There is a line I have found myself returning to this week, watching events unfold in different corners of the world, each one connected by something deeper than circumstance.

We do not wait for the fire to stop, we run towards it.

Ours is not a story built in moments of calm. It is a story forged in moments of pressure, of uncertainty, of danger. Moments where the easier path would always be to step back, to delay, to hope that someone else will go first.

But that has never been our way. Courage, in our tradition, is not the absence of fear, it is the decision to act despite it. To move forward when instinct tells you to retreat, to build, to show up, to stand visibly as Jews precisely when it would be easier not to.

That is how we endure. Not by avoiding the flames, but by refusing to let them define us. Not by waiting for the world to become safe, but by continuing regardless of whether it is, which history has shown us to rarely be the case.

That is our model, our inheritance, and our obligation.

Each Friday I try to end the week by saying Shabbat Shalom to those who have made a difference over the past few days, those who have stepped forward when it mattered most, often quietly, often without recognition.

Every week the names change, but the idea remains the same, to recognise those who run towards the fire.

This week, the thread that connects them is clear.

They refused to bow, refused to cower, refused to wait.

I want to say Shabbat Shalom to the following people and institutions.

Shabbat Shalom to Hatzola.

In Golders Green this week, ambulances were set alight. Vehicles built to save lives, funded by a community, staffed by volunteers. Targeted solely because of the community they represent.

They committed arson, as if flames might force a community to step back. But they misunderstood something fundamental. We do not step back from the fire, we run towards it.

Within hours, Hatzola were back on the road, without hesitation or retreat. Just a simple truth: people still needed help, people of all religions, cultures and creeds, so they went.

This is what Hatzola does.

In London, where even after being attacked, they return to serve. In Israel, where after ballistic missile strikes and rocket fire, they are amongst the first into buildings that are still settling, still smoking, still dangerous.

They do not wait for the fire to be extinguished, they run towards it. Because to do otherwise would be to abandon the very purpose for which they exist.

Shabbat Shalom to Hatzola, and to all those who run towards danger not because they are fearless, but because others need them.

Shabbat Shalom to the new olim.

This week, 90 Jews from the United States, Britain, and France made aliyah. They arrived in a country under sustained attack, with fire raining down from the sky, missiles from Iran and rockets from Hezbollah.

For most, that would be a reason to wait, to delay, to say, ‘We’ll come when things settle.’

But they didn’t, they chose now. Because they understood something fundamental, that the relationship between the Jewish people and Israel is not conditional on calm.

If anything, it is defined in moments like this. To arrive when it is easy is a choice.

To arrive when it is hard is a statement.

They did not wait for the fire to pass, they walked into it.

Shabbat Shalom to the new olim, and to those who choose to step forward into the story rather than wait for it to become comfortable.

Shabbat Shalom to the Sydney Jewish community.

This week, the Jewish community of Sydney chose to reconsecrate and reopen The Great Synagogue. Australia’s oldest synagogue, restored over two and a half years.

Reopened in the shadow of the Bondi Beach massacre, after arson attacks on synagogues and Jewish businesses, at a time when visibility carries risk.

They could have waited, for calm, for reassurance, for the moment to feel safer. But they didn’t, they chose to stand, publicly and proudly, as Jews. To gather, to pray, to reopen one of their most visible institutions not in spite of the moment, but in direct response to it.

To reconsecrate a synagogue at a time like this is not just restoration, it is a statement. That Jewish life will not be pushed into the shadows. That intimidation will not dictate visibility. That community is not something to be paused until the world behaves differently.

They did not wait for the fire to die down, they opened the doors anyway.

Shabbat Shalom to the Sydney Jewish community, and to those who choose presence over fear and visibility over retreat.

Shabbat Shalom to Rachel Goldberg-Polin.

There are fires you can see and there are fires you carry.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin has been living every parent’s nightmare since October 7, when her son, Hersh, was attacked at the Nova music festival, grievously wounded, taken hostage into Gaza and ultimately murdered in captivity.

For months, she became one of the clearest voices in the world. A mother standing on global stages, in front of world leaders, in the media, demanding that her son and all the hostages, be brought home.

Now, the hostages are home, but her voice has not quietened, because the fight has changed.

This week, as she begins a speaking tour ahead of the release of her memoir, When We See You Again, she is doing something that requires a different kind of courage.

She is choosing to relive it, document it, share it, publicly. Not because it is easy, but because it matters. Because memory, if left unattended, is vulnerable, to distortion, denial, and disappearance.

And so she steps forward, into rooms where she must tell the story again, into conversations that reopen wounds, into a public space that would be far easier to step away from.

There is no extinguishing this kind of fire, only the decision to carry it and to ensure that what happened, to her son, and to so many others, is neither forgotten nor rewritten.

Shabbat Shalom to Rachel Goldberg-Polin, and to those who turn unimaginable loss into testimony, ensuring that truth is carried forward, no matter the cost.

Every week there are people who run towards the fire. Not always in ways that are visible, not always in ways that make headlines, but always in ways that matter.

This week’s Shabbat Shalom recognises just a few of those people. A volunteer emergency service that returned to serve even after being attacked. New olim who chose to arrive rather than delay, not when it was safe, but when under fire. A Jewish community in Sydney that chose to rebuild publicly in defiance of fear and intimidation. And a mother who continues to carry her son’s story into the world, ensuring that memory is neither softened nor forgotten.

Different arenas, the same instinct, to step forward, stand firm, refuse to bow, to cower, or to wait.

So if someone made a difference this week, by showing up when it was difficult, by standing tall when it would have been easier not to, by running towards the fire in whatever form it took, add their name.

Because courage, like memory, does not sustain itself. It survives because people choose it, again and again.

When we recognise those who do, when we celebrate them and shine a light on their actions, we make it easier for others to do the same.

If you’ve seen someone make a difference this week, in your community, in your workplace or simply by refusing to step back when it mattered, nominate them. Because there are far more people worthy of a Shabbat Shalom than can fit into a single column.

Shabbat Shalom and may we never stop running towards the fire.