Dear Friends,

I entered the Edgartown Courthouse this week with a pool of 30 prospective jurors, from whom a group of seven would be chosen to render a verdict on whether the defendant was guilty of crashing a boat into Chappaquiddick while under the influence of alcohol.

When I received the jury summons in the mail a few months ago, I was excited about the possibility of serving as a juror, but I was pretty sure I would not be selected. I had heard that judges don’t typically want rabbis on a jury, lest their religious biases impact their verdict.

But when the judge asked all 30 prospective jurors to raise their hand if they had a connection to AA, and many of the hands in the room went up, I understood that my bias as a rabbi might be less concerning to the judge and that I was likely to be selected as a juror. And I was.

In the courtroom, it was clear that the most important, and frankly the only, character trait that mattered as a juror was whether we could approach someone and something with an open and clear mind, or whether our biases would cloud our judgment.

But what if we exercised that same approach in our day-to-day interactions? In the way we view others and interpret their words? Do we uphold the courtroom bar and approach everyone we meet with an open mind, or do we allow our preconceived notions about them, or our own learned experiences, to influence and distort our relationships?

This week’s Parsha describes the first-ever interaction between G-d and Moses, and how Moses was appointed, right then and there at the burning bush, as the leader of the Jewish people.

When Moses approached the burning bush, G-d’s first instruction to him was, "Remove your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

With these words, G-d was teaching Moses the most important quality he would need to have as a leader.

Shoes place you on your own platform, separating you from the person next to whom you stand. Metaphorically, shoes represent the biases and preconceived notions we show up with when we speak to someone else.

At that pivotal moment in Jewish history, G-d was educating Moses, and by extension each and every one of us, that the most important rule in leadership is that when we approach another, we must remove our shoes and clear ourselves of any and all biases that might cloud our view of those with whom we interact.

To be a leader, G-d taught Moses, is to see each person for who they are. To step down from our own platform that separates us from others, and to seek a connection and understanding that is untainted by the biases we may carry.

Not every situation is a courtroom, but every person deserves to be approached with an open mind. And in every interaction we have, for we are all leaders in some way, we must always remember to first remove our shoes.

“For the place on which you are standing is holy.” Every individual was created in the image of G-d, and every person deserves to be approached without judgment or bias.

Hadassah joins me in wishing you a Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Tzvi Alperowitz