Defending What’s Right, Protesting What’s Wrong

What follows is the sermon I planned on delivering at Yom Kippur morning services. The sermon was written before the current cease fire went into effect.

When working at a Jewish summer camp in the early 1980’s I befriended an Israeli counselor who had spent the previous years fighting in Lebanon. He served in the paratroopers and still carried the scars of his service. Perhaps because of my keen interest in all things Israel or maybe because I offered a sympathetic ear, he spent many evenings unburdening himself of these scars. Two memories remain clear. One was the harrowing dilemma his unit faced when it encountered a child pointing an RPG at their armored personnel carrier. The other was how he would join protests against the very war he continued to fight in. I repeatedly challenged him about these seeming conflicting commitments. How can you continue to fight and kill—and sometimes tragically even children—and then protest? Aren’t you protesting against yourself? But for Yigal living with such contradictions made perfect sense. His duties to Israel meant both defending and protesting.

Lest people think that my friend was a lone protestor standing outside Prime Minister Begin’s residence, on one Saturday evening in September of 1982 (September 25th), some 400,000 protestors gathered in Tel Aviv to protest the first Lebanon war. That number represented ten percent of Israel’s population. They gathered in response to the massacre of hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Even though these Palestinians were killed by Lebanese Christian militia and not by Israeli troops, the IDF was nearby and allied with this militia. Many Israelis felt their army could have done more to prevent this atrocity. The IDF commanders should have foreseen such a massacre after Lebanon’s prime minister was assassinated. The protestors insisted there should be an official investigation and that Menachem Begin should resign. The Kahan commission found that the Israeli government bore indirect responsibility, in particular noting that Defense Minister Ariel Sharon ignored the threat of bloodshed. The IDF could have done more to prevent these deaths. Sharon was forced to resign. Senior officers were removed from their positions. Their indifference proved damning.

I have been thinking a lot about those protestors and the Israel of my youth. That was the Israel I fell in love with. And that is the Israel I now long for. That Israel seemed to understand that protecting Israeli lives and ensuring Israel’s survival does not have to mean losing our humanity. Our survival and defense do not have to mean discounting other people’s suffering. That government of my youth was the same government that bombed Iraq’s nascent nuclear facilities. Menachem Begin, the Holocaust survivor, refused to tolerate the clear, existential threat of Saddam Hussein possessing nuclear weapons. That balancing act between defense and protest, which I admit looks much rosier in hindsight and which I acknowledge Israel’s leaders did not always share, that balancing act between Israel’s moral responsibility to safeguard Jewish survival and its moral responsibility for the lives of other human beings, most especially Palestinians, is what 2025 Israel seems to have lost. It appears to have lost this balance. And this makes me worry about Israel’s future and afraid for what is happening to the Jewish people’s values.

Today, everything and everyone is a threat. We label with the same animus Iran’s missiles and European nations’ recognition of a Palestinian state; we label with equal vitriol Hezbollah rockets and actors’ calls to free Palestine. We spend all our time assigning blame and heaping it on others rather than focusing on taking responsibility and shouldering its burdens ourselves. We call every critic of Israel an antisemite and every Jew questioning Israel’s actions disloyal. We focus on the fact that The New York Times showed an inaccurate and doctored picture of an emaciated child rather than taking responsibility for the fact that children are hungry. We placate our indifference by sharing memes showing that Sudanese Arab militias are causing far worse suffering and death in their country. True, but this says nothing about Israel’s actions. We are constantly playing defense. We no longer know how to protest. We no longer know how to fight for the values that made us who we are and what I believe, and will always loudly proclaim, guaranteed our survival for 2,000 years. We are afraid to raise our voices against our own family. We are afraid to say even in hushed tones when our family is failing. The Talmud declares, “Kol Yisrael aravim zeh b’zeh. All of Israel is bound together.” (Babylonian Talmud, Shevuot 39a) We are bound together for good and for bad.

