President Obama's Speech Take 2
Yesterday President Obama spoke at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington DC. He offered several clarifications of his Thursday speech. The transcript and video of the speech can be found here. The president said in part: "[T]he United sees the historic changes sweeping the Middle East and North Africa as a moment of great challenge, but also a moment of opportunity for greater peace and security for the entire region, including the State of Israel."
I remain unconvinced that the time is ripe to move the peace process forward. I find the changes sweeping the region unsettling, but the president, like every president before him, can try to move peace forward. Despite the fact that I am more often than not an optimist I find myself deeply pessimistic that today a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians can be reached.
People have asked "Why did the president give this speech now?" Here is my read on that question. People who become presidents actually believe that they can actually change the world. (Rabbis believe this too, although for some it might be confined to their small little worlds.) Interestingly the greatest figures in history were those who had leadership thrust upon them and yet still managed to change the world for the better. (I am thinking in particular of Truman here who supported the nascent State of Israel.) Some really do change the world for the better. Others of course trip on their grand visions and instead make matters worse. But I don't doubt that Obama's intentions are true. We appear to live in an age when people think that if they disagree with someone they must cast aspersions on his intentions as well. Holding someone's opinions to be false does not necessarily mean that their intentions are false as well. President Obama believes in his message of hope. He also thinks that he can move the world in such a positive direction. I pray he is right. I fear he is wrong. I trust that his intentions are true.
Yossi Klein Halevi writes in The New Republic.
I also agree with his own assessment that there was nothing original in his Thursday speech regarding his reference to the 1967 borders. He said publicly what has been nearly agreed to in private. I quote:
Also, I have little faith in the Palestinians and suspect that if Netanyahu had instead shouted words of thanks and praise towards Obama Palestinian recalcitrance would have again shown their true colors. For decades the Palestinians have built their nationalist movement on the destruction of Israel and Zionism. They have walked away from what President Obama now proposes two times. Their continued commemoration of the 1948 creation of the State of Israel as Al Nakba, the catastrophe, suggests that they are still more interested in destroying Israel than creating Palestine. This is why the recent Hamas-Fatah accord is so catastrophic and in particular the apparent sidelining of Salam Fayyad. He was actually busy with state building and focused on really building something.
In the end it should feel decidedly uncomfortable to have our president quote the Jewish tradition to us, reminding us of the power of hope. "The Talmud teaches us that so long as a person still has life, they should never abandon faith. And that lesson seems especially fitting today." We are the people who have held on to hope through the darkest of centuries. We can't let go now.
I remain unconvinced that the time is ripe to move the peace process forward. I find the changes sweeping the region unsettling, but the president, like every president before him, can try to move peace forward. Despite the fact that I am more often than not an optimist I find myself deeply pessimistic that today a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians can be reached.
People have asked "Why did the president give this speech now?" Here is my read on that question. People who become presidents actually believe that they can actually change the world. (Rabbis believe this too, although for some it might be confined to their small little worlds.) Interestingly the greatest figures in history were those who had leadership thrust upon them and yet still managed to change the world for the better. (I am thinking in particular of Truman here who supported the nascent State of Israel.) Some really do change the world for the better. Others of course trip on their grand visions and instead make matters worse. But I don't doubt that Obama's intentions are true. We appear to live in an age when people think that if they disagree with someone they must cast aspersions on his intentions as well. Holding someone's opinions to be false does not necessarily mean that their intentions are false as well. President Obama believes in his message of hope. He also thinks that he can move the world in such a positive direction. I pray he is right. I fear he is wrong. I trust that his intentions are true.
Yossi Klein Halevi writes in The New Republic.
As an ambivalent Israeli, I know that a Palestinian state is an existential necessity for me—saving Israel from the untenable choice between being a Jewish and a democratic state, from the moral erosion of occupation, from the growing movement to again turn the Jews, via the Jewish state, into the symbol of evil.
