Instruments of Good (Beha’alotecha)
Today marks 612 days since October 7, 2023. It is almost beyond comprehension that 55 of our beloveds are still in captivity. And tomorrow, we will reach an unbearable number: 613. For us as Jews, that number isn’t random—it is the number of mitzvot, the sacred commandments that shape our lives and give our tradition its moral structure.
So before diving into the Torah portion, I need to ask: What mitzvah will you do? What tangible, sacred action will you take in honor of the hostages? What good will you bring into the world because they are not yet home? You can give. You can hold open a door. You can write to your elected leaders. You can gather an interfaith group to learn and to care about each other. You can show up to demand dignity for those who are mistreated here and around the world. You can stand up for trans rights, for immigrants, for every human being whose sacred worth is denied. The pursuit of goodness should always lead us toward one another.
President Lincoln once called on us to reach for the better angels of our nature. Friends, 613 should not be a day we reach. It should not be. But here we are. So I ask you, not tomorrow—today—what good can you do?
Here’s one: Just yesterday, one week after the firebombing of a rally in Boulder dedicated to raising awareness of those 55 still held by terrorists in Gaza, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum gathered in greater strength, in Boulder, in Central Park, all over the world. We show up with our bodies, with our hearts, demanding freedom for our 55 beloveds. So: Do good. Call it out. Let the world know. And when the virtue signalers—those who boarded boats to symbolically “break the Israeli blockade”—are met with Israeli kindness and offered food and life jackets, while they parade their self-serving activism, I ask you: What if they had truly cared? What if, as my friend and teacher Sarah Tuttle-Singer so powerfully asked, what if they had demanded the release of the hostages? What if they had brought the hostages onto their boats, using their platforms to achieve something real, something transformative, for both peoples? Imagine the good they could have done. Imagine the lives they could have changed.
What good can you do? You can point to the good. You can create the good. But goodness requires careful thinking and honest action.
In Behaalotecha, this week’s reading from the Book of Numbers, Moses is told to make two silver trumpets. The verse says, “Make for yourself two trumpets of silver. (Num. 10:2)” It could have simply said, “Make two trumpets.” But the Torah adds, “Make for yourself (lecha).” Or perhaps, more profoundly, make yourself into two trumpets.
What if that’s the Torah’s invitation? Make yourself into a trumpet. Become the vessel through which goodness is sounded into the world.
Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson teaches, by sharing a Midrash in Bamidbar Rabbah (14:3), that a trumpet does not call attention to itself. It is the breath, the intention, the purpose of the one who sounds it that makes it heard. The Midrash tells a story about King Solomon as he brought the Ark into the Temple in Jerusalem. Solomon sang out, “Lift up your heads, O gates, so that the King of Glory may come in. (Ps. 24:7)” The gates, thinking Solomon was referring to himself, were furious at his arrogance and threatened to crush him. “Who do you think you are?” they thundered. But Solomon quickly clarified, “The Lord of Hosts is the King of Glory. (Ps. 24:8)”
It wasn’t about King Solomon. It was never about him. It was about the presence of something greater.
Even if traditional God-language isn’t yours, I’d say it this way: there is more to the world than me. There is more to the world than you. We are meant to be instruments for good.
Be the trumpet. Be the silver trumpet that blasts the call the world needs to hear. But don’t point to yourself. Don’t let your mitzvah be about your own reflection. Too many confuse public performance with actual action. Facebook posts are not liberation. Hashtags are not salvation. Algorithms will only echo you back to yourself, louder and louder, closing you off from those who need to hear you most.
Be strategic. Be real. Show up where people need you. Show up in ways that make things better, not worse. A trumpet does not sing to itself—it carries the sound that must be heard.
On this 612th day since October 7th, I ask you again: What mitzvah will you do? What real good will you bring into the world? And tomorrow—please, God—may they all be free.
And if they are not, then tomorrow, what mitzvah will you do in their names?
