Sarah Gordon

Israel educator, Canadian, runner, hockey fan. Mainly here for the memes and the occasional Dvar Torah. Views my own.

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

@MyNameIsAviJ @RABKesherSAR Looks great. Can you post the TOC?

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

@StuHalpern @JewishJournal Great piece!

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

@MattiFriedman So sorry for this tragic loss. Thank you for sharing this tribute.

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

@tzvei_dinim Mazel tov!

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

Check out the newest UIH podcast episode with Noam Weissman and Haviv Rettig Gur @JewishUnpacked

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

This was a fun conversation.

The inimitable Noam Weissman tried to get me riled up by citing a bunch of anti-Zionist arguments. He succeeded.

We talked about what’s wrong with the new Wikipedia article on Zionism, with academic anti-Zionism and even with the Zionist telling of Zionism’s story.

(Spoiler: It’s the same thing.)

We laughed, we cried, I cursed a few times (really).

Thanks for having me on, Noam. It was therapeutic.

https://t.co/uK1JC12a1P

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

@RabbiGoldberg When the operation has also resulted in the death of a child (https://t.co/RbzzBMUl15), the celebratory tone and memes being shared are callous and inappropriate. Doing this publicly online can only serve to hurt Israel's image.

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

@MyNameIsAviJ May her neshama have an aliyah.

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

Three simple thoughts for Pesach.

1. We ourselves are slaves

How does tonight’s Seder begin? By reminding us that we are slaves - we today, in the here and now - that we are surrounded by those hungrier and more needy than ourselves, and that we must aid them even in our enslaved condition.

So says the Haggadah, which we read in just a few hours:
“This is the bread of our torment that our forebears ate in the land of Egypt.
All who are hungry come and eat.
All who are in need come and feast.
This year we are here - next year we shall be in the land of Israel.
This year we are slaves - next year we shall be free.”

Every generation of Jews is commanded to say *we* are slaves, in the present tense, and to declare our faith that *we* shall one day be free. Egypt isn't a memory, it is our present condition. The matzah isn't an artifact but an acknowledgement.

Freedom, the Sages teach, is not an end, it is a path; no mere escape from Pharoah’s tyranny but a becoming, filled with substance and responsibility and devotion; no one-off achievement but a ceaseless struggle to secure and deepen our liberation.

And along this tortuous path lie all those “who are hungry,” “who are needy,” who need us to carry them along it. Our freedom is indistinguishable from our responsibility to them.

In the blessing after the Seder meal, we say, “I was a youth, I have grown old, and I have not seen a righteous man neglected and his offspring begging for bread.”

Rabbis have wondered at this phrase. It seems a simple lie. We have all seen righteous people suffering, impoverished, their children begging for bread. To this question they gave an answer: The righteous do indeed stand suffering before us, but we “have not seen” them. It is not a declaration of faith but a confession of blindness.

After our feast, when we are content and satiated, we remember - we confess - that the suffering righteous stand before us unheeded, their children begging for bread. Satiety is a kind of freedom, and so also a responsibility.

2. Our enemies are also God's children, and also enslaved

In this time of war, we should remember, even when it is hard, that Pesach calls on us to see the humanity of our enemies.

In the Talmud’s Tractate Sanhedrin (page 39b), we are told an astonishing midrash in the name of Rabbi Yonatan. It's a simple tale: After the miraculous Exodus, as Pharaoh’s genocidal army slowly sinks into the depths of the sea and the people of Israel arise to their first moments of sunlit safety after centuries of enslavement, the angels want to “sing before the Lord” in celebration of the great liberation. But God rebukes them: “The works of my hands are drowning in the sea and you utter songs before me?”

The task of freedom is far more difficult than merely liberating ourselves, more difficult even than shouldering the burdens of the hungry and needy and the suffering righteous and their begging children. Along our path of freedom lies our responsibility even to our enemies, to the Egyptians who are as much God’s children as we are — including even, impossibly and gallingly, the very soldiers sent to annihilate us; they, too, we are reminded from within the beating heart of our story, are the works of His hands.

