One of the central ideas of Shabbat is to find a way to make a day set apart from the rest of the days. For me, this includes turning off news updates. This past week (as so many before) has been full of important continuing events which deserve our attention as Americans, and require our response as Jews.
I am thinking largely of the fires devastating Southern California, and something I learned from a commentary on this week’s Torah reading (Shemot).
The book of Exodus begins with yet another in the many journeys of the Jewish People, going down to Egypt. This is a descent in every sense of the word: physically into slavery, spiritually into a sense of abandonment, and literally leading to many deaths.
In response, an 18th-century commentator teaches that we were also given our means of escape; “It is like one who wants to go down into a deep pit but is worried what will happen when he wants to come back up. So he takes a ladder with him into the pit. The Shekhinah <God’s Presence> is the ladder.”
Whatever our view of God, Judaism does not believe in a literal, magical ladder appearing to help us out of difficult situations. We are the ladder for one another. When we fall into a pit (or slip back into bad habits, or suffer loss or pain), we support one another on the way back out.
Before we close the door on this past week, I urge you to be the ladder for those in need in California.
There are many good ways to do so, including the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, and the Pasadena Jewish Center, whose building was destroyed.
(Full lesson from Institute For Jewish Spirituality.)
