יום שני, ז׳ תמוז תשפ״וMonday, June 22, 2026
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Rabbi Andrew Markowitz is rav of Cong. Shomrei Torah in Fair Lawn, N.J., president of the Rabbinical Council of Bergen County (RCBC), and a rebbe at Naaleh High School for Girls.
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There are really two kinds of religious life. The first is built out of inspiration... This second life is not built out of inspiration. It is built out of return.
The Jews of Shushan did not change their location. They changed the way they carried their covenant. For a moment, they stopped guarding it and started living it.
Distinct. Individuals. Representing tribes. But in Terumah, at the moment of donation, before they are placed and named in detail, they are called something else. Avnei miluim. Stones defined not by their brilliance, but by their necessity.
The Jewish people did thank Hashem, but they waited. They waited for the sea to split, for the danger to pass, for the story to reach its resolution. And only then, in a powerful, collective, composed moment, they sang. It was magnificent. It was holy. It was exactly right.
He gave perspective without minimizing pain – seeing the larger story when the rest of us saw only fragments. That was his essence: he saw the good, spoke the good, and brought out the good in others.
