To Sit in Shiva As a Nation, As a People
This was the title of an email I sent out yesterday. And today, I want to share some of its words with those who may not have received or read it. But today is also about Parashat Mishpatim.
Parshat Mishpatim plunges us into the laws that were meant to govern a people emerging from slavery. It speaks to justice, responsibility, the dignity of others, and the sanctity of life. It is a parasha that structures coexistence, based on commitments and the ethics of justice.
But what happens when we face those who don’t recognize either justice or humanity?
Today, we live through the heart-wrenching result of a perverse war that seeks not only to kill us, but to break us from the very core. It’s not enough to just kill. They play with our pain, our hopes, our trust in the spoken word.
There was an agreement. A commitment.
Israel kept its part.
The Bibas babies, Kfir and Ariel, were “released” in coffins, brutally murdered with infinite cruelty.
The remains sent in the box with Shiri’s picture were not hers. The evil permeated the entire scene. What kind of beast are we fighting?
“You shall not spread a false report. Do not join the wicked to be a malicious witness. You shall not follow the crowd in doing wrong. Nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to pervert justice in favor of the mighty, nor shall you show deference to the poor in a dispute. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving it to him; you shall surely help him lift it up. You shall not pervert the judgment of your poor in his dispute. Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked. And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous.” (Exodus 23:1-8)
Sometimes it’s hard not to get angry with our Torah… Really??? Seriously, does it say all this to us??
You shall not spread a false report when we are intoxicated with fake news, lies, and media operations that manipulate the truth, exposing those who only read headlines without investigating the reality of the facts?
Do not join the wicked to do wrong, in a world that values strength, violence, and depravity, demonstrated through acts that aim to show power over others in a perverse way?
When you find the ox or donkey of your enemy lost, you shall return it. Is our Torah speaking only about an ox or a donkey, or about every situation where something or someone is lost and needs to be rescued? Do we do everything to return them? Does the world do anything to return them?
Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and the righteous. What a cruel, perverse joke that we read this today in our Parasha.
Do not take a bribe, for bribes blind those who see clearly and pervert the arguments of the righteous. Millions of dollars from countries that sustain terrorism all over the world… even those who claim to defend the free world… even those who, in the name of being part of the political scene, keep sending money so that horror can persist.
Today, the pain makes it difficult to find answers. Today, it’s hard to find refuge and peace in the text of the Torah.
However, if we look at how the history of our people unfolded from the horrors of Egypt through to liberation and the arrival at Mount Sinai, we see that it is precisely this same text, which seems to err or be insufficient, that puts us in perspective of a reality that must be changed.
Mishpatim comes to tell us—and show us—this week that we must commit to defending humanism in the face of barbarism. That we must join those who still believe in good politics that supports their people and in honest religious leadership that inspires acts of fraternity and dialogue. Those who do not fight for the destruction of those who think, believe, or pray differently. Those who do not persecute, mistreat, or destroy lives just because someone has a choice of life that doesn’t match their own.
Do not oppress the foreigner: This is just a small part of a long list of statutes that governed the lives of the first members of the People of Israel. The emphasis on the weak: the foreigner, the poor, the widow, and the orphan. The hallmark of our law is that power is not the currency of society, but justice, TZEDAKA. Not as charity or attention to the needy, but as a relentless pursuit—if necessary—of justice and social justice in a world turned upside down.
We are descendants of a people who, after being enslaved and mistreated for being foreigners, embraced the law that tells us we MUST respect, help, and not discriminate against the foreigner. That is who we are.
We must continue to be the proud descendants of former slaves who taught us and the world that suffering can also motivate us to love, compassion, and the search for a better world.
This does not mean we should turn the other cheek in the face of horror, mockery, humiliation, and depravity.
The handing over of the bodies of the kidnapped, murdered victims to the Red Cross didn’t adhere to any convention or show any trace of humanity. It was a calculated act to deepen the wounds, devoid of all dignity and respect. It was perversely shared in a supposed act of exemplification, with children in their arms. Festive scenes were staged for that moment, making clear the magnitude of the horror that these barbaric butchers are capable of.
Mishpatim established the framework for justice in a society that was born. Today, it must help us—and all of humanity—to change these laws in a world where morality has been hollowed out, where the commitment to truth and justice has eroded.
Perhaps, every so often, we must rewrite this parasha—not to change its principles, but to make it resonate even more in the reality of our time. To remind the world what it means to be human.
But, as I wrote yesterday, we must remain seated in mourning—not only for them but also for ourselves, because a funeral is as much for the living as for those who have gone.
Let us attend the funeral together, united in our tradition and in our pain.
Let us pay tribute—to the father, to the grandparents, to the uncles, to the friends of the Bibas family. To the parents and children of every hostage still trapped in the tunnels. To the fathers, brothers, sons, and husbands of all those who have fallen.
Let us come together from every corner of the world—from every synagogue, every school, every small community struggling to exist amid so much loss—and connect with the sound of the handful of dirt hitting their little coffins. And in that heartbreaking moment of pain, let us recognize the final reality and its unbearable weight. The moment when there is nothing left but absence.
Let us cry together, so that one day, we can rise together from this horribly necessary Shiva.
Let me share meaningful words from a friend of mine, Gabriela Lob, called "Sissi Emperatriz" on Instagram, who made Aliyah just over a year ago and had to learn too quickly about the joy and pain of living (as always... both mixed) in our land, in our State of Israel.
"There is no way this hate won't be passed on to my grandchildren. There is no way. It will be imprinted in your DNA, passed from generation to generation.
They were kidnapped alive in the early hours of October 7. We saw Shiri cover them with a blanket, trying to contain them, to give them a security that no longer existed. Children hugged by a mother who could not hide her terror.
They kidnapped them to kill them later.
They were returned in coffins. A monstrous, sadistic, celebrated spectacle. Like the Romans in the circus, cheering as the lions tore bodies to pieces. We saw that today. A Roman circus.
Smiling parents with children in their arms. Guns, bombs, coffins. Dead.
Our dead. Their happiness.
There is no way this hate won't be passed on to my grandchildren. There is no way.
We kept hope until the last moment. But it wasn't enough.
The questions are thousands. The culprits, hundreds.
Our mistakes, such as not having warned, prevented, or avoided the massacre of October 7.
Our mistakes, like not having rescued them.
Errors of the Western world, which looked the other way.
I'm not going to talk about terrorism. There are no mistakes in terrorism. Terrorism is the mistake.
I'm torn. Disfigured.
I've been crying for twelve hours.
I can't stop thinking about Yarden. In a man who will never hug his wife and children again.
There is no way this hate won't be passed on to my grandchildren.
There is no way this pain doesn't transcend generations.
We believed that “never again” was real.
It happened again.
We have failed.”
And I added:
Tehi nishmatam tzrurot bitzror hachaiim
May their souls be bundled in the bundle of life and may their memory be a blessing.
We ask You, Lord, to allow us to live a Shabbat Shalom in a moment when we need to believe in peace, even when it is so hard.
Rabbi Gustavo Geier