Posted on December 16, 2025
George Burns famously said: “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family … in another city.” As someone who lives far away from his family I couldn’t possibly comment, but I am curious whether he was using our Biblical ancestors as his source material. The family dynamics in our first book of Torah, the first book of the Bible are challenging to say the least.
We begin with the very first children born in the Bible, brothers, where one murders the other. Moving forward we have a family of three: a man, a wife, his concubine, and two children– the father sends one away and binds the other one to an altar, ready to sacrifice him to God. In turn, when we get to the next generation we have a child refusing to feed his starving brother, and instead negotiating a fee for soup; the same child then pretends to be his brother in order to steal his birthright. He later marries two sisters, fathering 12 sons and a daughter, and plays favorites to such an extent that 10 of the sons sell their brother into slavery and pretend he was murdered by a wild animal.
If you were to pitch this story as a script for a family drama the producer would inevitably respond that it’s completely unbelievable and no family could ever be this dysfunctional. And yet this is the story of our Biblical ancestors, the story of Genesis.
My father-in-law, Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, has reflected on the flow of the family stories in the book of Genesis, suggesting that in many ways the challenge of this book is the question that Cain asks God: “Hashomer anochi achi – Am I my brother’s keeper?”[1] The question is especially pointed because as the readers of the text we know that Cain has just murdered his brother Abel. No answer is explicitly given, but the question continues to be asked and instead it is left hanging in the air. In many ways it continues to be asked in the dynamics between Isaac and Ishmael, Esau and Jacob, and ultimately with Joseph and his brothers – and in reading their stories the answer appears to be – no.
This week, in our Torah portion, we begin telling the story of Joseph, and in so doing begin the concluding story of the book of Genesis. The dysfunction is evident from the very beginning: the text tells us that Joseph was Jacob’s favorite, we get him telling tales about his brothers, and then we have him sharing his dreams that clearly position him as superior to his siblings. When given the opportunity, Joseph’s brothers throw him in a pit ready to murder him, and ultimately sell him into slavery with Ishmaelite traders.
This week the brothers answer the question “Am I my brother’s keeper?” in the negative, following in the footsteps of the previous Genesis generations. The questions persists in our Biblical stories. And in many ways it is THE question that continues to be asked to this very day – one that each one of us must in turn answer – am I my brother’s keeper?
There are so many reflections that I could offer about the civil rights journey that we took with our brothers and sisters from the Greater Framingham Community Church. So many powerful moments as we bore witness to our nation’s shameful history. So many encounters that deepened our connection with the events that had taken place on the ground on which we walked. So many conversations and connections between members of our communities as we explored these sites together.
For me, it was my first time visiting the sites in Georgia and Alabama. I did not grow up in this country, and so I did not learn about the history of the civil rights movement as part of my formal education. My knowledge of the events, the stories, and the people was limited. I had read about various episodes, learned elements of the painful history, and was familiar with the stories of some of the heroes who advanced the cause of equal rights; but in journeying to the south, I did not know what to expect.
One of the most powerful elements of the trip was the opportunity to meet with people who lived through and experienced first-hand the struggle for equal rights. We met Ms. Sarah Collins Rudolph who was the fifth little girl in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on the morning when it was bombed. While she survived the attack, she was temporarily blinded by the debris, and to this day she carries the scars of that terrible day with her. She shared her journey from anger to forgiveness, and stood as an example of how faith can overcome hate. We met Dr. Lynda Blackman Lowry who was the youngest person on the list of 300 who made the march from Selma to Montgomery. She talked about her childhood and the struggle for the right to vote, the numerous times she was jailed for nonviolent protests, and the lesson from her grandma to never be a quitter. She followed through on that lesson: she overcame the fear and doubt, and she made it to Montgomery; she showed us the power of an individual to persevere against the odds, against hate, against prejudice and to triumph.
In Montgomery we had the opportunity to visit the sites of the Equal Justice Initiative – it is hard to fully express the power of what we saw. Their three legacy sites address this country’s hateful history of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation; they offer a historical perspective, but also educate about the way in which this legacy continues to infiltrate our society today. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice was one of the most powerful memorials I have ever visited. More than 800 steel monuments are suspended across the site, each engraved with the name of a county and the people who were killed in racial terror lynchings in that place. More than 4,400 names remembered – the scale of this crime becomes evident in the sheer number of monuments and the vastness of the site. The memorial makes clear that these were not isolated incidents, but part of an orchestrated campaign of terror, intimidation, and hate.
And at the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park we walked through artists’ works honoring the lives and memories of the 10 million black people who were enslaved in America. The park overlooks the Alabama River, which is simultaneously peaceful and beautiful, and has a dark history as a transit route for people to be enslaved and persecuted. Throughout the park we read stories of courage and resilience, the ways in which people overcame their situation and survived despite the inhumane treatment they received and the cruelty they experienced. For me, as a Jewish person walking through the art, I was especially struck by the site of a rail car in the midst of the park. I have seen train cars in Holocaust museums around the world, part of the story of how the Nazis transported Jews to the death camps. But here it was in a different context, part of the story of how enslaved black people built the railroads, and how this new means of transport was used to further enslave and persecute them. It was one of many moments where I experienced the sense of our parallel and inter-related stories of persecution and hate, juxtaposed with resilience and survival.
