I had the opportunity this past fall to teach a Midrash course for students in their final and penultimate years of rabbinical school. Preparing for it, I asked myself what challenges in the American Jewish community might be keeping these students up at night. And I also reflected on my own concerns as I watch the shifting status of the American Jewish community — our power, our comfort, our place in society.
There are many factors at play. There are the boom-and-bust cycles and social fragmentation that have collapsed broad coalitions that have long included American Jews, and given way to more extreme political interest groups. There’s also the perception that Israel, once widely admired across America’s political spectrum as a scrappy nation prevailing against neighboring states seeking to destroy it, is now seen less as David and more as Goliath amid successive wars and in lieu of a peace process.
These shifts were persuasively outlined by journalist Joshua Leifer in his 2024 book, Tablets Shattered, but questions about longterm political and communal stability are even clearer today, on both sides of the political aisle.
Of course, political structures and the need to figure out how to navigate our minority status were the norm for Jews during the creation of our classical rabbinic canon: the Talmuds, Mishnah and Midrashic collection — composed and edited in late antiquity. In the stories that are embedded in this mostly legal literature, we get to hear the rabbis ask and answer, as Jeffrey Rubinstein’s How to Read a Talmudic Story put it “…who they are, what they believe, how to live life, and (most importantly for our case) how to fit into the larger society.” And so, I decided to center the course on how Midrashic and Talmudic stories wrestle with the power dynamics of their age, and what contemporary lessons we might glean from them.
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Among the many selections we studied in class, my favorite story comes from Tractate Avodah Zarah. It imagines a close personal relationship and a series of exchanges between Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi — the Patriarch of the Jewish community in Roman Palestine and editor of the Mishnah — and a Roman Emperor named Antoninus.
In one of these exchanges, we’re told that each day the Emperor would send a messenger to his rabbi friend with a sack full of gold dust hidden under flour. After some time, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi responds to these gifts with five of the strangest words in all of the Talmud, “La Tzricha, it li tuva — It’s not necessary, I have enough [gold].” To which the Emperor responds that the gold isn’t for the rabbi, but rather for future generations of Jewish leaders “to retrieve and pay back to my descendants.”
Why does the emperor need to “hide” his gifts to Rabbi Yehudah? Maybe he’s afraid the gold will be stolen by his delivery men. Maybe he doesn’t want his courtiers to know that he is sending money from the Imperial treasury to a provincial religious leader. And why does Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi decline the gift? Perhaps he worries that the emperor will see him not as a wise friend but as a paid consultant. Or is it that he really fears exhausting the Roman treasury?
Most critically, what exactly is the emperor telling Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi to save for? According to Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, Emperor Antoninus is preparing his friend for a shift in Imperial Rome’s relationship with Jewish authority in Palestine — one in which his intimate connection with the Jewish patriarch will be nothing but a distant memory, and where the Jewish community will need financial resources to stay on top of their Imperial levy.
My students saw clear parallels to the present moment in these stories, though their reactions sometimes varied by generation. Many of the second-career students seemed to be trying to make sense of the shifting American Jewish landscape and our place in American society. My younger students, by contrast, seemed to have accepted our community’s less stable position and were already working to figure out what to do about it. What resonated across the classroom, however, was Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi’s relationship with the emperor — particularly his willingness to learn from an unexpected source.
The image of a great rabbinic scholar shifting from teacher to student was particularly appealing. Up to that point in the story, Emperor Antoninus may have had the money and soldiers on his side, but Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi had wisdom. Now, it’s the emperor who is schooling Rabbi Yehudah on world affairs. And the rabbi learns how to manage relationships with authority. He learns how to embrace the advantages he has in this moment and to prepare for future instability.
Since the end of World War II, the American Jewish story has been one of remarkable stability and, as a result, a certain degree of communal complacency. Talmudic stories cultivate strategic imagination as we move into an era of greater uncertainty. We see one of our most esteemed ancient rabbis grappling with the prospect of instability, shifting alliances, and the path ahead. Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi exhibits a remarkable openness to learning from an unexpected teacher and a willingness to adapt with resilience and strength.
Talmud and Midrash study can be a powerful form of strategic preparation for communal leaders — and for all of us. It teaches us to imagine multiple futures, to learn broadly, and to consider both our own agency and its limits. Torah study is sometimes conceived of as an opportunity to commune with the past, but it also connects us and prepares us for a fuller, more informed and more creative future. I know my students will continue to study these texts in the years ahead, and I hope that many more Jewish leaders will turn to our sacred books to fortify their creative imaginations as they help shape the next chapter of American Jewish life.
This essay initially appeared in My Jewish Learning’s Shabbat newsletter Recharge on June 27, 2026. To sign up to receive Recharge each week in your inbox, click here.
