Shabbat in the Month of Pride | In a Time of Protest and Fear

Our Torah portion this week, Beha’alotcha, finds the Israelites in motion—journeying through the wilderness, building their spiritual center, and learning how to be a people. It’s a portion concerned with order: the arrangement of the camp, the lighting of the menorah, the responsibilities of the Levites. 

And yet, even amid all that divine choreography, human complexity breaks through.The people complain.Miriam and Aaron speak out against Moses.Leadership is tested.The fragility of community—of trust, of faith—is laid bare.

Beha’alotcha deepens the story of our time in the wilderness; a people in transition, navigating divine presence and human imperfection, the weight of communal responsibility, and the messy, beautiful reality of becoming a nation.

But there’s one moment in this parashah that continues to echo for me—one that comes right after we learn about how God’s presence, like a cloud, hovers above the Tabernacle.

וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר יְהֹוָ֖ה אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה לֵּאמֹֽר׃

 God spoke to Moses, saying:

עֲשֵׂ֣ה לְךָ֗ שְׁתֵּי֙ חֲצֽוֹצְרֹ֣ת כֶּ֔סֶף

 …

Make for yourself two silver trumpets; fashion them from hammered metal. They shall serve to summon the community and to initiate the movement of the camps.

When both are sounded with a sustained blast, the entire community shall gather before you at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.

If only one is sounded, then the leaders shall gather before you—the heads of the tribes of Israel.

These trumpets—the chatzotzrot—aren’t ornamental. They are instruments of movement and meaning. When both trumpets sound, the entire community assembles. When just one sounds, the leaders gather. Each distinct blast signals the camp when to rise and when to rest, when to come together and when to move forward.

But then comes this stunning line—one that reaches out from the scroll to us today:

וְכִֽי־תָבֹ֨אוּ מִלְחָמָ֜ה בְּאַרְצְכֶ֗ם... 

 When you are at war in your land against an aggressor, you shall sound a short blast on the trumpets so that you may be remembered before your God—and be delivered.

וּבְי֨וֹם שִׂמְחַתְכֶ֥ם וּֽבְמוֹעֲדֵיכֶם֮ וּבְרָאשֵׁ֣י חׇדְשֵׁיכֶם֒

On your joyous occasions—your festivals and new moon days—you shall sound the trumpets. They shall serve as a reminder of you before your God: I, Adonai, am your God.

In other words: the same trumpets sound for both crisis and celebration. 

Alarm and joy.

Distress and triumph.

The same sacred instruments summon us to defend and to dance.

And so it is with us: the Jewish people do not only gather when it is easy, nor only when it is urgent. We gather because life is both. Because our call is both. It seems to me that we could use those trumpets now—though it’s hard to know which blasts to sound.

This Shabbat, we stand at a crossroads.

On one side, we celebrate Pride—alongside our interfaith partners and neighbors—honoring the fierce joy and hard-won dignity of the LGBTQ+ community. I am proud that our community will be a part of the first-ever Interfaith Pride prayer gathering tomorrow as part of Lee Pride. 

But on the other side—we are witnesses to what can only be described as a moral crisis. As ICE raids are threatened and the National Guard is deployed not to protect but to intimidate, we watch as the symbols of this country—its flags, its borders, its laws—are used to stoke fear rather than to extend welcome.

And we are afraid.

Afraid in the wake of targeted antisemitic violence like we saw in Colorado and DC—painful reminders that hatred toward Jews in America is not theoretical.We feel it in our bones when we enter Jewish spaces and look over our shoulders.We feel it in our gut when our institutions hire more security—not in response to a particular threat, but because simply existing as a Jew in public now comes with a risk.

And we are heartbroken.

Heartbroken by the plight of the remaining hostages and innocent civilians in Gaza.

Heartbroken by the endless abyss of this war. By the grief that feels impossible to carry.By the way our love for Israel is being tested—as it collides with the weight of conscience and compassion.Some of us feel caught between identities.Some feel silenced.Many feel simply shattered.

This is a frightening and confusing time to be an American Jew.

And that’s exactly why we need the trumpets.

Because the Torah knew what we know now: 

that clarity is not always immediate.That we don’t always know which direction to go.That fear and faith often walk side by side.

And still—we are commanded to sound the trumpets.

Still—we are summoned to show up.

Still—we gather.

Because this is what Jewish community does:

We show up not just to feel safe, but to be brave.

Not just to celebrate, but to bear witness.

Not just to grieve, but to build.

There’s a Yiddish word for what we’re witnessing in this country right now:

Shonda.A disgrace. A moral shame.

But shonda is not just an expression of disapproval—

it is a call to integrity.

A shonda is what happens when people forget that we are each made b’tzelem Elohim—in the image of God.When systems deny dignity.

When ICE shows up in schools. When fear replaces justice.

When senators are handcuffed, and questions are seen as defiance. When cruelty is sanctioned in the name of safety.

And we call it a shonda because we are a people commanded to name what is broken.

Because Torah doesn’t only give us laws—it gives us language: To cry out. To protest. To remember. To repair.

This is not just about politics. This is spiritual. This is moral. This is Jewish.

To be Jewish is to be deeply awake to human dignity. To remember what it feels like to be told to hide, to leave, to be silent. To know that silence in the face of injustice is its own form of violence.

And it’s here that I hear the words of poet Aurora Levins Morales (a Jewish and Puerto Rican poet), who offers us a different vision of what citizenship can be:

“I want a citizenship stripped of power,

that comes with a vow to love and be loved, 

to carry my human passport 

through the borders of your grief, 

to listen and learn 

and refuse to be satisfied.”

This is the call of the trumpets in our time. To carry our “human passports” across borders of difference. To listen across divides. To love without exception. To refuse to be satisfied with a world where safety and dignity are the privilege of the few. To gather our community not only in response to crisis, but in commitment to covenant.

“When you are at war in your land against an aggressor…” Sound the blast—so that you may be remembered before your God, and delivered.

And I give thanks to those with the strength and the breath to sound those blasts today— To the marchers. To the protestors. To the mourners. To the leaders and teachers. To the young people who refuse to look away. To those who sing and study and gather and resist. To us.

We must be the trumpet-blowers.

We must be the movers of camp and the keepers of community.

May we have the wisdom to know which blasts are needed. The courage to sound them. And the faith to believe that we will be remembered— And that we will be delivered.

Shabbat Shalom.