Rabbi Dina Rosenberg

Parshat Toldot brings us right into one of the most familiar human dilemmas: when is it actually okay to lie? Earlier in Genesis, Abraham twice introduces Sarah as his sister, and this week Isaac does the same with Rebecca. They’re scared—convinced that telling the truth will put them in danger—so they bend the truth to protect themselves. But the lie ends up putting their wives at risk instead, which makes these stories hard to read without wincing.

What’s interesting is that the Torah never stops to say, “By the way, this was wrong.” There’s no divine critique, no moral footnote, just silence. Some readers take that silence as the Torah’s way of letting us feel the discomfort for ourselves. Others see it as a realistic reminder that fear can lead even good people to make ethically messy choices. The Torah isn’t offering easy answers—it’s giving us a story that sits with us and asks us to think.

Most of us aren’t navigating life-or-death situations, but we still deal with everyday “truth bending.” We tell a child their drawing is beautiful, we smooth over a social moment, we say we’re “fine” when we’re not. Sometimes those little white lies help keep peace and kindness in our relationships. But when a lie is really about protecting our own comfort or avoiding a hard conversation—and someone else ends up carrying the weight of it—that’s when it crosses the line.

In the end, Toldot reminds us that honesty is less about strict rules and more about responsibility. A helpful question to ask is: Who does this lie help, and who might it hurt? If the answer leaves us uneasy, that’s worth paying attention to. May this week’s parashah encourage us to choose honesty in ways that build trust, strengthen relationships, and reflect the kind of people we’re trying to become.

Our parsha this Shabbat begins with the announcement of Sarah’s death: “Sarah’s lifetime—the span of Sarah’s life—came to one hundred and twenty-seven years.” The Torah could simply have said, “Sarah died at 127,” yet it chooses a more layered, almost poetic phrasing. The rabbis teach that this repetition—chayei Sarah, the life of Sarah—is meant to draw our attention not to the fact of her death but to the fullness of her living. Her years were not a single block but a tapestry of moments, challenges, growth, and faith. By breaking apart the number into units—one hundred years, twenty years, seven years—the tradition suggests that each stage of her life had its own integrity, its own beauty, its own story. In remembering her this way, the Torah invites us to resist defining a person by a single chapter. A life is made of many pieces, and all of them matter.

This past week, I carried that message with me as I joined a retreat celebrating the 40th anniversary of women’s ordination in the Conservative Movement. Seventy-four of the four hundred female rabbis gathered—not just to commemorate a milestone, but to honor the many chapters of courage, perseverance, and vision that brought us here.

The stories shared by the vatikot, the pioneering women who first entered the rabbinate, were both haunting and inspiring. They spoke of the day the seminary faculty voted in 1985. Many professors supported them as individuals, yet hesitated at the idea of women rabbis. In response, these determined students quietly placed a heartfelt letter into every faculty mailbox—a reminder that this was not a theoretical debate but the lives and callings of real people who felt summoned to serve God. These women shattered ceilings with grace and grit. And even as we celebrate how far we’ve come, their stories remind us that the work of building a truly inclusive and equitable Jewish future continues.

This Shabbat, as we remember Sarah and celebrate the generations of women who have shaped our movement, let us commit to carrying their work forward. The Torah reminds us that a life is measured not only in years but in impact. May we use our days to lift one another up, to see each other’s wholeness, and to create a community where every voice is honored.

May the strength and vision of those who came before us inspire us to build a future worthy of their courage.

This week’s Torah portion, Vayera, offers a moment that always stops me in my tracks. God is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah but pauses and says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?”

It’s such a human question. God doesn’t need Abraham’s permission, but seems to feel a sense of responsibility toward him—a kind of moral accountability that comes with relationship. Abraham isn’t just a follower; he’s a partner in covenant. God has chosen him to teach justice and righteousness, and that partnership requires openness.

In that pause, we see something powerful about leadership. Leadership isn’t only about making decisions or setting direction. It’s also about trust, honesty, and the willingness to be transparent—even when it’s uncomfortable. Every leader wrestles with the question: What do I share, and what do I keep private? Too much secrecy erodes confidence. Too much openness can overwhelm. The challenge is to find that middle space where honesty builds trust rather than breaks it.

