Posted by deathcaredc on Jan 11, 2026
Shavua tov (A good upcoming week) to you all. For this month's post, I'd like to share a drash, or a bit of Torah (similar to a sermon), that I gave at my synagogue this past Friday for shabbos:
Gud shabbos.
This week’s torah portion is Shemot, or Names. It is the first parashat in the Book of Exodus, and a familiar part of the tale. A LOT happens in this parashat – I’ll try to summarize:
B’nai yisrael (the children of Israel, or the Hebrews) barely have time to breathe while living in mitzrayim, the narrow place, before a new king worries about them becoming too strong and enslaves them. Their strength continues to scare the pharaoh, who decrees that all baby boys born to the Hebrews must be killed – thrown in the Nile River.
One woman saves her son, later to be named Moses, by placing him in a basket and sending him down the Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter finds Moses, takes pity on him, and decides to save him.
Eventually, he grows up, and he sees one of pharaoh’s people beating a Hebrew man – Moses intervenes and kills the offender. Worried that word will get back to pharaoh (which it does) Moses flees to the land of Midian. There, he does a mitzvah for the daughters of Midian’s priest, Jethro, who rewards Moses by giving him a daughter as a wife. Moses and Tzipporah marry and reproduce, and live happily – until Adonai (G-d) appears to Moses via a messenger in a burning bush.
Conditions for the Hebrews have drastically worsened, and Hashem (another name for G-d) wants Moses to go back and be his vessel to save them. Moses protests – he’s not much of a public speaker, he says – but Adonai angers and says Moses’ brother Aaron will accompany him. Here’s part of the exchange:
- Moses is like, why me?
- And G-d is like, i’ll be with you
- And moses is like, what should i tell the israelites is your name?
- And G-d said, tell them it’s Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh – which means (“I Am That I Am”; “I Am Who I Am”; “I Will Be What I Will Be”), and tell them this is my name forever
Moses, gathers Tzipporah, their sons, and the magic rod that turns into a snake. Tzipporah circumcises one of her sons. They head back to Mitzrayim, and see that, even moreso, life for b’nai yisrael has worsened. The parashat ends with Moses crying out to adonai, how could things be so much worse, and adonai says not to worry – that he will bring justice.
Honestly, just this part of the torah is quite the story. So much happens here to talk about: Diaspora! Gender! Sexism! Murder! Oppression! Genocide! Prophets! Circumcision! Stage fright! All of this, happening around Moses. Happening TO Moses. I can’t imagine his PTSD – taken away from his family, unclear if he knows he’s adopted, killed a man, fled – and now adonai our g-d, the oneness, shekinah, all that is and will be, has told him he’s chosen to go save a whole people.
There’s sooo much in this story. And we are also living in a world that feels all too full.
Diaspora! Gender! Transphobia! Oppression! Climate crisis! ICE abductions! ICE murders. Genocide. Imperialism… On top of that, we’re just barely on the other side of the solstice. The days are sloooowly getting longer, but we’re surrounded by darkness and cold.
To be honest, I’ve been struggling to find meaning from my jewishness this month. I feel at a loss for guidance, and hope. I feel disconnected from rituals. I feel cold, and tired, and sad.
I’d like to think we’re running parallel at the end of this parashat this week. That it seemed like things couldn’t get any worse, and then they got worse, but now we’re at the lowest point – adonai is about to unleash hell on pharaoh, and we’ll be on our way out of mitzrayim soon.
But this isn’t a story. And I’m DEFINITELY not Moses. Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh does not talk to me, at least not in a way I can put into words. Not in a way that makes me a prophet of any kind. And, even if we were to align with the story and be about to exit mitzrayim, we’d have to live through plagues, and watch our enemies drown. And then, after that, we would face 40 years of wandering in the desert. Not exactly something I’d be looking forward to.
Part of me feels like I’m in both parts of the stories at once – both at the lowest point where it’s hard to imagine how things could get worse, and at the same time, flailing around without direction. And let’s be real, it’s felt like things couldn’t get any worse almost every day for years now – and it somehow keeps getting worse.
I don’t believe a series of miracles from g-d will happen to save us. I don’t believe All That Will Be moves that way, in reality. In a story, sure. But here, today, I don’t believe we have anything to rely on but ourselves.
Knowing that feels deep. And daunting. And, on many days lately, unrealistic. And yet. Earlier this week I celebrated a friend’s birthday, and they were asked what they want to cultivate in their coming year. “Authenticity,” they said, and, “Pleasure.”
I’m drawn to think of adrienne maree brown’s collection, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good. Published in 2019, brown wrote, “Pleasure—embodied, connected pleasure—is one of the ways we know when we are free. That we are always free. That we always have the power to co-create the world. Pleasure helps us move through the times that are unfair, through grief and loneliness, through the terror of genocide, or days when the demands are just overwhelming. Pleasure heals the places where our hearts and spirit get wounded. Pleasure reminds us that even in the dark, we are alive. Pleasure is a medicine for the suffering that is absolutely promised in life.”
The distinction here, is that pleasure “is one of the ways we know when we are free.” It is not the path to freedom – that takes work, and hard conversations, and fights, and loss. When things feel darkest, like now in the depths of the month of Tevet, remembering to feel free in those moments of pleasure is how I know to keep going.
Making music with my band. Coloring with a set of markers labeled age 12 and up. Going on walks with my partner and my dog. These are the things that keep me grounded – help me find freedom – amidst terror, chaos, exhaustion.
We are still in the depths of darkness. But spring will come, and the cycles will continue. We just need to find our ways to continue too.
May we all find our bits of pleasure that enable and drive our activism, so that we may continue on the journey towards liberation, in the diaspora, and for all people, everywhere.