The First Step Is the Hardest

Dvar Torah for Shaarei Kodesh's Annual Meeting - Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Before you read on, please watch the video above. It’s only three minutes, and I promise you, it will not disappoint!

As you saw, one person starts dancing alone in a field. He looks awkward and unpolished. He’s just out there, exposed, and no one is quite sure what he’s doing or why. Then something subtle happens. One other person joins him. And then another. And then suddenly, a movement forms. What began as an individual risk becomes a shared act, and what once looked strange begins to look inevitable.

As I look back on these past sixteen and a half years, I think about that dancer. When I joined the congregation, it was as if we were dancing alone. Few people knew about us, and if they did, they thought, who would go to shul in a storefront?

But what our congregation, and that lone dancer, prove is that leadership does not usually begin with certainty. It begins with someone, or someones, willing to take the first step without knowing how the story will end.

In this week’s parashah, Beshalach, the Israelites find themselves trapped between the Sea and the Egyptian army. Fear takes over. Everyone is anxious and waiting for something to happen. In the Torah, there are a lot of pauses between the people calling out to Moses, Moses calling out to God, and God telling Moses to use his staff. When Moses finally raises the staff, the sea splits.

The Midrash imagines a different scene. In the pauses in the text, they imagine a story where each tribe says the same thing: “I’m not going to go first.”

It’s a very human instinct to wait for clarity before acting. It’s hard to leap into the unknown.

And then the chief of the tribe of Judah, Nachshon ben Aminadav, steps forward.

Nachshon does not receive instructions. He does not wait for a sign. He does not know that the Sea will split. He simply recognizes that the moment demands movement, and that standing still is no longer an option.

That step into the water is one of the most important leadership moments in the Torah. The first step is often the hardest to take, but another lesson we learn is that the next step, the people who follow you, is actually the most important step.

The Torah also teaches us something else: possibility follows courage.

The Midrash says that when the Sea finally split, it did not open into a single path. Twelve pathways opened, one for each of the twelve tribes. Think about that. The miracle wasn’t only that the waters parted. The miracle was that one act of courage created a multiplicity of possibilities.

One step forward did not narrow the future. It expanded it into a multiplicity of opportunities while at the same time remaining united and journeying together towards the same destination. 

As I think about our congregation, where it started and where it is now, I am reminded again of that lone dancer. Who would have thought that a storefront shul could grow at all? And here we are, roughly double the size we were sixteen years ago. But it’s not about quantity. It’s about quality.

We have built a full-fledged shul with committed and talented chaverim that span from birth through people in their nineties who take Judaism into their own hands, and together, we have created memorable and holy experiences together. Today, as evidenced by our highly attended services and programs, we are no longer dancing alone. People are want to join us.

This is the moment we are in now. We are in the midst of our ATID strategic planning process plotting our path forward, and the pathways opening before us are truly remarkable. We can’t wait to share them with you in the near future! 

But moving into that new future will not be easy. As Rashi once famously said, “All beginnings are difficult.” The Torah does not promise that the first step will be easy. It promises that it will matter.

Faith does not mean knowing how the story ends. Faith means being willing to begin.

The first step is lonely. It is uncomfortable, and it feels risky. But once that step is taken, the waters open, and with them, possibility.

And that may be the most enduring lesson Nachshon teaches us. When chaverim step forward with courage, the future does not narrow. It widens.

I want to leave you with one thing. The story of the Exodus is not the story of a faceless mass of slaves. It is the story of individuals who become free. They are freed not only from slavery, but from the burden of being counted for labor, for rations, for everything.

In the synagogue world today, we often talk about numbers. When two rabbis meet, one almost always begins with the question, how many members do you have at your congregation?

And here is my answer, which has become my unofficial motto for CSK:

“Other shuls count people, but we make people count.”

So as we stand at this moment, between what has been and what might be, I want to name the kind of community we are choosing to be. One that understands that holiness is created when people step forward together into the unknown.

Tonight we honor those who took that step before us, our board members who have served our congregation with incredible leadership. And we bless those who are taking on the responsibility of becoming trustees of our congregation, entrusted not just with the present, but with the past and the future of our kehillah.

The future of this congregation will not be shaped by how many people we have, but by how many people matter, how many people feel seen, and how many people are invited into the dance.

And if we keep doing that, with courage, faith, and shared leadership, the waters will continue to open, paths will multiply, and we will continue our journey together on a path to holiness with even more chaverim, friends, and partners.