That same tension exists in all our relationships. Parents decide what to share with their children. Spouses weigh when to speak and when to listen. Friends and colleagues choose when to reveal their doubts or mistakes. In each case, the question is the same: what builds trust? What honors the relationship?

Maybe that’s what God models for Abraham—that real partnership means letting others in. It’s not weakness; it’s respect.

As we enter Shabbat, may we all find the wisdom to speak truth with care, and the courage to be open with those who rely on us.

This week we read about Noah—described as “a righteous man, blameless in his generation.” The Torah gives him high praise, but the rabbis can’t agree on what that really means. Was Noah truly righteous by any standard, or just the best of a bad bunch? It’s like being the most honest person in a dishonest world—admirable, yes, but maybe not what we’d call “holy.” That question pushes us to look at ourselves: do we aim to be just “good enough,” or do we try to be our best, even when no one else is?

What’s striking about Noah is that he never speaks up. He doesn’t argue with God, doesn’t try to convince anyone to change their ways. He just builds the ark and follows orders. Compare that with Abraham, who argues for Sodom, or Moses, who pleads for the Israelites—both try to make a difference, even when God seems set on destruction. Noah, by contrast, stays silent. He’s good, but he’s not great.

That silence hits close to home. It’s easy to be decent people in our own little circles—to look after our families, to do the right thing for ourselves—but real righteousness often asks more. It asks us to notice when others are struggling, to speak up when something’s wrong, to care beyond our own “ark.”

Maybe that’s the real lesson of Noah’s story: that following the rules isn’t the same as changing the world. The flood might not have been inevitable if someone had tried to make a difference. We can’t go back and fix Noah’s generation, but we can do better in ours—by being the ones who act, who care, who step up.

This week we start the Torah all over again—Bereshit bara Elohim, “In the beginning, God created.” But our sages noticed something strange: the Torah doesn’t start with the first letter, Alef, but with Bet, the second. Why skip the first? One midrash says it’s because this wasn’t God’s first creation. God made and destroyed many worlds before this one. Only when creating our world did God finally say, “This one pleases Me.” Even God, the midrash suggests, had to practice creation—to fail, to learn, and to begin again.

I love that idea. It means our world was born out of persistence—out of the courage to try again after disappointment. Maybe that’s why Bet is also the first letter of berakhah, blessing. Every new beginning, whether cosmic or personal, is really a chance to choose blessing over despair, to keep creating even when the first drafts don’t work out.

Each year when we open the Torah anew, we’re reminded that none of us begin from nothing. We carry our past worlds with us—the ones we’ve built, and the ones we’ve had to let go. The question is what we’ll do with this next beginning. What kind of world will we help create this time.

I have found myself struggling to articulate what I have been feeling since the announcement about the hostage and cease-fire deal. I want to feel hope — I need to feel hope — but too often our hope has dissolved before our eyes. I want to feel pure joy, but I also feel anger: anger that it has taken two years for this moment to arrive, that people have suffered underground, emaciated, in darkness and fear, while so many others have continued to die.

It’s hard to know what to do with all of that — the swirl of relief, grief, rage, and fragile hope that lives inside the same breath. Sometimes, when we cannot find the words ourselves, we turn to a scholar of Torah to help us name the sacred complexity of our feelings. Rabbi Tali Adler offers such language:

There's a place you land after you've left Egypt but haven't yet crossed the Sea. It's a place of joy and hope and almost-lightness. And with it, so much fear. Fear that it could all come crashing down, and you'll be right back in the darkness. Fear of what will happen once you have a moment to breathe and take in the massiveness of the grief of everything that came before. 

The name of that place, when the Jews left Egypt, was Sukkot. And maybe that's the sort of Sukkot we sit in this year: not in clouds of glory, and not in ramshackle huts. 

Just a small city right outside of Egypt, somewhere between hope and terror. Gazing over the horizon at the sea, and dreaming of what it might feel like, finally, to cross over to something new.

I pray that we see the return of the hostages and an end to this war.
Ken Yehi Ratzon