This week we read a double portion, Behar-Bechukotai, and tucked within its verses is one of the Torah's most breathtaking and honest conversations between Gd and the Jewish people. In Bechukotai, Gd lays out a remarkable two-path proposition: walk in My ways, fulfill your obligations to one another and to the world, and you will be blessed with abundance, security, and peace. Stray from that path, and the consequences, including exile, persecution, and suffering, will follow.
It is a passage that can feel uncomfortable to read. But perhaps it is also one of the most clarifying lenses through which we can understand the Jewish experience in the modern world.
Consider that Jews make up approximately 2% of the United States population and just 0.2% of the world's population. And yet, Jews have been awarded roughly 22% of all Nobel Prizes since 1901. Jewish Americans are represented at striking rates in medicine, law, finance, science, the arts, and public service; fields that shape how the world thinks, heals, creates, and governs. To some, this disproportion looks like a conspiracy. To us, reading Bechukotai, it looks like a covenant.
"If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments. I will grant you rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit" (Leviticus 26:3-4). Our Sages teach that these blessings were never meant to be merely agricultural. They are the fruits of a people devoted to tikkun olam (“repairing the world”) to education, to justice, to lifting others. When a people builds their identity around those values for thousands of years, is it any wonder that their children and grandchildren rise?
And yet, here is where we must be both candid and compassionate, the same Torah that promises blessing also warns of a world that will not always understand us. The most persistent and irrational Anti-Semitic trope is that Jews "control the world." If we tease out the absurdity of that claim for just a moment; if Jews wielded the power their detractors imagine, would there have been a Holocaust? Would Jewish communities across Europe, the Middle East, and now America be living with rising threats and fear? Would a people who control the world need a resolution from the Naples City Council simply to be recognized?
To paraphrase the great scholar Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l, the test of a free society is how it treats its minorities. Anti-Semitism, he argued, is never really about Jews, it is a symptom of a sick society searching for a scapegoat. The "disproportionate visibility" of Jewish achievement isn't evidence of control. It is evidence of commitment, to learning, to service, to the obligations our Torah places upon us.
This brings us to perhaps the most important practical lesson of this week's portion: relationships are the antidote to hatred.
Anti-Semitism does not grow in the hearts of people who know us. It grows in the darkness of ignorance and distance. It is easy, tragically easy, to demonize an abstraction, a caricature, a shadowy "them." It is nearly impossible to demonize your neighbor, your doctor, your child's teacher, your colleague, someone whose face you know and whose story you've heard.
This is precisely why the work of our Jewish Federation’s Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) is not a luxury; it is a lifeline. When our JCRC leaders build bridges with elected officials, faith communities, school administrators, and business leaders, they are doing sacred work. They are putting a human face on the Jewish community. They are making hatred harder.
Which brings us to a moment of genuine pride and gratitude. This week, our JCRC partnered with Naples City Council members to pass a resolution designating May 2026 as Jewish American Heritage Month in the City of Naples. Read the full resolution below, and let its words soak in. The City of Naples formally recognized our community's contributions to healthcare, business, law, agriculture, education, and civic life. Our leaders had the opportunity to look Chief Dominguez in the eye and say thank you for keeping our community safe.
That handshake, that eye contact, that moment of mutual recognition, that is Bechukotai in action. That is the blessing made visible.
There is a teaching that feels written for this moment: When a Jew does something good and brings light into the world, it often goes unseen by those living in the shadows. But when that light dims, those living in darkness are loud.
So let us be loud and shine our light bright. Let us be visible, not because we seek credit, but because visibility builds understanding, and understanding builds safety, and safety is the foundation upon which every other blessing rests. Because we are Stronger Together.
[The Naples City Council Resolution recognizing Jewish American Heritage Month follows below.]
Shabbat Shalom,
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A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF NAPLES RECOGNIZING JEWISH AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH
WHEREAS, Jewish American Heritage Month was federally recognized in 2006; and
WHEREAS, Jewish citizens of the City of Naples have long been an integral part of our community, contributing significantly to the growth and development of the county in fields ranging from healthcare, business and law to agriculture, education, and civic and political leadership; and
WHEREAS, Jewish Americans have made profound contributions to the culture, history, economy, and society of the United States, enriching our nation through their resilience, values, and diverse traditions; and
WHEREAS, Jewish American Heritage Month is an annual celebration of the history and contributions of Jewish Americans, providing an opportunity to recognize the enduring legacy of Jewish culture and faith in the United States; and
WHEREAS, Jewish Americans have contributed to the development of various sectors of American society, including the arts, business, government, education, social justice, and public service, advancing the values of freedom, equality, and opportunity for all; and
WHEREAS, the Jewish community has faced historical struggles, including discrimination and persecution, but has continually demonstrated resilience, compassion, and an unwavering commitment to justice and peace; and
WHEREAS, Jewish American Heritage Month provides an opportunity to reflect on the accomplishments and contributions of Jewish Americans and promotes understanding, acceptance, and respect for all cultures and religions; and
WHEREAS, for over two decades, every U.S. president has declared a period to celebrate the contributions of the Jewish community to American history, heritage, and culture, and since 2006, the month of May has been recognized as Jewish American Heritage Month, pursuant to a bipartisan resolution of Congress; and
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Naples City Council hereby designates the month of May 2026 as Jewish American Heritage Month; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all Neapolitans are encouraged to celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month through education, reflection, and the promotion of cultural understanding, in recognition of the profound and lasting contributions of Jewish Americans to our county, state and the nation.