“Spirits Crushed,” Rabbi Elaine Zecher’s Shabbat Awakenings

January 9, 2026 | 22 Tevet 5786

Welcome to Shabbat Awakenings, a weekly reflection, as we make our way toward Shabbat. You can also listen to it as a podcast.

What does it mean to live in a world where spirits are crushed by cruel bondage? If we examine this week’s Torah portion, Vaera, in the book of Exodus, we gain an understanding of both situations: crushed spirits and cruel bondage.

Our portion ended last week as Pharaoh imposed even more restrictions on the Israelites slaves with their lives made worse than they could have previously imagined. As this week opens, God assured Moses that deliverance would come in a magnificent way and the people would be delivered from their misery.

But the slaves did not have the capacity to comprehend the hopeful possibility presented by Moses. The Torah explicitly helps us understand their perspective. In their distress and despair, the Israelites responded in the most human way:

They couldn’t absorb Moses’ words וְלֹ֤א שָֽׁמְעוּ֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה

because of the deep anguish מִקֹּ֣צֶר ר֔וּחַ

from such brutal oppression. וּמֵעֲבֹדָ֖ה קָשָֽׁה

The literal meaning of the Hebrew mikotzer ruah מִקֹּ֣צֶר ר֔וּחַ is shortness or diminishment of spirit. It was as if they could no longer breathe and their patience ran out. They had no energy left.

The Torah attempts to place us there to feel what they experienced and allow our empathy to expand.

When any people are forced to confront abuse of power, a myopic vision of how fellow human beings should be treated and othered in ways that alienate them and make them vulnerable, their pain becomes our pain. We cannot look away. The story of our people is replayed by immigrants in this country turned into strangers and treated without regard to their humanity. Our Torah text makes it clear that we are responsible for the security and inclusion of those made vulnerable. We cannot stand idly by or watch as our neighbors bleed, but rather love our neighbors as ourselves. This is our call to action and conscience in these days of a potentially deteriorating democracy.

I am grateful to the more than 50 members of our congregation along with more than 60 others who join in at various times, also in our community, who are actively engaged in immigrant justice directly serving with lovingkindness those in the greater Boston community. This is the sacred work of righteousness and decency we need and can offer.

The difficulty of crushed spirits is that the energy it takes to activate oneself can feel overwhelming. But it is not impossible. When we gather at our Sabbath of Justice, Shabbat Tzedek tonight, we take these lessons of Torah into our hearts to make our hearts grow stronger along with our spirits. We increase our capacity to face the challenges together to turn from bystanders into upstanders.

Cruel bondage is not just physical force. The moral universe summons us all to enact what Martin Luther King preached, that we are all in this together to reach higher to bend that arc toward justice.

If you are interested in participating in Immigrant Justice, or any justice work at Temple Israel, please connect with Tali Puterman.

Shabbat Shalom! שבת שלום

I welcome your thoughts and experiences here.

Rabbi Elaine Zecher