The rock and roll group, The Who, sing a top-hit song entitled: Who are you?
That song has been playing in my mind’s ear and I have been asking myself those very questions. Who am I? Not what is my name and address, but what makes me the father, the husband and the rabbi that I am today? What makes the American and the Jew I am and strive to be. Which experiences have helped to influence my life and which moments have influenced me that I merely inherited? For example, how much has the Holocaust shaped me even though I lost no family in Eastern Europe and I was born almost 30 years after the war ended.

Have you ever asked yourself who you are? What influences you and how do you identify? What influences you that you had no control over and which things are part of your DNA?

The book of Exodus, which we will conclude this Shabbat, begins by introducing us to Moses, a man who might have struggled with an identity crisis. Born to an Israelite mother but found and raised by an Egyptian daughter of Pharoah, I often question what led to his allegiance? How does he identify?

I contend that all of us hold multiple identities that have been shaped and influenced by numerous events in each of our lives. Still, the rabbis find value in creating commonality within the midst of community.  That is why when we flee Egypt we convene to make a travelling Tabernacle to God and are commanded to congregate. It is an effort to remind ourselves of individual struggles and triumphs that weave into the tapestry of a communal and collective destiny. Both are our history and shared future. Both require us to create and shape the memories of future generations in an individual and collective form. That is the strong reminder to come together and the underlining of the value in togetherness in the face of solitude.

While struggling with this question, undoubtedly, I have been shaped and influenced by the value of community and congregation in our Jewish world. It is a part of me and a part that I feel blessed to have been shaped by.

Sing yourself this question: Who are you? Start the journey to uncover your identity and the factors that shape(d) you. Engage them and raise them up and then pass them on for the next generations!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi David Seth Kirshner