The gems

D’var Torah from April 25, 2025

Part 1: Instagram 

In my recent unemployment, I’ve been spending a lot more time online. 

I feel like I am scrolling through the state of our world. 

The emptiness and the excess all wrapped into one giant black hole of Instagram. It doesn’t take much scrolling to feel that familiar loneliness and overwhelm all at once. 

And then, as if that wasn’t enough, I feel bad for spending so much time online, making it somehow all my fault. 

Part 2: Our context

There is a void in our world: 

A void of integrity, safety, connection, inspiration

There is an excess in our world: 

An excess of pain, hierarchy, violence, and avoidance

Living in this environment is exhausting. 

Without safety, the avoidance compounds. Without integrity, we are pawns of hierarchy. Without connection, the pain is our own fault. 

And even when we try to seek inspiration, we are obstructed by either the insidiousness or immensity of violence. 

Part 3: Judaism

Something that I love about Judaism is that it is really not a religion. It only became a religion to fit into the boxes set forth by modernity and Christianity. 

In truth, Judaism is a way of communal life. 

Our tradition is concerned with absolutely every facet of how to live, from how we treat one another to how we should rest, to what we should eat. 

Our law, our halacha, ranges from implicitly obvious to bizarre, to occasionally objectionable.  

Part 4: Kashrut

In this week’s torah portion, we are commanded in the laws of what kinds of animals we are allowed to eat. Here it is…

God says we can only eat land animals with hooves, with clefts through the hooves, that also chew their cud. We can only eat sea animals that have fins and scales. 

We can’t eat camels, rabbits, pigs, eagles, vultures, falcons and ravens, ostriches, sea gulls, hawks, owls, pelicans, storks, herons, and bats. 

No insects unless they have jointed legs like locust, crickets, and grasshoppers. No animals with paws, no moles, mice, lizards, crocodiles, and chameleons. No slithering animals either. 

Part 5: Why kashrut? 

After hearing about all these rules, the natural question comes: why? Why are we supposed to eat some things and not others? 

The text doesn't give us a whole lot to work with. It says “For I Hashem am your God; you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am holy.”

Do you see any patterns or reasons for these laws?

Part 6: Unfamiliar wisdom

When it comes to laws for which the reason is not apparent, there are a couple of traditional responses. 

Some rabbis have taught that we are given laws because God knows we need them. God sees the bigger picture, giving us tools we don’t know we require. God gives us ways to find rhythm, community, purpose, and spiritual growth. 

Other rabbis teach that when laws don’t make apparent sense to us, it is an invitation to trust. To trust that some things are not known to us, that they may remain mysterious. That it is not our job to be God, to decide everything and know everything. Perhaps this humility is the spiritual growth we need. 

Part 7: Secret theory

I have this secret theory that Judaism has the exact remedies we need in this moment. 

That our spirituality has the ability to heal our wounds and give us balance. 

That faced with the overwhelm and the loneliness, the state of the world inside and outside our screens, that our tradition has gems for us. 

Some gems are unlikely, mysterious, and require humility. 

Part 8: Shabbat

Others, like shabbat, don’t require an ounce of wondering. 

It seems no coincidence to me that in this age of media, that shabbat is here for us. 

That it was hiding in plain sight. To give us a rest from the pain, oppression, violence, and avoidance

To allow us to re-find our integrity, our safety, our connection, and our inspiration.