Invocation for Northampton Inauguration Delivered by Rabbi Jacob Fine - January 5, 2025
History shows us that leadership always carries great risk. Power can be used to protect the vulnerable — or to entrench privilege. It can widen compassion — or shrink it. And the consequences of those choices are never abstract; they are felt in real lives and real communities, including the more-than-human world we are part of and that we depend upon...
As we live through another defining moment in our country’s history, a moment when the foundations of democracy feel fragile, when trust is strained, and compassion is tested, our responsibilities — each of ours — only deepen. When confronted with examples of humanity at its worst, we are called to model humanity at its best. May this term be guided by courage and humility, by care for the vulnerable, and by reverence for this place and its people. The hour calls for moral grandeur. The hour calls for spiritual audacity.
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Congregation B’nai Israel recognizes and honors the original inhabitants who first settled in the valley of the Kwinitekw River. CBI acknowledges that we are on Nonotuck land. We also acknowledge our neighboring Indigenous nations: the Nipmuc and the Wampanoag to the East, the Mohegan and Pequot to the South, the Mohican to the West, and the Sokoi Abenaki to the North.