This is not a call to pacifism. We are not obligated to let them win. The opposite: The Torah commands victory against those who “arise to kill you.”

But we are told to recognize them as the handiwork of the very same hands that made us.

They, too, are slaves, slaves of their own real and imagined Pharoahs, their dreams and stories and politics and all the mental architectures that trap human beings on cruel and painful paths.

This year we are all slaves, each in his own Egypt. Next year, eventually but inevitably, we shall all be free.

3. We are truly free only in our own place and our own tongue

In this time of languishing hostages and the never-ending schemes of the tyrants who surround us, we should also remember that Pesach is not just a universal story, but also a promise of our own specific liberation.

The passage above, "this is the bread of our torment," is said in Aramaic, right down to "this year we are slaves." It is uttered in the colloquial language of the time and place in which it was written. But its final trumpeting of our redemption - "Next year we shall be free" - isn't written in the language of our Babylonian hosts, but in our own unique tongue. It is the only part of the reading that's in Hebrew.

We do our suffering in the languages and landscapes of other peoples. But the path of freedom can only be tread in one's own place and one's own language. Freedom is a universal human capacity, but liberation is a specific act. Our specific liberation has always been signaled not by what is everybody's, but by what is ours alone.

[Unpacked @unpackedmedia]

In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, Israeli artists have poured their hearts into songs that have quickly gone viral, both within the country and beyond. #feelgood #music #israelimusic
https://t.co/lKPVEZSmJw

[William Daroff @Daroff]

This menorah, which is on display at the White House Hanukkah party, was recovered from the rubble of the home in Kfar Azza.

[Amy Spiro @AmySpiro]

A month ago, 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz was in Hamas captivity in Gaza.

Tonight she's out rallying in Tel Aviv for the release of her husband, Oded.

[Daniel Sugarman @Daniel_Sugarman]

Ok, this moved me.

A non-orthodox news anchor receives news that a hostage has been rescued from Hamas’s clutches. He turns to his Orthodox guest, asks to borrow his kippah (skullcap) and then recites a blessing in response to the news.

מי כעמך ישראל

[Dani Klein 🌎 YeahThatsKosher @YeahThatsKosher]

"The Empty Shabbat Table" -- Tel Aviv Museum of Art 203 empty seats, one for each of the known hostages taken by Hamas.

[ניצן שפירא | Nitzan Shapira @shapira_nitzan]

בצל האזעקות והרקטות נולדה אתמול תינוקת מתוקה בדרום. ההורים החליטו לקרוא לה בארי.
עם ישראל חי 🇮🇱

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

@benshapiro @NatanSharansky @simonwiesenthal @AlanDersh @MargolinRabbi @RabbiShmuley @ManisFriedman @GoldPRIL @PresidentRuvi Any women on this list?

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

I entered the free Shakespeare in the Park Lottery for a chance to win free tickets on @TodayTix! Tap here to enter: https://t.co/ISkY4w3Wz4

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

So excited that Season 5 of Unpacking Israeli History is out! Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts! If you're looking for a podcast that talks Israel with the @JewishUnpacked approach to nuance and complexity this is it. https://t.co/zZshXfV0e0

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

I entered the Harry Potter Lottery for $40 tickets on @TodayTix! Tap here to enter: https://t.co/pkGTCjEgAb

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

I entered the free Shakespeare in the Park Lottery for a chance to win free tickets on @TodayTix! Tap here to enter: https://t.co/YDlRt9Z3vg

[Sarah Gordon @sygordon]

When your company does important work profiling your hometown's bagels. 🥯🇨🇦

[Unpacked @unpackedmedia]

Montreal vs. New York bagels— a rivalry so impassioned (and so well-documented) we won’t get into it.

But there’s another, lesser known, rivalry that exists within Montreal’s Jewish community....
https://t.co/2oG3jSwLxc