Community Blog

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Matot-Masei, which closes out our Book of Numbers. Without a ton of narrative, we still get a lot of movement in this parasha: Some interesting laws regarding vows that set up our culture of legal realities in rabbinic Judaism, a genocide against the Midianites, the Tribes of Reuben and Gad opt to occupy land outside of the promised parameters of the Holy Land, and cities of refuge are established to prevent vigilante justice. 

This week I was listening to Rabbi Sharon Brous on Judaism Unbound talking about her new book The Amen Effect, about the loneliness epidemic. While the official term was coined by the US surgeon general just this year, and the phenomenon has certainly been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, the core concept behind The Amen Effect goes back a decade. In the podcast interview, Rabbi Brous says what would become the opening chapter of the book was initially a sermon she delivered to her community ten years ago. Even then, the loneliness creep was evident to her, and she recognized a need to change, particularly within communities. She talks about showing up to funerals and shiva houses when the congregational emails notify you of one, even if you didn’t know the deceased. Showing up for B’nai Mitzvah services even if you aren’t invited to the reception. Saying “AMEN” clearly, loudly, and perhaps directed at the mourners during kaddish. She has this great line in the podcast that the Mourner’s Kaddish has five “amens” and a “brichu”. There are so many small opportunities in that one prayer to affirm that we hear and see the grief of those around us! What a travesty to waste those opportunities, and allow the mourners to continue to feel alone and isolated in their grief. There is something great about reaching out to help strangers, doing big picture justice work, and donating to national or international non-profit organizations. But, Rabbi Brous says, another indispensable aspect of being in a justice-values-driven community is this act of showing up for one another. 

In Parashat Matot-Masei, when Reuben and Gad decide to settle outside of the originally promised land, they still agree to fight alongside the other ten tribes to conquer the Promised Land. They don’t have to be asked either. As the whole Israelite nation is making its way north and west toward Jericho, their eventual point of entry into Canaan/Israel, Reuben and Gad notice the eastern bank of the Jordan has ideal grazing grounds for their cattle. So they approach Moses to ask about settling that land, and they make clear upfront that they still intend to aid their people in the nation’s Divine quest, but would like to come back to the eastern side of the river after the conquest is done. 

Now, of course, conquest of land and subjugation of the people living on it is not my favorite part of the Tanakh. But I do think there’s something to the pastoral tribes’ commitment to the nation of Israel and the intended Promised Land, despite their own lack of interest in finding suitable land within those borders. They don’t just secede from the nation and settle immediately in the land that they have found. They show up for the community, for the greater good. We don’t have to go to war for each other, we just have to say “Amen.”