Rabbi YY Jacobson

More Than History

I was once in Miami for a lecture, and when the program concluded, I hurried outside. I knew I was already very late for my flight, which wasn’t great news, on top of which it was right before Yom Kippur and I needed to get home. But, for some reason, my taxi never arrived. I ordered another, but that one also failed to show. A few more attempts produced the same result, and with each passing minute, the situation became more stressful.

And then I noticed something.

Senator Joseph Lieberman a”h, who served for many years as the Senator from Connecticut, was stepping into a limousine. Under normal circumstances, it would have felt inappropriate to approach him, but desperation has a way of reshaping etiquette. I walked over and said, “Senator, forgive me… are you on your way to the airport?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“I know this may be inappropriate,” I said, “but would it be possible for me to sit in the front seat and catch a ride? None of my taxis are coming. I promise to be completely quiet.” He smiled warmly. “Of course. Come in.”

So there I was, finding myself sitting in the front seat, determined to keep my word. But sitting silently next to a United States Senator is not exactly a Jewish instinct. Someone once asked Elie Wiesel whether there is a tradition of silence in Judaism, because everywhere he traveled, Jews carried on endless conversations. Wiesel replied, “Yes, but we don’t talk about it.” So what was I supposed to do, sit there and reflect on my silence?

Eventually I turned around, apologized again, and said, “Senator, once I’m already here, I have to ask you something. There’s a story I’ve been telling about you for years, and I want to know if it’s true.”

I shared the story.

During the presidential campaign when he was running for Vice President on the Gore–Lieberman ticket, Jews everywhere were thrilled. A Shomer Torah u’Mitzvos Jew possibly becoming Vice President of the United States. But when the election ended and the results were finalized, Gore lost, Lieberman lost, and he returned home that night feeling deeply dejected. His wife greeted him, saw the sadness on his face, and said, “Joe, you don’t have to be depressed. In this house, you will always be Vice President.”

He chuckled softly. “It’s a good story,” he said.

I’ll leave it to you to interpret what he meant.

I have returned to that moment many times over the past year, especially as I’ve reflected on the condition of the Jewish people today, not only in Israel, but across the world. What we have witnessed since October 7 is, on the one hand, deeply disturbing, baffling, and beyond comprehension. And yet, in a strange and moving way, it has also revealed something profoundly spiritual and unmistakably true.

I told my students recently that, tragically, what unfolded after October 7 may be one of the most compelling demonstrations of the authenticity of the Torah and the unique nature of the Jewish people.

Because the global reaction simply defies rational explanation.

A tiny country of 6.6 million Jews is surrounded by fifty-seven Muslim nations. Israel is barely the size of the Dallas airport, or as New Yorkers like to say, roughly the size of New Jersey. A tiny dot in a vast region.

And on Simchas Torah morning, at 6:30 a.m., terrorists invaded with unimaginable brutality—burning, torturing, beheading. I will not revisit the horrors; everyone knows exactly what happened. These were acts of sadism reminiscent of the darkest chapters of Jewish history—Chmielnicki, medieval pogroms—except this time, proudly filmed and broadcast to the world. The Nazis tried to hide their atrocities. Hamas uploaded theirs.

And then came a moment almost too surreal to believe: an international film festival in Toronto refused to screen a documentary about October 7 because, they said, the producers, “Did not have permission from Hamas to use their footage.” Imagine rejecting Holocaust photographs because Hitler hadn’t signed a release form.

This is Toronto—2025.

Israel was attacked. Twelve hundred murdered. Hundreds kidnapped. Hamas publicly vowed to repeat it over and over until, G-d forbid, every Jew was dead. Israel entered Gaza to dismantle a genocidal organization, an act any sane civilization would consider morally mandatory. You would think the world would show empathy.

Instead, within days, protests erupted around the globe, and not against the terrorists, but against Israel. And not only in the Middle East, where one might expect it, but on elite university campuses: Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Oxford. Campuses filled with Jewish students whose parents paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for an education that somehow left their children unable to distinguish between Hitler and Churchill.

A rabbi from Duke told me that on October 12, 2023, the University of North Carolina held a massive pro-Hamas demonstration. A secular Jewish professor saw it from his office window, stormed outside, and shouted, “You’re Nazis! You support genocide!” The police escorted him away “for his own safety.” When he returned to class, shaken, a student approached him with a rose. “A rose?” he asked. The student said, “I saw how you stood up for truth. I wanted to show my support.” “You must be Jewish,” the professor said. “I’m not,” the student replied. “I’m a Christian.” “So why do you care?” The student looked at him gently and said, “Because you’re the Chosen People.” The professor, an avowed atheist, laughed. “You know I don’t believe that. I don’t even believe in G-d.” The student responded, “Professor, you may not believe it, but the rest of us know it.”

