“Be kind. Be kind. Be kind.,” Rabbi Elaine Zecher’s Shabbat Awakenings
April 17, 2026 | 30 Nisan 5786
Welcome to Shabbat Awakenings, a weekly reflection as we move toward Shabbat and this coming week, Passover. You can also listen to it as a podcast.
Be kind. Be kind. Be kind.
Build and foster allies.
Pay attention to the small acts of hatred. They build upon each other.
This was how Isaac Jack Trompetter responded to a question on Monday night by one of our teens at our Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance day program and commemoration. Facing History and Ourselves, the organization and creator of school curricula, helps to ensure that the remaining survivors can tell their stories. Jack speaks to dozens of communities about his experience.
There are no happy endings to stories about the Holocaust, only miraculous outcomes. Jack’s experience is such a miracle. He was a hidden child, born in 1942 two years after the Nazis had taken over the Netherlands. His parents understood their fate so they hid baby Jack with a non-Jewish family member who ended up leaving him with a fundamentalist Christian family in a remote town. His parents hid elsewhere. After the war, his parents frantically searched and finally located him. That all three survived was miraculous and that they managed to locate him was the miracle. Jack captivated all of us with the details of his story filled with the precarious nature of the world they inhabited and survived. He inspired all in attendance representing all generations and connections to the Holocaust.
Be kind. Be kind. Be kind.
Build and foster allies.
Pay attention to the small acts of hatred. They build upon each other.
These three responses from Jack affect us all. They speak to our own behavior, our attitude toward others, and our intention about paying attention to the way others act.
These ideas are also reflected in the Haftarah reading for one of the two Torah portions, Tazria, for this week. (II Kings 5:1-19) There was an Aramean army commander named Naaman who had leprosy. He learned of the prophet Elisha’s ability to cure his illness, viewed as incurable. Arameans and the Israelites were at war and yet, Naaman went to the King of Israel with a letter from the King of Aram to request an audience with Elisha. When the king of Israel heard that Naaman was approaching, he feared it was a ruse to kill him, but Elisha assured his King that Naaman could be helped. Though Naaman refused the advice to bathe seven times in the Jordan River at first, Naaman’s attendants urged him to oblige. As he bathed, his skin became clear and cured. Naaman wanted to show his gratitude and reward Elisha with gifts, but the prophet refused. In a beautiful exchange and affirmation of Naaman’s belief in God’s power—the name, Naaman, is a foreshadow since it means “faith”—Elisha sent him off with words of blessing, “Go in peace.”
Kindness, allyship, and hatred reversed, animate this story.
In a week when we remember the Holocaust and experience war in our own time, may kindnesses, relationships that create allies and friendships, and attention to not acting with hatred in one’s heart, lead us all toward blessings of peace and peacefulness.
Shabbat Shalom! שבת שלום
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Rabbi Elaine Zecher