This sermon was delivered at our service on March 15th, 2025. You can listen to this drash on Contact Chai podcast or watch it on Mishkan’s YouTube channel.
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As the sun dipped below the skyline on Thursday, we gathered together to celebrate Purim (maybe you joined us at the Chop Shop; we know how to throw a good party). It is a holiday when we are not just encouraged, but commanded, to be generous with each other and indulgent with ourselves. Perhaps some of us are still feeling those choices today. But in a world where, as the story goes, v’nahafoch hu – everything can change in instant, we are invited to embrace the time we are given.
Yet, I’ve been sitting with the realization that the upside down world of Purim will not end with this holiday. We find ourselves at a time when unelected and unqualified demagogues have been given the keys to the kingdom, when bad policies are proposed as our best option, and people with no power find their lives and livelihoods in the hands of those who at best don’t care about them, and at worst wish them harm.
The hard-earned progress of the past doesn’t feel that long ago. But v’nahafoch hu, it is startling how fast everything can be turned on its head. Concerned that people might consider the story of Purim as a relic of history, the Baal Shem Tov advised that it should be read as a cautionary tale of what might happen in our time. Today, his warning feels unfortunately true.
And facing (yet again) the terrible potential of tomorrow’s headlines, people are scared. This is a reasonable reaction to a planet that seems to be spinning off its axis. And so feeling like we and everything we know to be true is about to come tumbling to the ground, we instinctively look for something solid, something stable to hold on to. But we should be very cautious about the quick fixes being offered by those in power. History teaches that a better future takes real work, a project that requires something of every person (not unlike the mishkan) and rarely relies on the will of a single, charismatic leader.
When we open the Torah this Shabbat, we read about the creation of the egel zahav, the golden calf. The story goes like this. The Israelites are camped out at the base of Mount Sinai. They were only just released from slavery in Egypt – and having been slaves for centuries, there is no one alive who remembers what it means to be a free people. This is a moment of incredible uncertainty. While life in Egypt may have been horrible, it was also horribly predictable. And just as nahafoch hu, everything in their world has been turned upside down, Moses – the only one who knows where they are and where they are going – disappears, to consult with God on the mountain for forty days.
Now the rabbis say that Moses, understanding how discomfiting this might be for his fellow Israelites, took great pains to assure them that he would be back after the allotted time. But when the hour for his return grew near, the people became restless. Seizing this opportunity, the satan (who isn’t really “Satan,” in the devil with horns sense, but more of a figure that represents humanity’s most cynical, most selfish instincts) begins to whisper among them. Did Moses mean he would be back on the fortieth day or after forty days? What if Moses isn’t coming back? Maybe he has left us. Maybe he has abandoned us. Maybe he’s dead.
In a panic, the people turn to his brother Aaron. “Come, make for us a god who will lead us out of this place,” they demand. “For that guy Moses, the one who brought us out of Egypt? We don’t know what’s happened to him!” And so Aaron collects all of their gold earrings. He melts them down, casts them in a mold – and makes the golden calf. Gathering the Israelites around him, he exclaims, “This is your God, O Israel, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt!
Now the creation of the golden calf nearly ruptures the Israelites’ relationship with God, and it takes some persistent intercession on Moses’ behalf (after he regains his own composure) to repair it. In some ways, it is a failure of faith. But it is a failure of faith that is completely understandable. The Israelites found themselves in unprecedented times. The golden calf was an attempt to create something familiar in an unfamiliar landscape, an idol not unlike the ones they crafted for their Egyptian taskmasters. And it must have felt really good in the short term. They could see it. They could touch it. Yet even if Moses had never come back down Mount Sinai, we also know that this idol could never have led them to the promised land.
I am sure many of you have been following the story of Mahmoud Khalil. For those who are not familiar, Khalil was a prominent student leader in the pro-Palestine campus protests at Columbia University last year. This past Saturday, he was taken from his home by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents without having been charged with a crime. To be clear, detention without cause is illegal. Initially they were acting on orders from the State Department to revoke his student visa, based on Trump’s recent executive order to deport foreign students who promote antisemitism on campuses. When Khalil informed them that he is a green card holder, married to a US citizen, the ICE agents said they were revoking that status instead. His deportation has been stayed (by a Jewish judge, I might add), to review its constitutionality.
Some Jews (particularly those center and right) celebrated his arrest. Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, was quick to applaud the detention of Khalil. He was joined by organizations like the Orthodox Union and Moms Against Campus Antisemitism, who have asked their members to collect information on student activists and submit it to ICE. Greenblatt has said that the hate Jews face today requires a “brave, bold” response – perhaps this is it.
Personally, I think it is understandable why a Palestinian student might have found themselves on the front lines of Palestinian solidarity this past year and a half. I know people in our community, other Jews, have discovered meaning and purpose in these movements. And I also recognize that some of the things said and some of the things advocated for in these protests are dangerous, promoting violence or relying on antisemitic canards. I sincerely believe we can have compassion for the reasons that drive people to do what they do, while also holding people accountable for any harm they have caused – whether intentionally or unintentionally. But that’s another sermon.
