize all the evil and barbaric things the Trump administration is doing. There is no safety there, and even if there were, I would refuse safety on those terms.

As we go into Shabbat and the homestretch of Passover, let’s think about the ways we can emulate our ancestor — the ways we can not only walk this narrow path, but forge it.

May the final days of Pesach be meaningful and peaceful ones for you.

Shabbat Shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.