But I also know that a Palestinian state is an existential threat to me—forcing Israel back into eight-mile-wide borders between Palestine and the Mediterranean Sea, with the center of the country vulnerable to rocket attacks from the West Bank hills that overlook it. And, if Tel Aviv were to become the next Sderot—the Israeli town on the Gaza border that has endured thousands of missile attacks following the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005—the international community might well try to prevent us from defending ourselves against terrorists embedded in a civilian population, with all the consequences of asymmetrical warfare. Moreover, a generation of Palestinians has been raised to see Israelis as Nazis, thieves, inventors of a history not rooted in this land. Alone among national movements, only the Palestinian cause conditions its dream of statehood on the disappearance of another state. (And that is the dream that not only of Hamas but Fatah, too, actively incites in internal Palestinian discourse.) Alone among occupiers, only Israel fears that territorial withdrawal won’t merely diminish but destroy it.
And so, there were two sides of me listening to the president. The dovish side embraced his vision of an interim agreement that would leave the issues of Jerusalem and refugee return to a later stage and instead focus on ending the occupation and providing security guarantees. But the hawkish side of me wondered whether this president has learned anything about the Middle East....
So: Yes to the vision. But no, we can’t implement it anytime soon. In other words: Yes, we can’t.President Obama went on to reiterate the US commitment to Israel's security and to maintaining Israel's "qualitative military edge." He said, "...[T]he bonds between the United State and Israel are unbreakable, and the commitment of the United States to the security of Israel is ironclad." He recognized that Hamas seeks Israel's destruction and that he would fight efforts to de-legitimize the State of Israel.
I also agree with his own assessment that there was nothing original in his Thursday speech regarding his reference to the 1967 borders. He said publicly what has been nearly agreed to in private. I quote:
If there's a controversy, then, it's not based in substance. What I did on Thursday was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately. I have done so because we cannot afford to wait another decade, or another two decades, or another three decades, to achieve peace. The world is moving too fast. The extraordinary challenges facing Israel would only grow. Delay will undermine Israel's security and the peace that the Israeli people deserve.In my judgment, Prime Minister Netanyahu played last week's diplomatic challenges wrong. He should have publicly thanked the president for his assurances about US commitments to Israel and perhaps quibbled with him in private. Netanyahu missed an opportunity to take the high road. The last thing Israel needs now is to appear like the stumbling block to peace. But Netanyahu might have been more concerned about his supporters in Israel than the world at large. I of course don't doubt Netanyahu's intentions either. I think he is deeply sensitive to the tragedies of Jewish history. But he appears to see them everywhere, most especially in any future changes. Netanyahu acts as if the status quo is sustainable. He is wrong on this point. The Jewish present should not always be written with the imprint of the Holocaust and Inquisition. Remembrance should not be turned into intransigence.
Also, I have little faith in the Palestinians and suspect that if Netanyahu had instead shouted words of thanks and praise towards Obama Palestinian recalcitrance would have again shown their true colors. For decades the Palestinians have built their nationalist movement on the destruction of Israel and Zionism. They have walked away from what President Obama now proposes two times. Their continued commemoration of the 1948 creation of the State of Israel as Al Nakba, the catastrophe, suggests that they are still more interested in destroying Israel than creating Palestine. This is why the recent Hamas-Fatah accord is so catastrophic and in particular the apparent sidelining of Salam Fayyad. He was actually busy with state building and focused on really building something.
In the end it should feel decidedly uncomfortable to have our president quote the Jewish tradition to us, reminding us of the power of hope. "The Talmud teaches us that so long as a person still has life, they should never abandon faith. And that lesson seems especially fitting today." We are the people who have held on to hope through the darkest of centuries. We can't let go now.
President Obama's Speech
Yesterday President Obama delivered a speech about the Middle East. There has been a great deal of discussion in the press about his comments regarding Israel and there most certainly will be more debate at the upcoming AIPAC conference where both Netanyahu and Obama are speaking. I would urge people to read yesterday's speech in its entirety. You can find the text here as transcribed on The New York Times website. If you prefer, watch Obama's speech below on YouTube:
Promise me this. Please don't make judgments based on other people's comments. Read the speech yourself. Don't follow the lead of pundits, commentators, talk show hosts, and especially TV personalities. Make your own informed judgments!
Here are mine. We can by and large be pleased with Obama's statements. He re-affirmed the important relationship between the US and Israel and criticized the ongoing terror campaign against the Jewish state. Below is the relevant text. I have highlighted those crucial statements in bold and of course added my comments in italics.
