Of all my duties at Temple Emanu-El, none brings me greater joy than teaching our Confirmation Class, a group of high school students who choose to continue their formal Jewish learning after b’nei mitzvah and then “confirm” Judaism’s place in their lives.

Our most recent class was extraordinary: Its participants all happened to be young women, and the class took place amid Israel’s war against Hamas and Hezbollah and the spate of antisemitism in America, which became throughlines of our conversations.

At the Confirmation ceremony, I asked the students to share their “spiritual autobiographies” recalling the evolution of their Jewish identities and anticipating how Judaism will guide them forward. And these young women spoke poignantly and candidly about present-day concerns that imperil their futures, including access to abortion and reproductive health, and their security as Jews in the world at large and on the college campuses they soon will inhabit. For all their determination to stand up for what they believe in, and for who they are, their apprehension was apparent.

Then my turn came to address them, and I was suddenly overcome by a profound sadness and began to weep. The world they are entering is terrifying. Everything, everywhere, all at once is unraveling. “When did being a Jew make me a target?” they must be wondering. “Am I safe…not just as a Jew but as an American? Could the school shootings all over the country happen at my school? Will this planet be habitable for my children?”

Considering such unanswerable questions, I understood why some of these students might be tempted to........

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