This past week has been heavy. As we are all aware by now, Beth Israel synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi was doused in gasoline with the intent to destroy the building—to destroy Judaism. It is the synagogue closest to the one I served in Alexandria, Louisiana. Its members are connected to my former congregants. They attend Jacobs Camp, where I served on faculty for four years. I have friends and colleagues who grew up there and served as their rabbis. The synagogue is also home to the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, our educational partner, which has strengthened Jewish communities from Texas to the Florida Panhandle. It is the spiritual heart of the Jewish community of Jackson.

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At nearly the same time, we saw news of a synagogue in Giessen, Germany targeted by a man who gave a Nazi salute before setting a trash can ablaze outside the building. Again and again, we are reminded that antisemitism does not belong to the past.

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Closer to home, the violence and fear surrounding immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, and in cities across the United States, have left communities grieving and afraid.

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Next Friday, I will accompany nine of our teens to Washington, D.C. to attend the Religious Action Center’s L’taken Social Justice Seminar—four days dedicated to learning how to advocate for positive change in this world.

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Would you have ever imagined that a parent, out of pure fear, would suggest we carry multiple forms of identification on this trip, in case ICE challenges our citizenship? This is our reality. It is terrifying.

 

These incidents are different.
But Torah teaches us that they are connected.

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In this week’s parashah, Vaera, God says to Moses:
“I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry… I know their pain.”

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Rashi notices something subtle. God is not responding to a single moment of suffering, but to accumulated pain—pain that has gone on too long to ignore.

Oppression becomes most dangerous when it is normalized.

When people say: This is just how things are.

Torah insists otherwise. God sees what the world tries to ignore.

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When a synagogue burns, it is not only property that is destroyed. It is trust. It is safety. It shatters the belief that Jews can gather without fear.

One of the Torah scrolls at Beth Israel had survived the Holocaust. Another survived only because it was behind protective glass. That image feels unbearably familiar—destruction alongside survival.

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The Ramban teaches that the Exodus story is not only history; it is a pattern. What has happened to the Jewish people will happen again, in different forms, until redemption is complete.

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That does not mean we despair.
It means we must be vigilant.

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We are commanded not only to remember Egypt—but to recognize it when it reappears.

 

The central character of Vaera is not a person.
It is Pharaoh’s heart.

 

Again and again, the Torah tells us: his heart was hardened.

 

The plagues are dramatic, but the real danger is internal—a leader who refuses to see the humanity of those under his power.

Pharaoh’s cruelty flows from his refusal to be moved, to change, to recognize that what is happening in his land is wrong.

 

That is why Torah warns us so relentlessly:
Do not harden your heart.

 

Egypt under Pharaoh’s rule is a society obsessed with control—of labor, of borders, of bodies. The Israelites are reduced to a problem to be managed, not people to be protected.

 

That is why events like the violence surrounding immigration enforcement in Minneapolis are so horrifying. Our Jewish memory recognizes the danger when power loses accountability and compassion.

 

The Torah repeats thirty-six times: You shall not oppress the stranger.
Why so many times? Because we know how easy it is to forget.

 

In Vaera, God reveals a new name: Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh — I Will Be What I Will Be.

 

Rashi teaches that God “will be with them in this suffering—and in future suffering as well.”

 

God does not promise that pain will end immediately.
God promises presence.

 

And then God sends Moses to plead with Pharaoh to soften his heart. Despite all the plagues brought upon him—his kingdom, his family—he refuses to relent.

 

Parashat Vaera asks three things of us:
To see—antisemitism, fear, vulnerability—without minimizing it.
To refuse to let our hearts be hardened, even when anger or exhaustion tempt us.
And to act—by protecting Jewish life, standing with the vulnerable, and rebuilding what hatred tries to destroy.

 

The survival of a Torah scroll is not the miracle.
The miracle is what we choose to do next.

 

May we be a people who remember Egypt not only with words, but with moral clarity.
May we soften our hearts where Pharaoh hardened his.

 

And may the One who heard the cries of the enslaved hear the cries of all who are afraid today—and offer them protection.

If you would like to support Beth Israel synagogue, a donation link is available on our Facebook page, in our weekly email, and on our website.

 

Shabbat Shalom.