Shabbat Vayigash 2025

“In this [week’s] parsha, Joseph [is] choosing to love his brothers, to embrace his father, to disrupt the natural order of things that said everything should stay the way it is. Palestinian author and activist Ghassan Kanafani wrote: “It is not enough to hate and believe in the past to make a revolution, we must love and be future oriented if we wish to carry out the revolution.” And it’s what Standing Together said when they were here last month, that the first step is to ask the question: what do we have in common? How can we move forward together? As the Rabbis of the Midrash said, both great love and great hate have the opportunity to upend our lives, and we always have the opportunity to choose which will define us. So, I am going to call it now: in 2025 we are going to choose love. We’re going to choose the love that causes people to come close to one another, the love that disrupts our natural order, and we are going to choose it, and love is going to win.”

Rabbi Yael Werber delivered this drashah at Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday, January 3, 2025 / 4 Tevet 5785. 

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