“Where’s the Fire?” Rabbi Slipakoff’s Qabbalat Shabbat Sermon 4/25/25

Rabbi Dan Slipakoff
Qabbalat Shabbat, April 25, 2025
Temple Israel of Boston

Shabbat Shalom.

So I told you earlier where I was at 4am
And at 4:30am I saw a New Yorker cartoon featuring a man with a handkerchief explaining – “it’s not the pollen, it’s the political climate”.
Turns out there are many reasons to be run down and tired.

We are living in an atmosphere of anticipated dismay.
Where I brace myself every time I turn on the radio, or the news, or pick up my phone – waiting to see what new ordeal might leave me speechless or outraged or both.

The sheer number of news stories, executive orders, and daily woes has felt overwhelming—
and I believe that a big part of this is by design.

This is the first sermon I’ve given to our community since Inauguration Day.
And when I first asked myself “what should I address?” I laughed.
Who could pick just one thing at a time like this?
As your Director of Social Justice, how can I single out one issue?

It is a daunting task to figure out which tree to focus on as the forest catches fire.

This sermon, then, is not about one specific tree.
It’s about the fire.

There’s a rising culture of suppression in our country—
of silencing, of fear mongering, of demands for conformity that can leave us as individuals and institutions unsure of how or whether to speak at all.

[ How do we respond? ]

Of course there is Torah for this moment—
not with easy answers, but with deep truth, and with models of human response:
fear, silence, grief, courage, and community.

This week, we read one of the more challenging stories in the Torah:
the sudden, and very public death of the priests Nadav and Avihu
at the consecration of the Mishkan.

Amidst the awe and revelation, two of Aaron’s sons,
bring an eish zarah—a “strange fire”—into the sanctuary,
an offering not commanded by God.

 

The Torah offers no clear cut “why”.
Commentators across time have offered different theories:
that they were drunk, arrogant, ecstatic, overly zealous, or trying to go above and beyond. We don’t know.

What we do know is what happens next.

A second fire from God bursts forth.
But this time, it doesn’t consume an offering.
It consumes the priests. They die on the spot, in front of everyone.

This text does not give us the answers about why.
But it does give us a range of human responses.
And through these characters we begin to see our own possible reactions reflected back to us. 

I know that this is not the only interpretation of this text,
But for this interpretation, I am viewing God’s extinguishing of Nadav and Avihu
As overly aggressive, unchecked, and lacking due process. 

Moses acts swiftly. He is the closest to power and the one responsible for maintaining order,
He insists the ritual must continue. His focus is on preserving the system at all costs.
He orders the bodies to be removed, and instructs Aaron’s other sons to continue with the offerings.

Moses tries to make sense of it—to frame this horror as sanctification.
Moses turns to his brother Aaron and says, “This is what God meant when saying, ‘Through those near to Me I will show Myself holy.’

But we hear something deeper in Rashi’s addition to Moses’ words.
We hear fear.
Rashi adds that Moses revealed “I knew this house would be sanctified by those beloved of God, but I thought it was going to be you or me”.

*I thought it would be me next.*

And isn’t that how terror works?
It isolates us.
It warns us: *Don’t step out of line. You saw what happened to them. You could be next.*

It’s the logic behind every crackdown, every disappearance, every silencing:
first Nadav and Avihu. Then the ones who speak too freely.
Then the ones who say nothing, but who might say something.

We are reminded of the words attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller:
When they come for you, who will be left to speak?

Aaron’s cousins carry the bodies out of the sanctuary. They don’t speak. They don’t weep. They just do what they’re told.

They represent those caught in the system—the ones who maintain ritual, maintain purity, maintain order, no matter how broken it may be.

 

Aaron, famously, hauntingly  says nothing. Vayidom Aharon. He was stilled, silent.
It has been read in so many ways: as submission, as shock, as protest, as spiritual transcendence.
A midrash teaches that Aaron is rewarded for his silence.
But that feels like misguided complicity to me right now.

As for the larger Israelite community, we don’t hear their voices.
Maybe they’re in awe. Maybe they’re afraid.
Maybe authors decided their voice didn’t matter.
Maybe they just don’t know what to say.

And that’s what happens in the wake of suppression. The people fall silent.
Not because we don’t care, but because we don’t always know how to speak.
Or because no one has created a space where it feels safe to do so.

And that brings me to something I want to tell you from my heart.

 

I don’t know who I am in this story.
And I don’t know if who I am today and who I want to be are fully aligned.

Some days I’m Aaron—silent, stunned.
Some days I’m Moses—speaking not for myself but for a bigger enterprise.
And yes—some days I’m in the crowd, uncertain, watching.

I’m a work in progress. Aren’t we all? 

But I do know this: I don’t want to remain silent.

And I know I don’t have to speak alone.

We were not meant to stand alone in the face of fire.

When we lift our voices together,
We provide support for one another.
We give each other courage.

Franklin Roosevelt taught
“Courage is not the absence of fear,
but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear”

 

Our synagogue must be a leader in this field –
We absolutely must be a model of free speech
And a laboratory for respectful debate.
We’ve said it before, and we will keep saying it. Inscribe it on your heart.

Disagreement is not a threat, but a sign of deep engagement.
We can speak with integrity, wrestle with differences,
And by doing so hold one another in a deeply affirming community.

We must not fall into the false belief that we can only stand in solidarity
with people with whom we agree on everything.
That’s not coalition.
That’s not community.
And that’s not Judaism.

Truah, the rabbinic call for human rights affirms their “orientation towards coalition by saying:
We do not expect or demand agreement on all issues.
We are committed to remaining in coalition with those who may not share our perspectives on every issue, but with whom we share values.

That kind of coalition work requires moral clarity and the ability to hold complexity.
It requires us to speak up when our identity is being used—
not to protect us—but to justify harm.

It demands that we reject false coalitions that claim to defend
us while betraying the very values we hold sacred.

Let me be clear:
It is not antisemitism to criticize a government.
It is not love for the Jewish people to trample the rights of others in our name.
And it is not protecting Jews to promote white nationalism,
restrict immigration,
And dismantle civil rights protections,

 

 

Even when there is risk, especially when there is risk, we must speak.
Because silence in the face of injustice is too high a price for our souls to pay.

So raise your voice with this community.

Tell the world how you feel.

Name the pain. Name the fear. Name the hope.

Do it even if your voice shakes. Do it even if you’re not sure where it will land.

Because what we say—and what we stand for—matters.

That is a true sacred offering-
and there’s nothing strange about that fire.