Dear Friends,
Last week, I wrote about the extraordinary moment of a sitting American president publicly calling upon Americans to recognize and observe Shabbos in honor of America’s 250th year, in what has come to be known as “Shabbos 250.” Whatever one’s politics, it is a remarkable cultural milestone: the values of Shabbos — rest, faith, family, dignity and transcendence — entering the national conversation in a way previous generations of Jews could scarcely imagine. I encourage you to commemorate this milestone event by inviting guests to your home for a Shabbos meal this Shabbos.
The timing is particularly prescient as this Shabbos is the 4oth anniversary of the Rebbe declaring this Shabbos - the Shabbos before the holiday Shavuos as “Shabbos Achdus” - the Shabbos of Unity, urging people to come together this Shabbos in a spirit of joy and unity.
This week’s Parsha, Bamidbar, deepens that idea in a powerful way.
The Torah describes how the Jewish people camped in the desert, each tribe beneath its own flag, surrounding the Mishkan (Tabernacle) at the center. The Kli Yakar explains that these flags were not merely organizational. They were spiritual. Because the Shechinah (Divine Presence) rested in the center of the camp, and the people oriented themselves around that center, the nations of the world would look upon them with awe. Not fear born of military might, but reverence born of clarity, purpose and holiness.
He writes that when a people live with G-d at the center, “all eyes turn toward Him.” The flag itself becomes a symbol of victory — not victory through the sword, but through the Name of Hashem. “For they did not inherit the land through their swords, but through the Name of Hashem.” The Kli Yakar then adds a striking image from the Gemara: in the future, the righteous will form a circle around the Divine Presence, with Hashem at the center, and every soul facing toward Him together. That vision, he says, already begins in this world whenever people orient their lives around something higher than themselves.
This week, I saw two messages that felt like living examples of that idea.
The first was a follow-up note to Ahuva from Rosemary, her childhood neighbor in Albuquerque, New Mexico — the same woman I mentioned in last week’s article. More than forty years after living next door to a Chassidic family, she wrote the following:
“My thoughts on the Drizin (Ahuva’s maiden name) family. Then and Now.
I’m 57 now and I think this may have taken place when I was about 13.
You came to mind around a conversation I was having with my darling mother about our thoughts about what happens to our soul or consciousness after we die. We were reflecting on the fact that our beliefs have now grown out of our lived experiences, rather than doctrine or dogma. ……..
My mother was postulating that (after death) we have a time of realizing our impact on others - good and bad. Essentially, we come to know how we have affected the lives around us after the veil of our inherent denial is lifted. I was thinking about how others’ beliefs have influenced my own - consciously and unconsciously.
You came into the discussion because I vaguely remembered a poster you had on your bedroom wall. I don’t remember the wording, but I think it was ‘something NOW.’ My memory is foggy on it, but I recall you talking about something like a joyful Mass Ascension - a collective rapture.
When we knew each other, we were both children, so close in age, you and I had a more peer-to-peer relationship than I had with your siblings. You have always held a place in my heart and my memory as one of my great Teachers. You taught me about the joyful embrace of religion. You didn’t seem burdened by doctrine — on the contrary, you were joyful, secure and certain. It seemed that you felt ‘lucky,’ but that’s probably the wrong term, it’s more ‘blessed.’ My own experience with religious practice was beleaguered and I recall more ‘have to’ than ‘get to’ when it came to attending church.
In my life, my interactions with your family remain the only time I’ve been close with a Hasidic family (or friends). As I told you on the phone, I feel like I’ve been ‘Jewish adjacent’ in my life, with many Jewish friends, family, my first boyfriend and many Israeli friends. You and your parents had a great deal of patience with me as I was learning how your household operated. Starting with the mezuzah, entering your home was full of unique mysteries and practices that threaded through what was a very loving and welcoming household.
There was a profound sense of mutual respect for our differences - not ‘right’ and ‘wrong. There were many teaching moments which were genuinely gentle. So many things were outside my experience.
I remember your kitchen with separate cutting boards for the meat and dairy. Your house had the best milk I had ever tasted. I always wanted to drink more than I took because I knew your father had gone to great lengths to bring it home, including watching the cows being milked!
It taught me a lot about what I take for granted.
In your household, gender roles were different from those in mine, but wonderfully supportive of my adolescent self. I liked that there were rules that avoided incidental contact between me and your father - certainly no handshakes or hugs. It was unusual for me to see such strongly differentiated gender roles, but they provided an example of empowerment, it was a new way of envisioning equality. There was a place for everyone - all of equal value.
You all taught me about the Sabbath and the rules regarding ‘carrying.’ A knock on the door at our house meant you needed a little assistance with light switches or stove burners at your house. I felt lucky that I could provide a service that helped your family specifically because I wasn’t Jewish. It’s what I now recognize as a lesson in interdependence.
I recall your family eating outside in the driveway in the sukkah.
I even attended Mellie’s bris in your backyard.
Now, as an adult, I think we all live lives that many other people would see as ‘extreme’ because we all are, in fact, different from each other. When we’re not obsessing on the differences, we can be enriched by our diversity - essentially, live and let live. But my time as your neighbor has always remained special in my heart, a true gift, a time of openness and curiosity.
Please thank your parents and siblings for their great kindness and teaching love by example. I have spent my life holding you with love in my heart and I’m so grateful to have been called to contact you and share my memories.”
Rosemary.
Extraordinary.
A child grows up next door to a religious Jewish family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and forty years later she still carries the feeling of a home centered around holiness. Not because someone preached to her. But because she encountered a living flag.
The second message arrived unexpectedly from Rabbi Laibl Wolf in Melbourne. He sent me a photograph of a sign displaying the Seven Noachide Laws that had once hung in my father’s office.
I had forgotten all about it.
But my father clearly understood something profound: the workplace itself can become a Mishkan (Sanctuary). Business is not merely a place to earn a living. It is an opportunity to elevate the moral consciousness of the world.
That sign hanging in his office was, in its own way, a flag.
A quiet declaration that civilization stands upon moral foundations. That humanity flourishes when anchored in Divine values. That every human being is entrusted with a sacred code of dignity, justice and responsibility.
And perhaps that is the deeper meaning of the flags in Bamidbar.
Every Jew carries a flag of some kind.
Not merely what we say — but what we center our lives around.
And when Hashem stands at the center of a home, a family, a business or a community, people notice. Sometimes immediately. Sometimes forty years later.
Good Shabbos and Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Ruvi New
