This week, we witnessed religious extremism in its rawest form when the Trump administration turned Charlie Kirk’s memorial service into a Christian nationalist rally. What should have been a moment of mourning became an hours-long spectacle of authoritarianism wrapped in the language of the sacred—complete with calls for “spiritual war” and comparisons of Kirk to Jesus Christ. At the same time, we saw Jimmy Kimmel prove that when we stand up with courage and refuse to back down, resistance works. These moments remind us that we are living in a time that demands both spiritual reflection and moral courage.
An essay for the new Jewish year
The shofar has sounded. The gates of the new year are open. We have entered 5786, and with it, a moment that demands both spiritual reflection and moral courage.
Rosh Hashanah is, of course, a time of sweetness and celebration—apples dipped in honey, the round challah symbolizing the cycle of the year and the joy of community. But it is also, fundamentally, a time of clarity. The liturgy reminds us that all of creation is judged, not with finality but with possibility. The great questions hang in the air: Who will rise? Who will fall? Who will live in freedom and dignity, and who will be stripped of their humanity?
These are the urgent questions of our historical moment.
The Threat We Face
The Talmud teaches that before creation, the world was tohu va-vohu—formless and void, chaos without order. We are witnessing a deliberate attempt to return us to that primordial chaos, with religious extremism as the weapon to unmake the democratic order that protects us all.
We are living through what can only be described as a coordinated assault on American democracy, with religious extremism—the weaponization of sacred traditions to justify authoritarianism—as its primary weapon. This is a calculated distortion of religious language and institutions to dismantle our democracy and concentrate power in the hands of a few.
Look around. We’ve seen book bans targeting stories that dare to include different families, different histories. We’ve seen legislation designed to define whose bodies have autonomy and whose do not. We’ve witnessed voter suppression dressed up as election integrity, gerrymandering that nullifies democratic choice, and the systematic weaponization of religious liberty to create special privileges for some while denying basic rights to others.
We are witnessing mass deportations tearing families apart, disappearing our neighbors into systems of private prisons and forced labor. We see the deliberate cruelty of making people vanish—from their communities, from their children, from any semblance of human dignity.
These are all coordinated attacks of authoritarianism wrapped in the language of the sacred.
The Pattern of History
Those of us who carry Jewish memory know this story. Those of us who are Black understand it deeply as well—from enslavers who quoted scripture to justify bondage, to Jim Crow segregationists who claimed God ordained racial hierarchy, to modern politicians who invoke biblical language while attacking voting rights. Our histories have taught us what happens when political movements hijack religious authority for their own ends. Pharaoh claimed divine right to enslave us. Rome declared Caesar a god while crushing dissent. Medieval kings and inquisitors used religious authority to justify violence. In the twentieth century, Hitler perverted Christian imagery to serve his genocidal vision.
Every empire that sought to crush democratic possibility, every regime that sought to crush us, used the language of holiness to justify their violence.
But we also know something else: Every time, we resisted.
We resisted because we understood something our oppressors did not—that the divine image cannot be owned by any one people, any one faith, any one political movement. We resisted because we carried the memory of liberation in our bones: the memory of enslavement overcome, of exile transformed into return, of powerlessness transformed into purpose.
The Tools of Our Tradition
And so we must resist again and do so with the tools of our tradition.
With teshuvah—the courage to turn, to change course when we see injustice. Teshuvah is more than personal repentance; it is the collective moral courage to acknowledge when we have been complicit in systems of oppression and to actively work for repair.
With tzedek—the relentless pursuit of justice as obligation. The Hebrew word tzedek is not only “giving back” or “helping the less fortunate.” It means creating a world where justice flows like water, where everyone has what they need to thrive.
With chesed—the fierce love that refuses to abandon the vulnerable. This is action over sentiment, commitment over feeling—showing up again and again for those whom systems of power would rather disappear.
What Faithfulness Looks Like Now
So what does our faithfulness look like in 5786?
It looks like voter registration and ballot access protection because democratic participation is a sacred responsibility. It looks like showing up when our neighbors face eviction or deportation, because sanctuary is a religious obligation.
It means disrupting systems of oppression wherever we find them. It means telling the truth about our history, even when it’s uncomfortable. It means reclaiming our prophetic voices from those who would silence them, choosing justice over comfort, truth over convenience.
It means building coalitions across difference, recognizing that our liberation is genuinely bound up with the liberation of all who are oppressed.
And it means refusing to be silent when politicians invoke God’s name to justify cruelty. Religious freedom must protect everyone or it protects no one.
The Choice Before Us
This is prophetic obligation. When Jeremiah spoke truth to power, when Esther risked her life for her people, when Rabbi Akiva taught Torah even under Roman occupation, they were being faithful to the deepest demands of our tradition.
The choice before us is clear. We can be paralyzed by despair, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the challenges we face. Or we can remember that resistance is an act of faith, organizing is an act of holiness, and solidarity is an act of love.
We can build an America that is not ruled by fear but renewed by justice. An America where the shofar’s call to freedom echoes in every courthouse and classroom. An America where the words inscribed on the Liberty Bell—words from our own Torah—still ring true: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof.”
The year is 5786. The shofar has awakened us. Our tradition has prepared us. The work is urgent.
And the time is now.
Shanah tovah. May this be a year of blessing, a year of courage, and a year of sacred resistance.
"...Remember that resistance is an act of faith, organizing is an act of holiness, and solidarity is an act of love." I would love to see this on a T-shirt that I could add to my growing Resistance wardrobe!
Thank you Rabbi