“A Collection of Tribes Can Make a Community,” Rabbi Elaine Zecher’s Shabbat Awakenings
March 28, 2025 | 29 Adar 5785
Welcome to Shabbat Awakenings, a weekly reflection, as we make our way toward Shabbat. You can listen to it as a podcast here.
Tribes matter.
The dictionary defines a tribe as a social group composed chiefly of numerous families, clans, or generations having a shared ancestry and language or a group of persons having a common character, occupation, or interest.
The Jewish people started out as a collection of tribes. The sons of the patriarch Jacob turned into a collection of descendants. Each one, called a tribe, could trace its origin back to the male progeny of Jacob, except Manasseh and Ephraim who were his grandsons by way of Joseph. Together they made up the community of Israel, Jacob’s other name bestowed upon him by an angel (another story for another time!)
This week, as the book of Exodus ends, the tribes embark on their journey through the wilderness. We learn later in the book of Numbers that they moved forward very differently than they had when they escaped from a life of bondage. They were no longer the mess of a mass of frightened former slaves. By the end of Exodus, they had experienced the height of Mt. Sinai as they stood below, moved much lower to the depths with their molten calf until the construction of the traveling sanctuary brought them together to offer the gifts of their hearts. The mishkan, the place where God would reside among them, elevated the community to a higher purpose.
To move forward, they would need to rally around the mishkan as they made their way in the wilderness. They arranged themselves in a precise formation around the sanctuary. Three tribes on each side.
However, how did they really move forward? They had to be willing to head in the same direction but there was no road or path. They had no navigational tools like we do, nor did they have any protection from the elements. Imagine if they only went in the way their tribe thought was right. There would have been mayhem, bumping into each other, sure of their direction. I could imagine the Monty Python spoof.
But that is not what happened. Instead, they all had the purpose of carrying the sanctuary, the sacred structure they had participated in building, forward into their unknown future.
Twelve tribes, each with their shared ancestry and common ideas and interests. We will learn later in other books of the Bible of their disagreements, their competition, even of their violence toward one another. But this moment feels inspirational. All of them are gathered around the sacred sanctuary as the heart of the community.
In our own day, at times, it seems like we become drawn to our own particular tribe by the shared ideas and the perception that we think we know the right direction in which to head. It may be a natural human tendency, but how can we grow in our own understanding if we aren’t in conversation with those who may be from a “different” tribe?
Here’s a way to respond.
I don’t usually publicize specific programs in my Shabbat Awakenings. These times are different. Democracy is on the line. The vulnerable are at risk. Innocent lives are shattered.
It is time to bring our tribes together, even within our own community, and rally around our common desire to ensure justice and compassion as our sacred mission. We come together to resist threats to our democracy and build coalitions of common efforts to move forward with one another. Like the ancient Israelites who belonged to varied tribes, we may have multiple perspectives, yet we still can find our way forward together. That makes us stronger and elevates our community to a higher purpose.
Social justice ACTIONS WITHIN OUR REACH is for all of us!
This Sunday, March 30, from 10:00 – 11:30 a.m. at Temple Israel
Led by our Tikkun Central leaders
Get more information here.
שבת שלום Shabbat Shalom!
I look forward to hearing your thoughts and impressions. Share with me what you think here. Your email goes directly to me!
Rabbi Elaine Zecher