Rabbi Weitzman's Weekly Shabbat Message: 10/23/26
Dear Congregation Beth Emeth,
This week we read Lech Lecha, and Abram hears the call that sets our whole story in motion: “Go forth from your land, from your birthplace, from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). Our people’s bond with the Land of Israel begins with those words. Nearly four thousand years later, that bond lives on in a modern, sovereign, democratic Jewish state.
I want to say plainly where I stand. I am a Zionist. I believe the Jewish people have the right to self-determination, and I believe the State of Israel is the modern expression of a hope our people carried for millennia: to live as a free people in our own land. As a member of the Diaspora Jewish community, I support the land, the people, and the State of Israel - full stop. I believe Congregation Beth Emeth must continue to stand with Israel.
Yet, standing with Israel asks more of us than signs and slogans. Support does not mean we applaud when we see something remarkable and stay silent when we see something troubling. We would not accept that kind of love from the people closest to us, and Israel deserves more from us than that.
This week brought much that troubles me. On Wednesday, Israeli forces detained dozens of volunteers, among them at least nine Israeli and North American rabbis, while they helped a Palestinian family harvest olives near Bethlehem. They went because settlers have repeatedly attacked Palestinian farmers and those who work beside them, and the authorities have too often failed to stop it. Our Reform movement joined the Conservative and Reconstructionist movements in a joint statement calling for the detainees’ release and for law enforcement to focus on violent settlers. As they wrote, the fact that farmers need others to protect them from violent settlers “is itself a betrayal of Jewish values.” Then this morning, two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at an Israeli checkpoint near Hebron and wounded five Israelis. The government responded by ordering a full closure of the West Bank.
Lech Lecha does not let us pretend the land was empty. Just as Abram arrives, the Torah tells us, “The Canaanites were then in the land” (12:6). From the first steps of our story, others lived there too. When quarrels break out between Abram’s herdsmen and Lot’s, Abram does not reach for victory. He says, “Let there be no strife between you and me, for we are kin. Is not the whole land before you?” (13:8–9). Our first ancestor understood that peace in the land required sharing it.
So I hold this conviction alongside my Zionism: if I believe the Jewish people have the right to shape our own future, I must believe the same for the Palestinian people. Our parashah ends with two sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, and God promises a future to each (17:19–21). The Torah does not imagine that blessing one child requires cursing the other.
Lech Lecha also teaches that some moments demand that we fight. When Abram learns that Lot has been taken captive, he gathers his household and goes to war to bring him home (Genesis 14). Israel has the right and the duty to defend its citizens from terror, and this morning’s attack reminds us why. I stand with Israel as Ruth stood with Naomi: “Your people shall be my people” (Ruth 1:16). We must allow Israel to protect its people. Yet notice what Abram does once the battle ends. He refuses to take “a thread or a sandal strap” from the spoils (14:23). He fought to rescue, not to gain. Sealing off an entire region and detaining rabbis and others who stand beside Palestinian farmers does nothing to move us toward the future we pray for.
Next Tuesday, Israelis go to the polls. It is not my place to tell Israelis how to vote. But I do believe we have a responsibility to understand what is at stake, and in the coming weeks we will have opportunities as a congregation to learn and talk together. Israel is a democracy, and its citizens will choose their leaders. Then, just as we do here in the United States, we will work with the government they choose, however challenging that work may be. We do not set Israel’s policies, but that does not make our voice any less powerful. Through our Reform movement, our partners in Israel, and our own community, we will keep working for liberal and Reform Jewish values, here and in Israel, regardless of who sits across the table.
Abram’s journey began with a promise and a charge: “You shall be a blessing… and all the families of the earth shall be blessed through you” (12:2–3). That is the Zionism I believe in: a Jewish state that is strong and secure, and a blessing to its own people and to its neighbors.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Greg Weitzman
For further reading:
Congregation Beth Emeth is a Reform Jewish community in Albany, NY where you can find your place, find your people, and find fulfillment in Jewish life.