Yom Kippur offers us a corrective. It is our yearly ritual dedicated to changing course. If this day of Yom Kippur is going to live up to its calling, then we need to speak about our moral responsibilities and yes, our failings. It is long past time we take to heart that protest and critique are measures of love. I understand why this exercise makes us uncomfortable and why my words might even make some people angry. We are attacked. We are besieged. We are unfairly maligned. We feel alone and even abandoned. But feelings are not akin to virtues. They do not guide morals. That is why we have this day of Yom Kippur. We are supposed to look inward. We are supposed to examine where we have failed, where we have not lived up to our duties. How else do we improve ourselves if not by heshbon hanefesh, honest self-examination? A moral reckoning is what we are called to do. And protest is about reminding ourselves about our lofty ideals. It is about saying our dreams must not be confined to memory but can still inform our future.

Let us look at Gaza and how our family is falling short. There are lots of reasons and explanations as to why Palestinians in Gaza are suffering. Of course, I blame Hamas for starting these awful years of violence and death. I blame Hamas, and its genocidal ideology, for the celebration of October 7th’s massacre and the glorification of rape and murder of Jews. I affirm Israel’s right to protect its borders and safeguard its citizens. We must also say this loudly and clearly, Gaza’s destruction is real. Over seventy percent of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed—and those numbers do not include the IDF’s latest campaign in Gaza City. 18,000 children have been killed. 18,000 children! Do we have room in our hardened hearts to take this to account? The answer appears to be no. We spend our mornings sharing posts that these numbers cannot be trusted because they are from Hamas, our afternoons repeating, “Israel’s critics are all antisemites” and our evenings affirming Israel’s right to self-defense. I cannot fathom how making Gaza uninhabitable makes Israel any safer or its citizens any more secure. I cannot understand how more war will bring our hostages home.

After two harrowing years we must declare Gaza’s suffering is real. Its children are hungry. And what is our response to this pain? We say, if Hamas would surrender this war would end, if Hamas would stop stealing the food, its children would no longer be hungry. Can we stop assigning blame and start taking responsibility? It does not matter to a hungry child. And it should not matter in this moment. That is a discussion—and a debate—for the history books (or for our arguments in the coming weeks). At this juncture we must work to lessen the suffering. The idea that we have no agency and that we bare no responsibility is false. Israeli forces control the territory. Israel can increase the aid shipments allowed into the Strip just as it decreased the shipments. We—Israel and by extension the Jewish people—are now responsible for Gaza’s residents.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel who is famously pictured marching arm in arm with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was active protesting against American atrocities in Vietnam. He said, “Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings. Indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, and in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” (“The Reasons for My Involvement in the Peace Movement,” in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity) We have the means if only we can find the wherewithal to end this hunger. Jose Andres, a chef whose recipes and activism I greatly admire and who founded World Central Kitchen, and who recently traveled to Gaza to bear witness to its hunger and who on the same trip also mourned at the Nova Festival massacre site, said, “A starving human being needs food today, not tomorrow.” There are ways to ameliorate this suffering. No more excuses. No more casting blame. We are all responsible. Israel’s actions are a reflection on our family. We must start protesting.

To be sure Israelis are protesting once again and have taken to Tel Aviv’s streets and hostage families have camped out in front of the Prime Minister’s residence. Listen to Yotam Polizer, the CEO of IsraAID, the Israeli aid organization that I have long supported and that has worked in some sixty countries bringing emergency assistance and is now working in the Gaza Strip. He said, “This war of accusations doesn’t help anyone, not the people in Gaza, not the people in Israel, not the border communities, and not the hostages.” Progress is being made. World Central Kitchen is building two more kitchens so that it can prepare one million meals per day. But that will still fall short of what Gaza’s people need. It will fall short of what its children require.

At this moment we should be joining with protestors and saying, “Cease fire now.” (By the way, the latest polls indicate 80% of Israelis favor ending the war now.) I acknowledge this might mean the IDF will be forced to fight Hamas another day. But we are not any safer or any closer to bringing the hostages home if Gazans continues to suffer. And perhaps even more importantly, we are not laying claim to our beloved tradition that proclaims every human being is created in God’s image. (Genesis 1:27) We are losing sight of our humanity. 2,000 years ago, Rabbi Hillel said, “In a place where there is no humanity, strive to be human. Hishtadel l’yihot ish.” (Pirke Avot 2:5) We cannot use Hamas’ lack of humanity as an excuse for our lack of humanity; we cannot blame others for our failure to live up to our moral responsibilities. It is inhumane when we say things like there are no innocent Palestinians or all Muslims are jihadists or there are two million terrorists in Gaza. Al cheyt shechatanu l’fanecha. We have sinned. We must be more careful with our words. We ask no less of our detractors.

