Who Are We When No One Is Watching?

The Torah of Ruth, Tel Aviv, and what it means to stay loyal in the dark.

A bit later than usual - I wanted to share with you some special pre-Shavuot Torah that I got to learn with my friend R’ Joe Wolfson. Listen to the full 🎙️ episode on Ruth here.

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This Shabbat we begin reading Bamidbar—literally, "in the wilderness." Next week we celebrate Shavuot, the moment we received the Torah. I've always been struck by the fact that God gave the Torah in the midbar.

For the sages, that setting wasn't accidental—and this year I keep thinking back to my own visits to the desert, those long drives through Israel's south when I was younger. The endless stretches where you feel impossibly small. Where no one is watching, and no one is keeping score.

Maybe that's why the Torah was given there—because the most transformative moments don’t happen in public spectacles, but in the quiet spaces where we choose what's right simply because it's true.

As we approach Shavuot, I want to share with you the Torah of the wilderness I learned from Tel Aviv.

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My friend Rabbi Joe Wolfson lives in Tel Aviv, where he and his wife Corinne lead a community of young Jews who’ve moved to Israel. Shortly after October 7^th, Rabbi Joe added me to their WhatsApp group—hundreds of young people who had become a disaster response team overnight.

One morning I'd wake up to messages about cooking for soldiers' families. Another, someone was asking for volunteers to run a festival for evacuated kids.

Day after day, reading these messages thousands of miles away, I realized this group was living out wilderness Torah. No cameras, no social media posts, no one keeping track of their good deeds. Just people showing up for each other in the darkness, choosing loyalty over comfort, commitment over convenience.

This wilderness Torah comes alive in the Book of Ruth. Recently, Rabbi Joe shared with me insights from a powerful commentary on Ruth, which we read on Shavuot. It was written by Rabbi Yosef Zev Lipowitz, a Tel Aviv rabbi in the 1930s, as dark clouds gathered over Europe and pioneers in pre-state Palestine kept building. We recorded a special episode of my Wondering Jews podcast exploring Ruth as a model of wilderness redemption (listen to the full episode here or watch below).

The teaching that follows comes from Rabbi Joe’s insights—and from the Torah his community is living out in Tel Aviv.

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The Book of Ruth, which we read next week on Shavuot, takes place during the chaotic period of the Judges—rife with collapse, invasion, and civil war.

Into this chaos steps Elimelech, a wealthy and influential man, someone people look to for leadership. But when famine strikes Bethlehem, he abandons his community and flees to Moab. For this abandonment, we infer, he and his sons die in exile.

Then enters Ruth—the anti-Elimelech. When her mother-in-law Naomi prepares to return home broken and destitute, Ruth makes a choice that changes everything. She pledges herself to this elderly widow with some of the most tender words ever spoken: "Where you go, I will go; your people shall be my people, your God my God."

Here’s what’s breathtaking:

Ruth made this historic commitment on a dusty road with no witnesses except Naomi. No one live-streamed it. No one took notes for the history books.

At Sinai, the earth shook when Torah was given—thunder, lightning, the mountain trembling. This is the Torah of revelation.

Ruth shows us another way: the Torah of the wilderness, where redemption occurs in obscurity.

Or, as Rabbi Joe’s daughters reminded him—quoting a Taylor Swift lyric— it's like “a red rose broke through the frozen ground and no one was around to tweet about it.” Ruth’s decision didn’t go viral. But it changed everything.

Back in Bethlehem, Ruth takes on the humbling work of gleaning wheat while everyone calls her “the Moabite,” the outsider. When she meets Boaz, their relationship isn’t social media material. It’s about care, devotion, compassion. The story ends with a stunning revelation: this foreign widow becomes the ancestor of King David—and, ultimately, the Messiah.

This final teaching from Rabbi Joe stayed with me most—a quote from Soviet Jewish writer Vasily Grossman that captures the essence of wilderness Torah:

“The powerlessness of kindness, of senseless kindness, is the secret of its immortality. It can never be conquered. The more helpless it may seem, the vaster it is.... Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil, struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness.”

This is the Torah of the wilderness: redemption doesn’t happen through grand gestures, but through small acts of compassion that no one sees coming. The WhatsApps from Tel Aviv. Ruth’s promise on a dusty road. The decision to stay when others flee.

In our own midbar—and make no mistake, we are in one today—we need the Torah of the wilderness. We need people who refuse to abandon each other when times get dark, who commit to each other’s welfare even when it’s inconvenient, who understand that the most revolutionary thing you can do is simply say: Where you go, I will go.

The wilderness teaches us that history’s most redemptive moments happen not in the spotlight, but in the quiet spaces where no one is keeping score—where we choose faithfulness over convenience, and love over fear, simply because it’s true.