...For decades, the conflict between Israelis and Arabs has cast a shadow over the region. For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could be blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them. For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own. Moreover, this conflict has come with a larger cost to the Middle East, as it impedes partnerships that could bring greater security and prosperity and empowerment to ordinary people.
For over two years, my administration has worked with the parties and the international community to end this conflict, building on decades of work by previous administrations. Yet expectations have gone unmet. Israeli settlement activity continues. Palestinians have walked away from talks. The world looks at a conflict that has grinded on and on and on, and sees nothing but stalemate. Indeed, there are those who argue that with all the change and uncertainty in the region, it is simply not possible to move forward now.
I disagree. At a time when the people of the Middle East and North Africa are casting off the burdens of the past, the drive for a lasting peace that ends the conflict and resolves all claims is more urgent than ever. That's certainly true for the two parties involved.
For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won't create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.
Thank you Mr. President. Palestinians must affirm Israel as a Jewish state rooted in history!
As for Israel, our friendship is rooted deeply in a shared history and shared values. Our commitment to Israel's security is unshakeable. And we will stand against attempts to single it out for criticism in international forums. But precisely because of our friendship, it's important that we tell the truth: The status quo is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace.
Indeed the status quo is unsustainable. I fear that Benjamin Netanyahu is more interested in maintaining the status quo because it keeps him in power. In order to make bold decisions he must reach across the political divide and bring in different coalition partners. Eventually the status quo will erode the democratic character of the State of Israel. The dream of Israel is to be both Jewish and democratic.
The fact is, a growing number of Palestinians live west of the Jordan River. Technology will make it harder for Israel to defend itself. A region undergoing profound change will lead to populism in which millions of people -- not just one or two leaders -- must believe peace is possible. The international community is tired of an endless process that never produces an outcome. The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation.
There are those who care little of the democratic vision of the modern State of Israel. The land is more holy than democratic values, they believe. They act as if other people can be sacrificed for the sake of touching the land that our ancestors walked. We must not become intoxicated with the land as holy as it is. Netanyahu and Israel's leadership must marginalize those who do not believe in both the Jewish and democratic visions of the State of Israel.
Now, ultimately, it is up to the Israelis and Palestinians to take action. No peace can be imposed upon them -- not by the United States; not by anybody else. But endless delay won't make the problem go away. What America and the international community can do is to state frankly what everyone knows -- a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples: Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people, each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace.
Agreed! Let us hope and pray!
So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, a secure Israel. The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.
Much has been made of this statement, but in truth it is a restatement of what was proposed by Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak years ago. Yasir Arafat walked out of those talks, leading to the second intifada. According to WikiLeaks Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas were close to reaching such a deal only years ago. The fact of the matter is that the security fence is a de-facto border. The only question is how much of the West Bank will Israel be able to retain and how much pre-1967 land will the Palestinians accept in return. What has changed is that Obama is publicly declaring this proposal and making it official US policy. A legitimate criticism is that such a proposal should not be a starting point for negotiations but an end point. My worry is that the Palestinians will again walk away from this proposal and begin another round of violence and terror against Israelis. If the hopes and dreams that Obama outlined prove to be false violence will most certainly follow.
As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself -- by itself -- against any threat. Provisions must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism, to stop the infiltration of weapons, and to provide effective border security. The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. And the duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated.
These principles provide a foundation for negotiations. Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state; Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met. I'm aware that these steps alone will not resolve the conflict, because two wrenching and emotional issues will remain: the future of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But moving forward now on the basis of territory and security provides a foundation to resolve those two issues in a way that is just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians.
These issues are the most intractable. Palestinians seem unwilling to make any concessions regarding the question of refugees. There is no way that Israel can or should absorb Palestinians who are descended from refugees who fled (or let's be honest in some cases were forced to flee) in 1948. That would destroy the Jewish character of the state by demographic means. Similarly can Israel make any compromises on Jerusalem when for years Jews were denied access to their holiest of sites? Why must sovereignty over Jerusalem be shared, or divided?