Finally, we had the opportunity to visit the King Center and to experience services at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. The story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been woven through all of the previous sites and experiences; he was a vital part of the story at virtually every site that we visited. The graves of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King are in a water feature with the words: “We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” It was a reminder of the progress we have made and the work that still needs to be done. As we entered the Church you could feel the energy almost immediately, I felt the words of our ancestor Jacob: “mah norah hamakom hazeh – how awesome is this place.”[2] And the services were awesome, but the Minister’s sermon reminded us of the work that still needs to be done. With his words he shared the frustration and the angst that we are still forced to fight for justice and righteousness, that the work is not yet done, the story is not yet at an end. It was a call to action and a fitting way to conclude our journey
I am sure that a visit to these sites in the South would be powerful whenever it is undertaken. But it is undeniable that during the current moment in which we are living, there was an added urgency to the lessons we were learning. It might have seemed like the fight for civil rights was behind us, that our country had moved past bigotry and prejudice, that we had learned the lessons from the past. But unfortunately, our contemporary experience shows that there is so much work that still needs to be done. For all of the progress that we have made, there are still many battles that need to be fought, the challenges remain, and the forces of hate are reinventing themselves to continue to persecute, discriminate, and sow the seeds of division.
The Equal Justice Initiative does an incredible job of showing how so many elements of slavery, discrimination, and prejudice are maintained in the current criminal justice system and in our society as a whole. I left the south with an awareness of the progress that we have made, but with a call to action ringing in my ears. The stories we heard, the people we met, the sites we visited – all of them showed the power of people coming together to make a difference. Yes, we heard about the well-known heroes of the movement, but we also saw the way in which regular people brought about change; so many individuals who faced unimaginable hate and violence, but still had the courage to stand up and affirm that our society could be repaired, the situation could be improved, our country could be better for all of her citizens. If they could resist slavery, if they could be resilient in the face of lynchings, if they could maintain faith despite the hate that surrounded them, then surely we can continue the legacy and work today to ensure that our country does not go back, but continues to move forward to a brighter and better future for all of her citizens.
Visiting the South at this time, one could hear the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience and comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” We are in a moment of challenge and controversy, and we must choose where we stand.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is, as I said, a most powerful memorial to the terrible history of lynchings in this country. And at the conclusion of the Sculpture Park the National Monument to Freedom, listing over 122,000 surnames that nearly five million Black people adopted in 1870, serves as a powerful statement and recognition of their place in American society. But for all of the amazing work that the Equal Justice Initiative is doing, I could not help but question why I had to go to Montgomery to visit these sites and not to Washington DC. These monuments, memorials, and museum belong in our nation’s capital, so that this story can be told, difficult as it is, as an important part of our country’s history. It cannot be something on the periphery, off to the side that can be ignored – it must be confronted as a painful, shameful, and embarrassing piece of our history. One that deserves a central place among the national monuments in our nation’s capital.
We know that we are living through a moment when people are trying to change the way that history is taught, to avoid the event that they find uncomfortable, to rewrite the story to better serve their needs. We see this when there are proposals to reclassify swastikas and nooses so that they are no longer considered hate symbols. We see this when the Defense Intelligence Agency issues a memo pausing celebrations for MLK Jr. Day, for Holocaust Remembrance Day, and for Black History Month among others. And we see this in our schools when they fail to adequately teach the painful history of slavery and discrimination, of the Holocaust and hate, of bigotry and prejudice. This is a place where we must take a stand to ensure that our children and our adults learn about our country’s difficult and uncomfortable history, because to erase these lessons is to risk repeating the mistakes and errors of the past.
The Book of Genesis asks: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and through several generations it receives an unsatisfactory answer. At the end of the Joseph story as the brothers journey to Egypt to request provisions to survive the famine that is afflicting the land, Joseph, whom they do not recognize, tells them that they must bring their brother Benjamin with them if they want more supplies. Jacob, who is unfortunately still playing favorites, refuses to let his beloved Benjamin go. Judah ultimately stands before his father and says: I will take Benjamin and look after him, and I will serve as a guarantee for him, I will be responsible.[3] He essentially says – I will be my brother’s keeper. Only with that affirmative answer can the book of Genesis conclude.
Having journeyed to the south with our brothers and sisters from the Greater Framingham Community Church, I delved deeper into our shared story, the painful parallel histories of our communities, and the way that the forces of hate have all too often targeted the black and Jewish peoples. I returned from the south with a new found commitment to answer Genesis’ question. To build the future that we want, to turn the page on our country’s painful history, and to ensure a society where all people are valued, respected, cherished, and loved. I commit that I am responsible for all of my siblings, I am my sister’s guardian, I am my brother’s keeper. Only together can we truly serve as a light unto the nations, chosen peoples worthy of being in a covenantal relationship with God.
Shabbat Shalom
[1] Genesis 4:9
[2] Genesis 28:17
[3] Genesis 43:9
