This week's Torah portion, Korach, tells of a rebellion that ends with tragic consequence, the earth opens, fire descends, and a plague follows. But a brief interaction that has always struck me with distress isn't the rebellion itself. It's what happens the next day. The “whole Israelite community” gather against Moshe and Aharon and say, "You two have brought death upon Gd’s people." (Numbers 17:6) They do not blame Korach, the instigator of the rebellion. Nor his followers who prompted the revolt. Moshe and Aharon, the ones who tried to hold the community together, become the targets of blame for a catastrophe they did not cause.
This pattern of blame landing anywhere except where it belongs is one of the oldest threads running through Jewish history, and one of the most current. When Israel is attacked and responds in self-defense, the response is too often what draws the world's condemnation, while the instigating attack that provoked retaliation fades from the conversation. Cause and consequence get reversed, just as they were for Moshe and Aharon. It is the same mechanism that enabled Jews since biblical times to be blamed for plagues, for economic collapse, and ultimately for their attempted annihilation; a mechanism that found its most devastating expression in the Holocaust.
This weekend, 42 members of our community depart for Poland as part of our Jewish Federation of Greater Naple's Euro-Mission 2026. We will stand at concentration camps and at the train platforms where families were gathered for deportation. We will walk through the sites of rebellion and uprising, where Jews resisted with whatever they had, including for many their last breath. We will see the hideouts where individuals and families lived in hope of another day.
This mission is not only an act of remembrance. It is an act of formation. For the 21st Century Jew, this history is part of our modern-day origin story, not the whole story, but an inseparable chapter of it. Understanding how blame has been distorted and redirected toward us, again and again, helps us understand who we are and why memory is a communal responsibility.
Our Jewish Federation exists, in part, to make journeys like this possible. We are not a tour company, but we have the responsibility to ensure our community can stand where our history happened, not just read about it. This mission will go to mourn. We will also go in order to return home and tell the truth clearly, so the distortions Korach's generation succumbed to find no foothold in our own.
An additional reason we go is to these places firsthand, is to see where the dollars raised through our Annual Community Campaign are distributed; helping to support the local Jewish communities maintain remnants of Jewish history that were once vibrant in these cities, towns, and villages. It is through our Greater Naples community’s generosity, partnering with fellow JDC and JAFI agencies, Jews continue to celebrate Jewish holidays, promote Jewish life, and sustain a love for Israel.
Next week our group will not only travel to remember the past, but to carry its lessons forward, with clarity, with resolve, and with hope. Because we are Stronger Together.
Shabbat Shalom.
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