Hide and Seek

Friday June 20, 2025/24 Sivan 5785/Parashat Sh'lach Lecha

Hevre/Friends,

“Hola” from Basque Country where we are entering the final two days of our 2025 Rabbi on the Road adventure tracing the footsteps of medieval Sephardi Jews in northern Spain: visiting their towns and villages, learning their constantly-changing stories of tragedy and triumph, reading their evocative poetry, exploring - and tasting - their unique, centuries-old winemaking techniques. Or so we thought. Our journey here has revealed that we are immersing ourselves not only in a chapter of the Jewish past, but one that is still very much alive for people living in the present, including us. 

As Jews had to do in this country centuries ago, the advice we received to keep a low profile while in a place so hostile to Israel - which for many of us included the gut-wrenching removal of Magen Davids and Chais we normally wear proudly around our necks - was upsetting, but sadly, not shocking. Over the last year and half, many have reluctantly done the same while walking the streets of New York City or Ottawa out of concern for their safety as Jews.

What was indeed shocking and disturbing was meeting a few Jewish people here who continue to identify as Crypto-Jews - outwardly Christian and secretly Jewish - for fear of antagonizing their neighbours while living under a virulently anti-Israel government. Their family’s story of hiding their Judaism to evade the Inquisition and to stay in Spain beyond the expulsion has continued unabated for over 500 years. Our sadness at their feeling an ongoing need to conceal their identity was tempered only by the recognition of our immense privilege to freely live our Judaism, even during these dark days of terrifying antisemitism.

The very last paragraph in this week’s parsha, Shelach-Lecha, contains the mitzvah of tzitzit, the fringed tassels we first wore on the corners of our garments and now wear on the corners of our tallitot/prayer shawls which represent the 613 mitzvot/sacred responsibilities. Historically, the garment onto which the tzitzit were attached was a symbol of freedom, for a four-cornered cloth was the garb of free people. Even once they were moved to the corners of ritual garments including the “tallit katan/mini tallit”, worn throughout the day under one’s shirt, the practice of some to leave their tzitzit out all day long has become a further manifestation of the rights we bear to live our Judaism freely. How incongruous to read of this mitzvah which is all about the public declaration of our faith while traveling in a country where there are still those who fear to acknowledge being Jewish.

With its classic blue and white stripes, the tallit served as the inspiration for the flag of Medinat Yisrael; the Jewish state’s symbol of strength and peace. In the very same days during which we’ve been reexamining the dissolution of 15th-century Spanish Jewry, Israel, reviled by so many countries, launched a bold and daring mission to remove the threat of Iranian missiles targeting not just its own land and people, but, ultimately, all of the free world. Holding the vulnerability of the Jewish past together with the courage of the Jewish present has only added depth and meaning to our travels. 

The four corners of the tallit also represent the four corners of the globe. They symbolize the importance of Jewish unity even as they recognize the distinctiveness of Jewish communities and cultures across the world. Each time we prepare to say the morning Sh’ma declaring the unity of the holy One, we gather the four corners of our tzitzit in our hands and pray for the Jewish people to be reunited in peace from our dispersions across the globe. This is a perilous time as Israel fights wars on multiple fronts, as we battle forces of hate and ignorance poisoning societies everywhere, and as our own polarized countries make collaboration and respect more elusive than ever. We undertake this journey as a gesture of tikkun/repair that we hope might generate renewed connection far and wide: a group of mostly Ashkenazi Jews immersing ourselves in the historical experiences of Sephardim whose language and recipes, stories and laws, rituals and melodies, are both different and inseparable from our own.

As we took our leave from our visit with these self-declared Cryto-Jews, we stood arm in arm singing “Oseh Shalom”, one of our Jewish “anthems”. Cloistered as they are in their double lives, they may not have known the tune or the words, but we raised our voices together yearning for unity, praying for peace, tears of centuries-old pain and pride, fear and gratitude, flowing freely amidst us all.

With continued prayers for our ability to bring home all the hostages, protect the soldiers, heal the injured, comfort the bereaved, and build a lasting peace in Israel and around the world, and with blessings for a Shabbat Shalom,

Dini