Depending on how you work the numbers, I’m one of 9 children. Or 11. Or 16. After my parents split, each remarried someone who brought their own kids into the mix. So, for anyone keeping score: 3 brothers (1 deceased), 5 sisters, 1 half-brother, 1 half-sister, 3 stepsisters, 2 stepbrothers. Some of these siblings grew up with me in Albany—sharing values, bedrooms, clothes, a love of corny jokes, and the local pronunciation “ele-men-tarry.” For some, I know middle names, birth dates, first kiss experiences, and deepest fears. For some of the “steps,” I would be hard pressed to tell you the first thing about them, aside from their hair color and preferred sports team circa 1994.
So which ones count as family? To be honest, I have a tendency to pick and choose, to mention the “initial 9,” unless recounting a particularly juicy anecdote that requires more. One I talk to almost every day, a couple more make the monthly call list, and some… well, I keep my distance. A few of my siblings lean very conservative, which means that we often find ourselves at odds over all things politics, parenting, hellfire-and-brimstone, etc. There are times—more than I’d like—when I leave those interactions feeling angry, even sick. And yet. They are family. And when I see them at our reunion next week, I will run to most of them with open arms. There will also be boundaries: quiet ones, gently but firmly held. Still, underlying the dynamics of my beautiful and sometimes problematic group of loved ones, I suspect that I will hear an echo of my childhood self, the one-time baby of the family who used to squeal, “We love our chothers!” when enveloped in a group hug.
Because, at the end of the day, we are one, echad, part of a whole that is messy, problematic, and so essential to every fiber of my being. I would give my last breath to making sure that each one of them is safe, fed, and loved.
This week’s double portion, Matot/Mas-ei, begs the question of the lengths we go to for familial obligation. In Numbers 32, the tribes of Gad and Reuben request permission to stay in the lands of Jazer and Gilead, outside the Promised Land, in territory better suited to their livestock. Moses fires back: “Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here? Will you turn the minds of the Israelites from crossing into the land that the Eternal has given them?”. This objection seems both strategic and moral. If our “brothers” are at war, can we stay on the sidelines? Are we obligated to join the fight, to protect them at all costs?
The question of siblinghood is a complicated one in the Torah. It is full of stories about brothers who fight and betray each other, who refuse to be each other’s “keeper.” Sibling solidarity, when it does appear, can be misguided and even tragic, such as when Dinah’s brothers, Simeon and Levi, avenge their sister by slaughtering an entire town. While their intentions may have been to “protect” her, their vengeance led only to more bloodshed, more trauma. Clearly, fighting for family without any compassion for their enemies can be catastrophic.
In our modern world, when so many of us hold intersecting identifiers, how do we even conceive of “family” or decide who “counts”? If, as 23andMe tells me, every human alive today descends from one woman, does that make everyone—on some level—a part of our family? Who counts as part of “our chothers”?
I don’t have any answer to these questions. At times, defending members of my family is the last thing that I want to do, but I will look at pictures of people who look nothing like me, people who do not have my mother’s impish nose or my father’s jaunty dimple, and find that their sorrow breaks my heart. In looking into the eyes of a suffering stranger, I sometimes feel I would be willing to go to war for them, to help them in any way possible, regardless of their filiation. But going to war necessitates an opponent… Which begs the question: who would we be willing to harm to protect those that we love or wish to defend? Is it okay for me to harm your “chothers” in the interest of protecting mine?
I want to live in a world where love doesn’t stop at bloodlines, borders, or beliefs. Where I can set firm boundaries and still seek connection, compassion, and loyalty. Where forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting, but continuing to work toward justice, healing, and getting all of us, “chothers” or “others,” a little closer to the Promised Land.
Shabbat Shalom, (ch)others ❤
Rebecca Abbate