Now, let me say this: Recognizing that negotiations need to begin with the issues of territory and security does not mean that it will be easy to come back to the table. In particular, the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel: How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist? And in the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question. Meanwhile, the United States, our Quartet partners, and the Arab states will need to continue every effort to get beyond the current impasse.
The most unfortunate of developments is the recent unity accord between Hamas and Fatah. In the West Bank Salaam Fayyad was making so much progress in building the institutions of statehood and a thriving economy. If he is pushed out it will be to the detriment of far more than the Palestinians. Hamas is not only unwilling to recognize Israel, it is also pledged to Israel's destruction. Let's get this one right Mr. President. How can Israel negotiate with a partner who wants to destroy it?
I recognize how hard this will be. Suspicion and hostility has been passed on for generations, and at times it has hardened. But I'm convinced that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians would rather look to the future than be trapped in the past. We see that spirit in the Israeli father whose son was killed by Hamas, who helped start an organization that brought together Israelis and Palestinians who had lost loved ones. That father said, "I gradually realized that the only hope for progress was to recognize the face of the conflict." We see it in the actions of a Palestinian who lost three daughters to Israeli shells in Gaza. "I have the right to feel angry," he said. "So many people were expecting me to hate. My answer to them is I shall not hate. Let us hope," he said, "for tomorrow."
That is the choice that must be made -- not simply in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but across the entire region -- a choice between hate and hope; between the shackles of the past and the promise of the future. It's a choice that must be made by leaders and by the people, and it's a choice that will define the future of a region that served as the cradle of civilization and a crucible of strife....
I desperately want to believe that peace is possible. The status quo will lead to more violence. Unrealized hopes for change will also lead to more violence. But we must try to change ourselves and our world. The Palestinians deserve a state. Israel deserves sheket v'shalom, quiet and peace. Let us hope that these dreams are possible, both our hopes for Israel and the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people.
Promise me this. Please don't make judgments based on other people's comments. Read the speech yourself. Don't follow the lead of pundits, commentators, talk show hosts, and especially TV personalities. Make your own informed judgments!
Here are mine. We can by and large be pleased with Obama's statements. He re-affirmed the important relationship between the US and Israel and criticized the ongoing terror campaign against the Jewish state. Below is the relevant text. I have highlighted those crucial statements in bold and of course added my comments in italics.
...For decades, the conflict between Israelis and Arabs has cast a shadow over the region. For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could be blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them. For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own. Moreover, this conflict has come with a larger cost to the Middle East, as it impedes partnerships that could bring greater security and prosperity and empowerment to ordinary people.
For over two years, my administration has worked with the parties and the international community to end this conflict, building on decades of work by previous administrations. Yet expectations have gone unmet. Israeli settlement activity continues. Palestinians have walked away from talks. The world looks at a conflict that has grinded on and on and on, and sees nothing but stalemate. Indeed, there are those who argue that with all the change and uncertainty in the region, it is simply not possible to move forward now.
I disagree. At a time when the people of the Middle East and North Africa are casting off the burdens of the past, the drive for a lasting peace that ends the conflict and resolves all claims is more urgent than ever. That's certainly true for the two parties involved.
For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won't create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.
Thank you Mr. President. Palestinians must affirm Israel as a Jewish state rooted in history!
As for Israel, our friendship is rooted deeply in a shared history and shared values. Our commitment to Israel's security is unshakeable. And we will stand against attempts to single it out for criticism in international forums. But precisely because of our friendship, it's important that we tell the truth: The status quo is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace.
Indeed the status quo is unsustainable. I fear that Benjamin Netanyahu is more interested in maintaining the status quo because it keeps him in power. In order to make bold decisions he must reach across the political divide and bring in different coalition partners. Eventually the status quo will erode the democratic character of the State of Israel. The dream of Israel is to be both Jewish and democratic.
The fact is, a growing number of Palestinians live west of the Jordan River. Technology will make it harder for Israel to defend itself. A region undergoing profound change will lead to populism in which millions of people -- not just one or two leaders -- must believe peace is possible. The international community is tired of an endless process that never produces an outcome. The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation.
