Dignity - CHRONICLE Online/The WORD 1/29/26

Weekly On-line Rabbi's D'var-Torah

January 29, 2026

11 Shevet 5786

Parashat Beshalach

I once had a teacher in rabbinical school who liked to say that the weekly Torah portion always speaks to what is happening in the world. The challenge, he taught, is figuring out what it is trying to say. Some weeks, of course, that task is easier than others. 

In the third verse of this week’s Torah portion, B’shallach, we are told that when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, he took with him the remains of Joseph (Exodus 13:19). Only muchlater—near the very end of the Book of Joshua—do we learn that Joseph was finally laid to rest in Shechem, in the Land of Israel. The oath Joseph had extracted from his brothers, that they would carry his bones with them when God redeemed them, was ultimately fulfilled.

This past week, the remains of the last Israeli hostage, Ran Gvili, were recovered from Gaza and returned to Israel for burial. He was laid to rest yesterday in his hometown of Meitar. The oath that the State of Israel makes to every person who puts on the uniform of the IDF—that no one will be abandoned, in life or in death—was fulfilled.   

The parallels between these two stories are difficult to ignore. I am sure that rabbis around the world have drawn the same connection. The Jewish commitment to k’vod hamet—the dignity of the deceased—is ancient and deeply rooted. Ensuring that the dead are treated with respect and brought to proper burial is not a peripheral value in Judaism, it is a core one. It was true in the time of Joseph, and it remains true today. 

For me, this commitment shapes my work as a rabbi: visiting the terminally ill, officiating at funerals, comforting mourners. But it also informs how I understand the world beyond the synagogue. Like many others, I was outraged by the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minnesota. The video was horrifying. What disturbed me most, however, was not only that he was killed, but how he was treated after he had already been shot multiple times and was likely mortally wounded. An agent fired six additional bullets into his body. This was not merely a callous disregard for human life—though that alone would have been bad enough. It was also a profound violation of the dignity owed to the dead. And tragically, it was the second such shooting in recent weeks. 

In the Jewish tradition, k’vod hamet does not end with burial. It also means honoring a person’s legacy after their life has ended and refusing to allow their death to be meaningless. The greatest way to show respect for the dead, it seems to me, is not only to mourn them properly, but to work tirelessly to ensure that such deaths do not happen again. 

Shalom,

RAF.