Am I being disloyal to our Jewish people by saying such things out loud? Or am I being loyal to our Jewish values by leveling such harsh accusations? I will let you decide. I refuse to live in a world where these loyalties must be diametrically opposed, where speaking for Palestinian rights is somehow antagonistic to Israeli and Jewish rights. My concern for the hostages who are imprisoned in underground dungeons starving and hungry, and my sympathy for the families of the one thousand IDF soldiers who gave their lives defending the state are paramount, my worries for my many Israeli friends running to bomb shelters is of the highest order—they are my family—but my compassion does not end there. My heart is large enough to embrace all people. Our Jewish concern must also make room for the suffering of other human beings, especially because in this case we can do more to lessen these people’s suffering.

With sovereignty comes greater responsibility. Israel is about safeguarding Jewish lives. It is also called upon to safeguard Jewish values. It was never supposed to be a choice between the two. It was always supposed to be both living up to our highest moral obligations and ensuring Jewish survival. That is what my teacher and my rabbi, David Hartman z”l, used to say. He made aliya and moved to Jerusalem soon after the Six Day War because he believed Israel would be the place where Jewish values would best be realized. It is where our noblest ideals would meet reality. It is where the difficult, and painful, questions such as how to wage war without losing one’s humanity would be tested.

For thousands of years such questions were only asked in houses of study. They were theoretical debates because we lacked power. Now we have power. Now we have a sovereign Jewish nation. And what does that mean? It means we are no longer the victims of history. And yet we talk and act like Israel does not have a powerful army, and we are still trapped in the ghettos of yesterday. Sovereignty is about taking responsibility. It is about casting aside the crown of victimhood. It is about not heaping blame on others. It is about having the courage to take responsibility for our abuses of power. Strength is about declaring we have failed. Al cheyt shechatanu l’fanecha! For the sin we have committed. We must do more to end the suffering of ordinary Gazans.

And yet we remain indifferent. Antisemitism is on the rise. Jews are attacked. We are rightfully afraid. And if I can quote what I suspect will be the thrust of the emails that will begin arriving before the fast even ends, “Rabbi, you are ignoring the facts.” Let me repeat. When people are hungry, there is no time for debating who is to blame. I am concerned about the hunger. Children are starving. We have the power to alleviate this suffering! Others will say, “Rabbi you are hopelessly naïve and wildly idealistic.” Idealistic, yes and absolutely. (Don’t you want your rabbi to be an idealist?) Naïve, perhaps. Here is what I believe. Throughout our long, and tortured, history we stubbornly held fast to our ideals—even when the world attacked us and in spite of the world’s attacks on us. We found the capacity to look at the suffering of others and not just our own pain.

The Torah commands, “Lo tuchal l’hitalem—you shall not remain indifferent.” (Deuteronomy 22:3) As we feel the antisemitism leveled against us, as we read of ever more examples of antisemitic violence, our world narrows and we shy away from taking to heart the struggles, and pains, of others. We see only our own troubles. You shall not remain indifferent. In Hebrew the verb for indifference is reflexive, meaning it is focused inward. And the root of the word is olam, meaning world. And so, the Hebrew reminds us that indifference is about making ourselves into the world. But we are called to be compassionate to others. We are forbidden from making our pains into our entire world. We are called to respond to the suffering of other people.

Engendering compassion is about expanding our world and enlarging our imagination. We must imagine the pain on the other side of the border. It is not just about the pain of October 7th’s victims—may their memories serve as a blessing. It is not just about Kibbutz Beiri, Nahal Oz and Kfar Aza. It is not just about the suffering of the hostages—may they come home soon (and may President Trump’s peacekeeping efforts bear fruit!). It must also be about imagining the pain of others. When we call Palestinians animals and label them subhuman, we stifle the imagination, we block that wellspring of compassion that is the most important ingredient to being human. There are human beings suffering. Strive to be human. Listen to the Yom Kippur morning Haftarah. The prophet Isaiah thunders, “If you offer your compassion to the hungry and satisfy the suffering—then shall your light shine through the darkness, and your night become bright as noon.” (Isaiah 58:10)

