Shabbat Yitro 2024
Rabbi Jillian Cameron
It seems much longer than a week ago that I returned from my far too brief mission to Israel with A Wider Bridge. If I’m honest, after 20+ hours of travel and 4ish hours of sleep, I barely remember last Shabbat, so please, if you told me something important, come find me and tell me again tonight.
The goal of this three-and-a-half-day solidarity mission was to deepen our understanding of the current challenges facing Israel and its LGBTQ community with the hopes to foster support, empathy, and understanding and make us better advocates in this time of great challenge. That’s a lot to accomplish in approximately 84 hours.
As I readied myself mentally and emotionally and packed my bags, I felt the weight of this experience even before I got on the plane – what I might witness and hear, how I might feel, the seven thousand, five hundred miles that would separate me from you, from my family, my support system.
After 14 hours on a plane, hurling through time zones almost over the arctic, not having slept a wink, I arrived, heavy with anticipation.
It was a whirlwind to say the least, as we packed at least a week’s worth of experiences and conversations into those three and a half days, 84 hours. And just like that, I was home again, my head spinning like the cartoon coyote after being bested by the roadrunner.
Since my return, throughout this week, I kept thinking back to what I had been doing the week prior at that moment.
The welcome dinner we had at a restaurant on the beach in Tel Aviv last Monday evening, where I met in person for the first time, the cohort of impressive people with whom I would share this short but impactful journey.
Or the 2 hour bus trip south last Tuesday morning.
I wonder how many hours of my dozens of trips to Israel and the year I lived there was spent on a bus.
But of course, some of the best moments happen on the bus, those deep and meaningful conversations with the strangers around you who, two hours later, are definitely not strangers anymore.
It turned out to be a more necessary choice than I thought because no one should be or feel alone walking through the site of a massacre.
On Wednesday this week, amidst a busy schedule – I’m still playing catch up – I flashed back to the week before, listening to the anguish in the voices of queer Israelis, the anger, the fear, the deep grief of abandonment and loneliness. I remember thinking how much I wish I could pick up BCC with all of you in it and bring it over there for a while – so we could feel safe and brave together.
But I know here too, some, myself included, also feel a sense of that same loneliness and rejection in the face of this terrible conflict and the maelstrom of politics and ignorance. We may even feel alone amongst nuanced and respectful disagreement.
A week ago yesterday was our final day, Jerusalem, always heavy with thousands of years of conflict and peace, conflict and peace – the most familiar place for me and yet never quite comfortable. And in the blink of an eye, I found myself back at the airport, walking down the long corridor made of Jerusalem stone, this time punctuated by red, white and black posters, frozen smiles of joyful pasts – the starkest of contrasts to the horrific present for those 136 remaining hostages.
More than any other trip to Israel, I am grateful for those with whom I shared this experience. I couldn’t have done it alone. It’s too much, too many flashes I see when I try to sleep at night, too many stories to carry, too much pain, too much uncertainty, too much to go it alone.
And I am grateful for all of you, my community, who I regretfully cannot pick up and move to where we may be needed the most, but where I knew I could return and who I know will remain a stronghold of queer Jewish joy, a symbol of what is possible, of never having to truly be alone.
In our Torah portion this week, Moses too returns to the familiar, his wife Tzipporah, his two sons, and his beloved father-in-law, Jethro, the man who took him in so many years before when he first fled Egypt and was looking for himself. Jethro, who didn’t ask too many questions but seemed to peer into his heart and soul so easily and deliberately, sensing Moses was desperately in need of a place to belong, of a family and community to belong to. Perhaps one of our first examples of chosen family.
Father-in-law and son, mentor and mentee, are reunited as the Israelites embark on a journey of joy and responsibility and self-determination, toward the Promised Land, with a weary Moses out front and God at their backs.
Almost immediately Moses begins the work of community building, the day-to-day tasks of adjudicating disputes, of translating the will of God, all by himself, from morning until evening, day in and day out. Until Jethro pulls him aside.
“What are you doing,” he asks. “Why do you act all alone with people all around you from dawn until dusk?”
Moses raises his head slowly, the weight of the day and the world drooping his eye lids and replies, “It is because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a dispute, it comes before me, and I decide between one person and another, and I make known the laws and teachings of God.”
Jethro looks back at his chosen child with a spark of wisdom in his eyes, with the whisper of past lessons learned and says, “This thing you are doing is not right; you will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well.
כִּי־כָבֵד מִמְּךָ הַדָּבָר לֹא־תוּכַל עֲשֹׂהוּ לְבַדֶּךָ
For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone.”
Teach others you trust, those who share your values, those who are capable, on whom you can rely and let them help you.
And Moses listened and created a network of trusted
judges, colleagues, thought partners, who helped him shoulder the burden, who allowed him to rest and replenish, who banished his loneliness.
The task was too heavy, he could not do it alone.
My trip was too heavy, I could not do it alone.
This conflict is too heavy, we cannot bear it alone.
There are people who need us, we cannot let them feel all alone.
Life with all of its wonderful and disastrous complexity is heavy, we cannot live it alone.
In the coming weeks, I will share more about my Israel experience, the challenges and the sparks of hope because despite everything, hatikvah, the hope remains – glowing beneath the charred ground.
I hope you’ll join me so we can hold each other up, learn together, share the weight with empathy and compassion, and delve into the complexity of our own hearts in community, side by side, never alone.
Shabbat Shalom.