Moments like that do not happen in normal history.

Think about this: In the Congo, five million people were killed in two years. In Darfur, four million. In Chechnya, 200,000. In Syria, 600,000, many of them children, gassed by their own government. No worldwide protests. No campus revolutions. Most people don’t even know these numbers.

But Israel, defending its citizens from an enemy openly committed to genocide, is condemned by journalists, academics, politicians, and heartbreakingly, even by some Jews. How can this be explained?

There is only one framework that makes sense: the one the Torah has articulated for thousands of years. The Jew is not merely a member of another nation. The Jewish people represent something metaphysical, something transcendent, something that touches the deepest and most unsettled layers of the human spirit.

G-d told Avraham, “Through you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Bereishis 12:3). We declare three times a day, “L’taken olam b’malchus Shakkai.” Our mission is to heal the world through G-d’s sovereignty. The Jewish people are meant to bring moral clarity, spiritual truth, and ethical responsibility to humanity. We are tasked with proclaiming that good and evil are real, that truth is real, that G-d is One.

This tiny, improbable nation carries that burden. And four thousand years later, we still provoke irrational hatred on one side and inexplicable admiration on the other. The reactions are wildly disproportionate because the Jewish story itself is disproportionate. It is beyond history, beyond logic and beyond any natural scale.

The hatred is mysterious and the survival is miraculous. But both point, with painful clarity, to the same conclusion: the story of the Jewish people is not merely historical.

It is destiny.

Rabbi Jonathan Rietti

Silence in the Heavens

At the end of Koheles, Shlomo Hamelech, the wisest of all men, offers a final, haunting declaration: “Sof davar hakol nishma—The end of the matter is this: everything will be heard” (Koheles 12:13). What does that truly mean?

Chazal explain that when a person leaves this world, every moment of our lives, including every word spoken, every deed performed, every thought entertained, will be revealed and heard. Rav Avigdor Miller zt”l described it vividly. He described how the Yom HaDin will resemble sitting in a vast cinema where one’s entire life, from birth to death, is replayed in perfect detail. Not merely in high-definition, but in a spiritual form akin to 3D, where even one’s inner thoughts are projected.

And who will be sitting in the audience?

According to Rav Miller, everyone. Every person who ever lived is there: our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, all our relatives throughout the generations. All of humanity is present, watching the story of one soul unfold. And when the film ends and the lights come up, what will remain?

“Hakol nishma—Everything will be heard.” Not only our words, but the thoughts we never verbalized. The intentions we carried. The impulses we resisted. The moments of restraint that no one saw. And then comes the most powerful insight of all.

The Vilna Gaon teaches that in that celestial theater, the greatest source of merit, the most radiant moment in our eternal story, will not necessarily be a brilliant shiur, a long night of learning, or even an act of generosity, though all are priceless. Rather, the most transformative spiritual achievement is often the moment we chose silence.

When we held our tongue and did not join in lashon hara. When we refused to participate in gossip or conflict. When we resisted ridicule, cynicism, or speaking negatively about another Jew. When we remained still rather than respond with anger. When we guarded our words and, through that restraint, guarded our soul.

In those moments, when we chose not to speak, the heavens erupt in applause.

The Gra writes that the greatest tikkun for Olam Haba, the deepest rectification, the purest form of spiritual elevation, comes from silence. More than all the words of Torah we speak, more than all the acts of chesed we perform, there is a unique holiness in simply not saying the wrong thing. “N’tzor leshoni mei’ra—Guard my tongue from evil” (Tehillim 34:13). Sometimes, the holiest sound is the sound we do not make.

There is nothing quite like the power of silence.

Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

Mourning and Renewal

In Parshas Chayei Sarah, the Torah draws our attention to one of the most delicate and defining transitions in Jewish history: the movement from one generation to the next. It begins with the passing of the righteous and then turns immediately to the establishment of the next phase of the covenantal mission of the Jewish people. At first glance, the opening of the Parshah appears paradoxical. It states, “Vayehi Chayei Sarah—And the life of Sarah” only to follow with an account of her death.

The Torah is revealing a profound truth: life is not measured in years, but in attachment to the eternal. A life bound to Hashem does not end; it merely shifts form. What appears to be a conclusion is in fact the unveiling of what life always was: a soul connected to eternity.

Avraham rises from his mourning and immediately turns to the purchase of the Me’aras HaMachpelah. This moment is monumental. It marks the very first acquisition of Eretz Yisrael recorded in the Torah. And remarkably, this inaugural foothold in the Promised Land is not a fortress, not a marketplace, not a center of governance, but a burial site.

