T orah P ortion
Life in Interesting, Challenging Times
BY RABBI ERIC MOLLO
Parshat Chukat
GATHERING IN ANGER
against our leaders is a tale as
old as time.

Today in the United States,
peaceful protests and giving
voice to our displeasure are the
rights of every American citizen.

According to the Torah, the
Israelites also may have enjoyed
similar freedoms of speech and
protest, though not without
the occasional consequence of
being beset by fiery serpents or
swallowed by the Earth. Much
as today, when those among us
continue to participate in protests
that have previously been met
with acts of violence, the poten-
tial of a perilous outcome never
seemed to prevent the Israelites
from constantly questioning
Moses throughout their wilder-
ness wanderings.

In this week’s Torah portion,
Chukat, the Israelites once again
blame Moses for a lack of essen-
tial resources. As if in one great
chorus, the Israelites proclaim,
“If only we had perished when
52 Continued from Page 4
Family and Children’s Service of
Southern New Jersey, KleinLife,
PJ Library and the Jewish
Federation of Southern New
Jersey, among others. In doing so,
Lyons said he’s found a new way
to express his Jewish identity.

“I’ve always tried to be
vanilla in the world of sales,
but I’m proud to be Jewish, and
it brings me even greater pride
to volunteer for PJ Library or
the Federation and deliver
meals to Holocaust survivors,”
Lyons said. “That was special.

That was something I’ll never
forget. The idea that there are
Holocaust survivors still, and
here’s me pulling up in my car
and delivering a couple bags,
it was a humbling experience.”
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM our brothers perished at the
instance of the Lord! Why have
you brought the Lord’s congre-
gation into this wilderness for us
and our beasts to die there? Why
did you make us leave Egypt to
bring us to this wretched place,
a place with no grain or figs or
vines or pomegranates? There is
not even water to drink!”
In response to their
grumbling, Moses pleads with
God for water, and God tells him
to “order the rock to yield its
water.” Instead, enraged by the
protesters, Moses chooses to hit
the rock to produce water instead
of speaking to it. While the same
result was achieved through
Moses’ more forceful approach,
the resulting consequence of
disobeying God’s command-
ment meant that he would be
prevented from ever setting foot
in the Promised Land.

In times of transition, there
is loss and, with loss, inevitably
comes various stages of grief in
no particular order. Eventually,
we are able to acknowledge
that things will never again be
exactly as they always were,
but someplace within the
process of transition, a spark of
renewed hope can manifest in
ways we may have never before
considered. Some may argue that it’s our
past that informs how we will
transition. Others will argue
that trying to predict the future
will set us on the right path.

Others still, perhaps those who
follow the Taoist philosophy,
would say that the middle path
— the combination of our past
experiences and our shared
vision for the future — is what
we should look to for guidance
as we navigate waves of change.

Like Moses, Aaron, Miriam
and the Israelites navigating the
wilderness without a clue as to
when their Promised Land will
be realized, we also are living
in interesting, challenging times.

It seems that our past is
catching up with us again
each time a new conversa-
tion about race, civil rights,
gun violence, climate change,
health care, etc. comes back
into our public discourse. Each
time they appear, it’s like we
somehow believed that we had
buried these issues along with
For Lyons, Mission: Possible
has served several purposes.

There’s the personal satis-
faction and growth that he
feels from volunteering and
setting a strong example for
his 15-year-old son, Brandon.

More than that, however, is
the opportunity to show people
that volunteering is easier and
less time-consuming than they
may think, and to encourage
others to do the same.

“A lot of people may look
at volunteering as a huge
investment of time and logis-
tics,” Lyons said. “I’m the vice
president of a very successful
company, and I have my own
responsibilities. I find a way to
fit it in, and when you really
think about it, it’s only a couple
hours here and there every
so often. It’s a lot easier than
people think to get a volun-
teering shift somewhere.”
So far, Lyons has completed
his volunteer work with 39 of
his goal of 52 organizations,
leaving him well ahead of
schedule for his planned finish
date of Dec. 9.

But the completion of
Mission: Possible won’t mark
the end of Lyons’ newfound
hobby of volunteering: Already,
he’s brainstorming ideas for
sequels in the years to come.

“I’ve made so many connec-
tions with places I haven’t even
volunteered at yet,” Lyons said.

“Some organizations don’t accept
volunteers due to the pandemic.

“There’s no way I’m going to
turn them away when things
start to open up.” l
David Statman is a freelance writer.

JEWISH EXPONENT
CAN DL E L IGHTIN G
June 18
June 25
some of our greatest advocates
for progressive change. And yet
the debates go on, and today we
again find ourselves in transi-
tion as a nation. Many of us
use the past as an instruction
manual as best we can for how
to handle each new challenge we
face, while others choose to see
only what’s before them, neither
looking ahead or behind.

We live in interesting and
challenging times. Every day we
struggle with how we can make
the old new again. An ancient
people, Jews are well acquainted
with the task of bringing the
past into our present every
day. Making Torah relevant,
using Torah as a guide for the
many hard decisions we face
throughout our lives, has been
the glue that continues to bond
Jewish faith and culture to our
world despite the innumerable
losses we have suffered.

We live in interesting and
challenging times, but we can’t
allow ourselves to fall backward.

We’re going to fall — we have
fallen many times, but we learn
from the falling. So when we
inevitably stumble along the
Race Continued from Page 7
8:14 p.m.

8:15 p.m.

way, let us endeavor to always
fall forward by embracing the
liminality — planting our
feet one in front of the other,
taking step after courageous
step, accepting the discomfort
of change happening around us
and facing our fears of an uncer-
tain future by taking ownership
of those fears.

Once we can name those
fears, we can tame them by
pulling from the courage of
our past, keeping the faith for a
better present and working for
the promise of seeing ourselves,
and future generations, stepping
over that next high threshold
toward new beginnings. l
Rabbi Eric Mollo is the rabbi of
Temple B’nai B’rith in Wilkes-Barre.

The Board of Rabbis is proud to
provide diverse perspectives on
Torah commentary for the Jewish
Exponent. The opinions expressed
in this column are the author’s own
and do not reflect the view of the
Board of Rabbis.

discussions about race.

“The core of racial anxiety
for people of color is: I’m going
to walk into a situation and
somebody is going to be racist,”
Chapman said. “And the core
for white people tends to be: I am
going to walk into a situation,
and I will be perceived as racist.”
However difficult these
conversations are, “not saying
anything sends a message,”
Silverman said.

Though necessary, Chapman
and Silverman argue, the discus-
sions don’t have to happen at
once. For parents and children
alike, becoming conscious of
racism is a lifelong journey.

“We are striving,” Chapman
said. “We do not arrive.” l
can harbor internalized racism,
Chapman said, as children learn
about race from others besides
their parents.

There were times when
Chapman’s daughter would
cling close to her when they
walked past a group of Black
men. Chapman used that as an
opportunity “to give her a narra-
tive that’s not the narrative that
she might get somewhere else.”
Those men remind me of
your tio, your uncle, Chapman
would say. Remember when he
would sit with his friends, play
dominoes on the street corner?
Chapman and Silverman
don’t think this work is easy.

Everyone, regardless of race, srogelberg@jewishexponent.com |
experiences challenges having 215-832-0741
JUNE 17, 2021
23