Rabbi Yael Werber's Drashah for Shabbat Re'eh, 2025

“How do we square our yearning and our reality? The Sefat Emet says the remedy is the longing itself. “Even in all your deeds,” he says, “let this longing be engraved in your heart.” In other words, don’t forget the dream and the sweetness of imagining that something better will still come, that the holiness, the holiest of holy lands, is still possible. Continue to hold on to that hope, and don’t abandon it, because that is the only way that we will be able to make the distance between the dream world and reality even a little bit closer. I want to return to the final line of the Yiddish lullaby The Night of the Flying Horses. It says: “The land of dreams must let you go your own sweet home is here.” You know, we will always live in this world’s reality, with all its money, and power-hungriness, and all the evil that comes along with it, but it’s also our own sweet home and we have the power to make it a little bit more like a land dripping with milk and honey, if we all at least try to dream it together.”

Rabbi Yael Werber gave this drashah on Friday, August 22 / 29 Av. Watch her full talk above. 

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