The Torah is teaching us that our bond with the Land of Israel is not rooted in temporary success or human dominance, but in timeless destiny. The foundation of our relationship with the Land begins at a gravesite because our claim is not political; it is spiritual. It is not rooted in the present moment; it is anchored in eternity. Machpelah becomes a gateway between worlds, a testament that for those who cleave to Hashem, the boundary between this world and the next is not a wall, but a passage.

From there, the Parshah shifts to the future. Avraham sends his trusted servant to secure the continuation of the divine mission through the next generation. This transition is deliberate. Destiny, the Torah teaches, does not unfold by accident. It is pursued, prayed for, cultivated with devotion and holiness. The journey is guided by chesed and Divine providence, reminding us that the covenant is carried forward not through force, but through fidelity, through aligning ourselves with Hashem’s will and His kindness in the world.

A deep pattern emerges: First, the Torah teaches us how to confront the end of life with holiness. Then it teaches us how the future is built. Such is the rhythm of life. Mourning and renewal. Loss and emergence. Departure and continuity. In the Torah’s worldview, these are not contradictions, but parts of a single movement, reflecting the revelation that life lived under the covenant cannot be broken by mortality.

What seems to be an ending is the beginning of a new ascent. Life means connection to the Source of life. Once the soul cleaves to the eternal, mortality no longer confines it.

ParshasChayei Sarah, then, is not truly about departure, but about permanence. The righteous do not vanish, but endure. The mission does not weaken, but deepens. The land is not possessed by power, but by spirit. And the Jewish future does not arise naturally; it is born through covenant.

May we merit to live lives whose every moment participates in eternity, and through that merit, may we soon witness the fullness of Hashem’s promises.

Rabbi Dovid Kaplan

No Regret

In this week’s Parsha, the Torah tells us, “Vayavo Avraham lispod l’Sarah v’livkosa—And Avraham came to eulogize Sarah and to weep for her.” Immediately, we notice something unusual: in the word “V’livkosa—To cry,” the letter chaf is written small. Chazal explain that this hints to the fact that Avraham cried less than he normally would have. But why? What could have restrained his grief at such a moment?

We commonly understand that Avraham was tested ten times, and that the final and greatest test was the Akeidah, the binding of Yitzchak. Avraham passed that test flawlessly. But Chazal also teach that even after performing a mitzvah, there is one way its merit can be lost: if a person regrets having done it. Regret can erase the spiritual achievement.

Now picture the scene. Avraham returns home after the Akeidah. Surely he wanted to share the extraordinary news with Sarah that Hashem promised a future, descendants, a nation of holiness. But instead he finds that Sarah has passed away. He asks what happened, and he is told that she heard Yitzchak was being sacrificed, and before hearing that he lived, her soul departed.

At that moment, Avraham realizes the danger. This is the Satan’s final attempt. If he can provoke even a subtle feeling of regret in Avraham—“Had I not gone… had I not done this…”—he could diminish the merit of the Akeidah. Therefore, Avraham guards his heart. He restrains his weeping not out of coldness, but out of measured wisdom to ensure that no trace of regret, even unintentionally, should arise. Hence the small chaf: his tears are measured, lest grief open the door to second-guessing the divine command he fulfilled with absolute devotion.

Rashi comments that Avraham “came” to mourn her. Where did he come from? Rashi says he came from Be’er Sheva. One Midrash says he came from the funeral of Terach. Another says he came from Har HaMoriah.

So which is it? Three sources, three locations—what does it mean?

Rav Hutner zt”l offered a beautiful explanation. He said that physically Avraham came from Be’er Sheva, and that is Rashi’s simple meaning. But when someone eulogizes a beloved soul, we often say in English, “Where are you coming from?” What perspective are you speaking from? What dimension of this person are you drawing upon?

Avraham came from two places in his heart.

First, he came from the “burial of Terach”—not in the literal sense, but symbolically. Sarah had stood at Avraham’s side as he rejected the idolatry of Terach’s world. She was his partner in burying the ideology of paganism. When Avraham spoke about Sarah’s greatness, he spoke from that place: “This is the woman who built a new world with me, who helped me uproot the falsehoods of our generation.”

Second, he came from Har HaMoriah, the mountain of the Akeidah. Sarah was not only Avraham’s partner in faith; she was the mother who instilled those values into Yitzchak so deeply that he willingly placed his neck on the altar purely because Hashem had said so. That is the ultimate eulogy. “This is the mother who raised a son capable of ascending Har HaMoriah with perfect faith.”

So yes, physically Avraham came from Be’er Sheva. But spiritually, emotionally, in the essence of his eulogy, he came from two profound places: from the ideological revolution they built together, and from the mountain where her son embodied the faith she nurtured.

That is how Avraham honored Sarah: by speaking from the deepest truths of who she was.