Rabbi Mendy Herson's Blog

Why did G-d create us? It’s the existential question of questions.  

For insight, let’s look at the Jews’ journey from spiritual debasement and physical abuse in Egypt to national and individual self-actualization, through receiving the Torah and settling in the Promised Land.

When we stood at Mount Sinai, G-d told us how we could use our human liberty to lead meaningful lives. Our purpose in freedom, and in life itself, was to imbue our lives with the holiness of Higher living. In the words of our early Sages: G-d taught us that the purpose of existence is to make a ‘home’ for G-d in our lives.

G-d didn’t just give us a religion, a way for people to access holiness on regular occasions – annually, weekly or daily – through ritual practices. G-d gave us a way of life. G-d gave us the Torah which  enables us to sanctify our otherwise-mundane lives, our work, our play, our meals, etc. This approach guides us to elevate a mundane exercise by first considering – and adopting - its G-dly purpose.

G-d is always relevant, because strengthening our relationship with G-d is always at the core of our life pursuits. Even in our difficult moments, when we’re in the throes of our Egypts, G-d wants us to trust that He is with us, that we’re never alone. Maintaining that attitude is making G-d ‘at home’ in our lives.

Inviting G-d into life occasionally, even on frequent occasion, is having G-d as a [frequent] visitor. G-d wants more, because we can make G-d our consistent North Star, our trusted support.

Indeed, immediately after we received the Torah, G-d told the Jews to build a Tabernacle, a physical structure in which they could commune with the Divine. This was a place where they could palpably feel their ever-present connectedness to G-d, where they could make G-d at home within them.

In other words: G-d wants to dwell within each of us, and is only waiting for us to open the door of our hearts and minds.

Jews in Israel, and across the globe, are going through a particularly challenging time right now.

We should recognize that we are not alone. The IDF, G-d protect each one of them, is doing amazing work and Jewish communal organizations are standing up against Jew-hatred. Ultimately, we depend on G-d’s protection.

Let’s do our part in making G-d at home in our lives. Take a moment. Think about what G-d needs from you to today. And welcome G-d home.

“Love the stranger… Do not mistreat the stranger…”  The Torah repeats this lesson 36 times, twice in this week’s Parsha alone. This emphasis highlights a fundamental window into our humanity. A stranger is someone who is not ‘one of us.’ Maybe they look or behave differently. Maybe they have dissimilar values.

I’ve spent much of my life feeling ‘different’ when I’m in public. I grew up in a NJ town which had plenty of Jews but little overt Judaism, and I was one of very few kids who openly wore a Kippah. I got the stares. The occasional comments. I always knew I was different.

Even today, as I dress in classic chassidic garb with a black fedora and beard, I still get the stares, or averted eyes, when I enter a setting unfamiliar with Chassidim.

I understand it. My appearance is distinct, so why shouldn’t someone notice? Or be genuinely curious? It is only a problem when ‘dislike of the unlike’ kicks in. When curiosity becomes antipathy or - even worse - when we dehumanize the ‘stranger,’ we lose our own humanity. We’re actually dehumanizing ourselves.

It’s been said that convictions bind and blind. They binds us to our own like-minded group, and can blind us to the humanity of the ‘other’, ‘stranger.’ 

Hence the Torah’s repeated warning.

We can ALL use a reminder – especially as we enter an election season – on welcoming “the stranger,” making sure our convictions bind, but do not blind. 

What’s going on with radical Islamists is radically different. It’s not about passive dislike, or even nasty argumentation. That would be human frailty, which is in the range of the humanly expected.

I recently came across a NY Times article from 2008: “In Gaza, Hamas’ Insults To Jews Complicate Peace,” which gives examples of the deep Jew-hatred being taught in Gaza. The article reports that an average Mosque sermon spews words of incitement against Jews – and Christians – as a mortal enemy, dehumanizing us as “brothers of apes and pigs.” A popular Mickey Mouse-like TV cartoon presents cute animals teaching young minds that the Jews are objects to be hated and destroyed. This is how perfectly normal humans become comfortable acting abhorrently inhuman.

The five-year-olds watching cartoons in 2008 were twenty-one in 2023. Many came into Israel, and - with deeply-cultivated hatred - abducted, tortured, dismembered, raped, and murdered over 1500 innocents. The world saw humans acting inhumanly. And we know why.

People can live in peace with neighbors who see them as different. Or even dislike them. But not with those indoctrinated to dehumanize and murder them. That’s not living in peace.

Gaza’s deliberately-cultivated, murderous hatred should be the civilized world’s primary focus. Artificial cease-fires won’t address the root problem which brought - and will G-d forbid yet bring - terrible destruction to innocents on all sides.