Listen to the words of Menachem Rosensaft who understands how to defend and how to protest. Rosensaft teaches the law of genocide at Columbia and Cornell law schools and argues against the biased charge that Israel is committing genocide. Israel was justified in responding forcefully to the October 7th attacks. Its intention remains to remove the Hamas threat from its borders. That Israel has responded with excessive force, and caused needless suffering and destruction, does not mean it is committing genocide. Rosensaft offers this insight, “The leaders of the anti-Israel demonstrations must be made to recognize that Israel does exist and will continue to exist and has the right to exist, that seven million Jews living in Israel cannot be eliminated from the equation, and that wanting to eliminate them is, in fact, as much a genocidal concept as wanting to remove the Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank.”

Rosensaft is the son of Holocaust survivors. He takes to heart the need to defend the Jewish people. But he also speaks in another voice. He writes poems filled with protest against God and against accepting the world as it is.

He writes of Gaza’s suffering in a haunting poem. Here are his words,

the dead child
in gaza city
khan younis
rafah
is cried over
with the same tears
by the same God
the same Allah
the same Adonai
as the dead child
in kfar aza
nahal oz
be’eri

the child
israeli child
palestinian child
jewish child
muslim child
is innocent
always was
always will be
innocent

and it is
for the not yet dead child
palestinian child
israeli child
muslim child
jewish child
that the killing must end
the war must end
the terror must end
the hatred must end
(Menachem Rosensaft, Burning Psalms: Confronting Adonai After Auschwitz)

The killing must end. The war must end. Poetry—and prayer for that matter—is about imagination. It is about protest. It is about summoning the strength to say this is not how it ought to be. It is about protesting against our continued indifference.

Tell me why the price of our safety and security must be other people’s hunger and suffering? Why must it always be us or them. I protest. We did not return home to make others homeless. I affirm. Judaism’s greatest teaching is seeing the humanity in every human being. The simple fact is that both Jews and Palestinians can claim the land as their own. We must make room for each other, or Israeli author David Grossman’s prophecy will be realized: “If the Palestinians don’t have a home, the Israelis won’t have a home either.” Either we both have a home or none of us feels at home. Yes, your rabbi remains an idealist.

Back to my youth and Menachem Begin who in one moment made me into the Zionist I still am today.

When he became Prime Minister of Israel in 1977 and before the failures of the first Lebanon war, sixty-six Vietnamese were adrift at sea after fleeing the Communist takeover of their country. Ships from Panama, Norway and Japan ignored their distress calls. These refugees were starving and dying of thirst. Captain Meir Tadmor of an Israeli cargo ship stopped to give them food and water. He brought them on board. With these Vietnamese on board the ship was not allowed to dock in Hong Kong. Taiwan also refused to allow these stateless people to disembark. Seeing the desperation of fellow human beings, Begin decided to make them citizens of Israel. They were then allowed to disembark in Taiwan. They boarded a plane to Israel.

In all some 300 Vietnamese were welcomed to Israel. It might have been a token number, but its significance still figures so much larger in my dreams. This act continues to inform my ideals. Begin explained his decision with these words: “We have never forgotten the boat with 900 Jews, the St. Louis, having left Germany in the last weeks before the Second World War traveling from harbor to harbor, from country to country, crying out for refuge. They were refused. Therefore, it was natural to give these people a haven in the land of Israel.” This was Menachem Begin’s first act as Prime Minister. For this then thirteen-year-old, only a few months past his bar mitzvah day, that moment served as a powerful testimony to what it means to be a Jewish nation that lives by Jewish values and is informed by the history of our own persecution. That act continues to guide my Zionism.

Where human beings suffer a Jew must take action.

Judaism is about teaching compassion for others. That is the Passover seder’s message. This is why we remind ourselves we were slaves in Egypt. We know the feelings of the stranger! We know how it feels to be enslaved and persecuted.

Today our world seems to have narrowed, and we are trapped in ever shrinking circles of playing defense and assigning blame. Human beings are once again adrift. People are hungry. We must not cower or be afraid. In a world where people lack humanity, strive to be human.

Feed the hungry. If you offer compassion to the hungry, then shall your light shine through the darkness.

Protest and defend. It can no longer be one or the other. It must be both. Our people’s survival rests on it. Children’s lives depend on it.