Instead, I want to focus on the precedent that this case will establish. The primary reason that other Jews (especially those center and left) are gravely concerned about the attempted deportation of Mahmoud Khalil is how the promise of Jewish safety is being used for an agenda that will, in the end, endanger us all. Organizations like T’ruah, Bend the Arc, and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs have spoken out against his arrest. And closer to home, the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (where I serve as a board member) have stated that the actions taken by this administration “erode collective freedom and harm genuine efforts to combat antisemitism.” No matter how you feel about Khalil, know that this is a test: to see if we are willing to tolerate punishing someone for what they have thought and said, rather than what they have done.
Last year I had the opportunity to travel to DC with the Israel Policy Forum. We met with political analysts, lobbyists, and activists working tirelessly to secure a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. At the time (this was the summer of 2024), even the idea of a ceasefire seemed impossible. Near the end of our trip, we sat down with representatives of both the Harris and Trump campaigns. The latter spoke to us off the record, so I won’t name them here. But I will never forget when a senior advisor to the current administration proudly declared that the fight against antisemitism would be levied against our universities and their students. The University of Michigan, he asked. Gone. Columbia? Gone. UCLA? Gone.
There is no doubt that antisemitism is a problem. The steady rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes before October 7 has only increased in its wake. I understand the fear that motives organizations like the ADL. Yet weaponizing the fight against antisemitism to target other minority communities long hated by the current administration (in this case: immigrants, Muslims, and Arabs) or to dismantle the institutions that serve as vanguards of liberal democracy will eventually harm us as well. To paraphrase the poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller, who wrote his original composition in 1946, first they came for the communists. And maybe that felt okay, because we often found ourselves on opposite sides of the picket line. Then they came for the socialists. That one sat a little less comfortably with us, because we didn’t always agree but they had some good ideas. But then they came for the trade unionists, who were people we knew and loved. Finally, they came for us. And of course, there was no one left to speak out. Amy Spitalnick, who runs the JCPA, said “Any Jew who thinks this is going to start and stop with a few Palestinian activists is fooling themselves. Our community should not be used as an excuse to upend democracy and the rule of law.”
Trump has made an idol of our safety, proposing that deporting the “un-American” and defunding the institutions that harbor them is the golden solution for all of our problems. While it might help some of us feel a little safer now, it will not lead us out of this wilderness. In fact, it will push us further into it.
A few days ago, Jelani Cobb – the dean of Columbia’s journalism school – advised international students that they should not write articles or post on social media about Israel, Palestine, or the Ukraine. The attempted deportation of Mahmoud Khalil is a direct assault against the freedom of speech guaranteed by our Constitution, one that exists hand-in-hand with the freedoms of conscience and assembly that not only protect our right to speak our mind (whether through writing or protest) – but are the foundation on which a thriving American Jewry has flourished. Our history teaches us that we have never done well where illiberalism and anti-democratic tendencies have taken hold. Where books have burned, so have Jews.
Perhaps it’s tempting to think, well I didn’t vote for this. And maybe you didn’t. Yet because these actions are being done in our name, we must all take responsibility – left, right, and center. There is this moment when Moses comes down from Mount Sinai. He marches through the camp to confront his brother, Aaron, who is standing next to the golden calf. What have you done, he asks. And Aaron throws up his hands and says, well the people were upset and they came to me and demanded I do something and I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just took their gold and threw it in the fire and this is what came out of it. It’s not my fault.
Maybe we didn’t make the golden calf, but it is our choice whether we will embrace it or reject it. I keep returning to the question asked by Rabbi Jill Jacobs (who heads T’ruah) in a recent op-ed: “Will we allow our community to be used as a wedge to dismantle democratic norms?” But I might amend it to ask, “Can we afford it?”
We must not think that proximity to power will save us, when that power serves nothing but itself (and Trump, like King Achashverosh, is clearly motivated by his own self interest). There is a moment in the Purim story where Mordechai confronts his cousin, Esther, who is now living in the king’s harem. He has just learned of a plot to kill the Jews, and hopes she will use her position in the royal court to prevent it. She demures. It’s too dangerous to approach the king without an invitation. “Do not imagine,” Mordechai warns, “That you, of all Jews, will escape with your life by being in the king’s palace.”
In a world that is upside down, it can be hard to discern which way is forward. However as we look to find our way out of this wilderness, we cannot confuse short-term solutions with long-term answers – especially those that propose harming one group will guarantee the safety of another. This kind of safety is an idol, a false promise that no matter how seductive and substantial it seems right now will only enrich the hands of those who made it. This administration does not have our best interest in mind, but they will gladly capitalize on our fear and desperation for their own gain.
Mordechai leaves Esther with another option. “Perhaps,” he says, “It is precisely for a time such as this that you are in the king’s palace.” Right now we are being listened to by those in power. For just a moment, we have a seat at the table. And we must use it. We must use it to make it clear that our protection cannot come by stripping others of their rights, or by dismantling due process, or by defunding our universities, or by eroding the foundations of this democracy. Our tradition is very clear: the health of our society, and therefore our safety as Jews, is contingent on the wellbeing of those on the margins – the widow, the orphan, and yes, the stranger.