Reflections on Parashat Lech-Lecha

Shared with the Board of Trustees of Westchester Reform Temple, October 28, 2025 | 7 Cheshvan 5786

The signature text about B’rit or Covenant in the Jewish tradition is found in Genesis 17, from this week’s parasha, Lech-Lecha. The verses I’ve extracted make clear the bilateral nature of covenant: God promises Abraham and Sarah that they will give rise to a great nation, in the land promised to them and their descendants. As partners in the covenant, Abraham and his household are made to swear loyalty and to mark a sign of the covenant in their flesh — the “Covenant of Circumcision” or B’rit Milah, as we call it (“B’ris” in Ashkenazi common parlance). In order to be effective, a covenant must be mutual, bilateral: I do for you; you do for me. 

I wanted to spend a few minutes tonight speaking about the B’rit, the Covenant, that Rabbis and Cantors make with the Jewish community and vice-versa.  We see ourselves, and we hope you see us, as more than just employees.  We are bound by covenant with our congregations, a covenant that goes beyond the terms written in a contract.  Indeed, our sense of covenant, as Jewish clergy, extends even beyond the individual organizations that we may serve, binding us in service to the entire Jewish People and to humanity — to serve as teachers, guides, and ambassadors of Jewish teachings and Jewish values.  

That is our covenantal obligation to you, as Jewish clergy.  And you have covenantal obligations too, which include to join one another and to be present in community, to live out the fullest and most dimensional meaning of a Jewish life — in keeping with the mission of our synagogue and the values of our sacred Jewish tradition. 

When we conceive of our roles as a covenantal mutuality, it can truly be a beautiful thing.  Clergy will feel bonded to their communities in ways that far transcend the terms of a contract.  And communities will, God willing, come to know and cherish their clergy as more than transactional functionaries of Jewish life.  

All of us clergy feel so blessed to experience our service to the congregation of WRT as a covenant.  

Which is why all of us are so concerned about what we’re seeing happening right now in the wider Jewish community.  Please know: this Board has been exemplary in managing this moment; but others in our community are in need of a “covenantal course-correction.”

To wit: a lot of chat, some of it polite, much of it rude and hysterical, is being devoted (chiefly online, but also in person), to the subject of a certain letter signed by over 1,000 Jewish clergy, calling attention to concerns over political anti-Zionism and naming politicians such as Zohran Mamdani for consistently trafficking in anti-Zionist rhetoric in ways that make many Jews, in New York and beyond, feel concerned, and yes, unsafe.  

These concerns are shared by all the clergy of this congregation.  But let me be clear:  Rabbis and Cantors had plenty of compelling reasons to sign that public letter, and rabbis and cantors had plenty of compelling reasons not to sign that letter.  

Reasons for signing emerge from an intention to alert the Jewish community and the wider world to the danger of normalizing anti-Zionism in American political life.  Reasons for not signing may include: restrictions imposed on the Rabbi or Cantor by a synagogue Board, or longstanding community norms that discourage clergy from endorsing or disqualifying political candidates.  Notice that it is entirely possible not to support Zohran Mamdani and his execrable rhetoric, and still conclude that it’d be best not to sign a public letter.  Clergy are painfully aware that, in 2025, a signature on a public letter may follow a rabbi or cantor around for the rest of one’s career.  Other clergy may vehemently disagree with Mamdani but, especially if living and working in New York City, may want or need to engage with him and his administration if he wins the election, and would prefer to enter such dialogue with as clean a slate as possible.  Demonizing those who chose not to sign is both unwise and unhelpful.  And frankly, it’s un-Jewish.  We can’t cancel each other.  We need to work together. And we need to remind ourselves, as was memorably said to me recently, that “gossip is not activism.” 

Most of all, the energy presently being devoted to canceling Jewish leaders who thoughtfully elected not to sign a letter saddens me, because it suggests that the clergy-community relationship is built on a shaky foundation, one not rooted in a sturdy covenantal understanding.

I implore us as leaders of this Jewish community to stand up for our sacred Clergy-Congregation Covenant, and to push back on those who wish to define one’s rabbi or one’s cantor entirely by this one issue. Please consider the full breadth and depth of discourse and viewpoints shared in public by your clergy before judging us with absolutes like “strong” or “weak,” “morally courageous” or “morally bankrupt.”   We need each other — rabbis, cantors, and communities — in order to live this covenantal tradition together with shalom, with mutually beneficial collaboration, and, above all, with joy.

Thank you