Alone, Together

Shabbat Shalom - Parsha Re'eh - 8.22.25

This week’s Torah portion, Re’eh, begins with a striking declaration: “See, this day I set before you blessing and curse.”

What’s fascinating about this little bundle of text, and what’s completely missed in English translations, is that in Hebrew, there’s a grammatical shift from the singular to the plural. If I were to write this sentence in English and reflect this linguistic oddity, it would probably read more like:

“Hey, you! I’m talking to you, this one person standing here. Today I’m putting before ALL OF YOU the choice of blessing and curse.”

Now, granted, that’s a janky sentence in any language, nowhere near the brevity or beauty of the Torah. But it begs the question: why this shift from the singular to the plural? What does it mean to speak to YOU and ALL OF YOU at the same time?

Our rabbis teach that this is the very tension of Jewish life. On the one hand, you—the individual—are responsible for your choices, your blessings, your curses. On the other hand, all of you—the community—rise and fall together. We are bound up in one another’s fate.

It’s a beautiful, striking idea of nationhood, and I probably would have agreed with that interpretation... until this last month.

This month… has been absolutely bananas! Even down a fully working appendage, I’ve been full speed ahead on Jewish Joy Con.

Mainly, what I do is take meetings. Yes, meetings with sponsors and celebrities, but meetings with normal folk, too. The people who will be our exhibitors, and vendors, our presenters and talent.

In all honesty, I'll take meetings with anyone. Not only because I really enjoy meeting other Jewish creatives, but also because, for many of them, I’m the first person to come into their sphere and actively ask, "What do you need and how can I help?”

The world changed for Jews on October 7th. Many of us lost friends. We’ve lost business. We’ve been lied about, bullied, and worse. But Jewish creatives—the ones who have to engage with the broader public to eat—have been, especially, easy marks. Trolled online, kicked out of cons, removed from panels, disinvited from events, dumped by their agents, the list goes on and on. And with so many urgent crises happening simultaneously in the Jewish world, the needs of our artistic community, and small brands, and businesses, have often been overlooked.

So many of us, fighting the same battle… alone.

I have felt alone for a long time. Not anymore. Because I see Jewish Joy Con taking shape. I see the way the entire Jewish world is showing up for this event. And I know what we are building. I see the future unfolding. And while damage has been done, and pain has been caused, we are creating something that is so, SO much better.

And I find myself thinking back to that opening line in Re’eh. The one with the twisty janky phrasing of singular and plural, smushed together like ten thousand yidden on three floors of convention space overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

We are alone, together.

Shabbat Shalom.