What Would You Have Done?

If you’ve ever wondered, How would I have stepped up? How would I have risen to the occasion when, for example, a fugitive slave was being hunted? Would I have marched in Selma? Been as courageous as a Righteous Gentile hiding Jewish neighbors, risking your family’s life in doing what was right and just? 

You can now look in the mirror and have your answer. 

Unrest has become a new norm. Cities specialize in it. In the Torah, cities aren’t good places. We see so with Sodom and Gomorrah in this week’s portion. In some ways, online anti-social life today feels like a biblical city. Its contempt is infernal, sweeping away the righteous along with the wrongheaded. 

Debbie and I are currently visiting European cities. Now in the third of four (Madrid, Berlin, Prague, Vienna), we’re having rare, deeply meaningful experiences. Berlin, for example, wherever you turn, seeks to be faithful to its monstrous past in order to fashion a more morally handsome future. 

I was taken by personal words from Rachel Sharansky Danziger in a conversation I shared with you a couple of days ago. She recalls: I was born into the victory story. Worldwide Jewry and so many allies of our people had united. The Soviet Empire was brought to its knees. My father Natan Sharansky was released and a million Jews left the Soviet Union, and the world changed forever. “I remember even feeling disgruntled that all the good battles had already been fought.” 

Even though she goes on to say, “I look back and feel so stupid, because who wants battles anyway.” Still, I find her formulation to be compelling. Quite compelling. It stirs me to step up.

Abraham was tested. Ten separate times, within the ten chapters from his first hearing of Go forth (lech lecha) to his final response to Go forth (lech lecha) this week with the trial of the Binding of Isaac (Gen 12:1; 22:2).

We too are being tested. How will we show ourselves to be? When you look in the mirror in the days ahead, may you grow more content with your answer.