From the Desk of Rabbi Jacobs

On a recent webinar, Rabbi Judy Schindler offered a ‘parable of four colleagues’ based on the important trope from the Seder Pesach that is likely familiar. It was moving testimony to the current dilemma that many are facing during these troubled and discomforting weeks following the October 7 incursion of Hamas into Israel, even as IDF(Israel Defense Forces) are arrayed at the border and a veritable deluge of weapons are fired to and fro. Mostly ‘to’ for now—for which we should be both grateful and deeply concerned.

Also firing from multiple directions are the barbed words and distressing messages of incorrect, inaccurate, and even intentionally misleading messages about the current conflict, its origin, Israel, and Jews in general. This is potentially a lonely and even frightening time. Please accept this message as an invitation to make even more regular attendance at CBI services—in person or virtually—your ‘safe room’, your sanctuary, on Erev Shabbat and Shabbat Morning.

I have been mulling on an additional piece of the subject: how do we filter the waves of facts we encounter regularly through our ongoing conversations in person, online, in social media, and news reports. The challenge is quite consistent because the information is regularly inconsistent. We owe it to ourselves, as an act of self-care, to sort through the multiple threads and discard the incorrect, discontinue the deceitful, and actively deny the destructive lies.

There is a particular pain in reports of groupthink attacks, tagging, and openly hostile attacks registering regularly on sites like TikTok, Instagram, and even the more assertively monitored Facebook, not to mention the site formerly called Twitter (now X, from which I encourage disengagement). If your household includes young adults and adolescents, as difficult as it might be, conversation on the topics of disinformation in all its guises should take place. Without prejudice, without judgment, asking questions about messages received or how to block unwanted comments. If it includes adults who habitually tune into news sources whose past and present are neither reliable nor known to you for their fairness, it is time to facilitate a change of habits.

I encourage reading this recent OpEd from the New York Times by Michelle Goldberg. I often find her strident, but this one rings true and addresses my own thinking.  

Many of us are suffering through these days, saddened, confused and uncertain. So far in Colleyville and Tarrant County, my interactions with the diverse communities including our neighbors and other participants in past activities of Peace Together have seemed to share our uncertainties, often suffer our insecurities, and want to act correctly. I am grateful for that; it is the American way I was raised in. The offerings of flowers at the synagogue entrance are heartwarming. 

Judaism places a high value on truthfulness. Torah calls us time and again to include, welcome, and deal fairly with all neighbors—stranger and home born. It might seem a big ask in these difficult times, but going alone is a lonely path.