There are those who care little of the democratic vision of the modern State of Israel. The land is more holy than democratic values, they believe. They act as if other people can be sacrificed for the sake of touching the land that our ancestors walked. We must not become intoxicated with the land as holy as it is. Netanyahu and Israel's leadership must marginalize those who do not believe in both the Jewish and democratic visions of the State of Israel.
Now, ultimately, it is up to the Israelis and Palestinians to take action. No peace can be imposed upon them -- not by the United States; not by anybody else. But endless delay won't make the problem go away. What America and the international community can do is to state frankly what everyone knows -- a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples: Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people, each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace.
Agreed! Let us hope and pray!
So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, a secure Israel. The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.
Much has been made of this statement, but in truth it is a restatement of what was proposed by Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak years ago. Yasir Arafat walked out of those talks, leading to the second intifada. According to WikiLeaks Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas were close to reaching such a deal only years ago. The fact of the matter is that the security fence is a de-facto border. The only question is how much of the West Bank will Israel be able to retain and how much pre-1967 land will the Palestinians accept in return. What has changed is that Obama is publicly declaring this proposal and making it official US policy. A legitimate criticism is that such a proposal should not be a starting point for negotiations but an end point. My worry is that the Palestinians will again walk away from this proposal and begin another round of violence and terror against Israelis. If the hopes and dreams that Obama outlined prove to be false violence will most certainly follow.
As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself -- by itself -- against any threat. Provisions must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism, to stop the infiltration of weapons, and to provide effective border security. The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. And the duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated.
These principles provide a foundation for negotiations. Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state; Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met. I'm aware that these steps alone will not resolve the conflict, because two wrenching and emotional issues will remain: the future of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But moving forward now on the basis of territory and security provides a foundation to resolve those two issues in a way that is just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians.
These issues are the most intractable. Palestinians seem unwilling to make any concessions regarding the question of refugees. There is no way that Israel can or should absorb Palestinians who are descended from refugees who fled (or let's be honest in some cases were forced to flee) in 1948. That would destroy the Jewish character of the state by demographic means. Similarly can Israel make any compromises on Jerusalem when for years Jews were denied access to their holiest of sites? Why must sovereignty over Jerusalem be shared, or divided?
Now, let me say this: Recognizing that negotiations need to begin with the issues of territory and security does not mean that it will be easy to come back to the table. In particular, the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel: How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist? And in the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question. Meanwhile, the United States, our Quartet partners, and the Arab states will need to continue every effort to get beyond the current impasse.
The most unfortunate of developments is the recent unity accord between Hamas and Fatah. In the West Bank Salaam Fayyad was making so much progress in building the institutions of statehood and a thriving economy. If he is pushed out it will be to the detriment of far more than the Palestinians. Hamas is not only unwilling to recognize Israel, it is also pledged to Israel's destruction. Let's get this one right Mr. President. How can Israel negotiate with a partner who wants to destroy it?
I recognize how hard this will be. Suspicion and hostility has been passed on for generations, and at times it has hardened. But I'm convinced that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians would rather look to the future than be trapped in the past. We see that spirit in the Israeli father whose son was killed by Hamas, who helped start an organization that brought together Israelis and Palestinians who had lost loved ones. That father said, "I gradually realized that the only hope for progress was to recognize the face of the conflict." We see it in the actions of a Palestinian who lost three daughters to Israeli shells in Gaza. "I have the right to feel angry," he said. "So many people were expecting me to hate. My answer to them is I shall not hate. Let us hope," he said, "for tomorrow."
That is the choice that must be made -- not simply in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but across the entire region -- a choice between hate and hope; between the shackles of the past and the promise of the future. It's a choice that must be made by leaders and by the people, and it's a choice that will define the future of a region that served as the cradle of civilization and a crucible of strife....
I desperately want to believe that peace is possible. The status quo will lead to more violence. Unrealized hopes for change will also lead to more violence. But we must try to change ourselves and our world. The Palestinians deserve a state. Israel deserves sheket v'shalom, quiet and peace. Let us hope that these dreams are possible, both our hopes for Israel and the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people.
Bechukotai
I am not optimistic about peace in the Middle East.
The Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, will soon unilaterally declare a Palestinian State defined by Israel’s pre-1967 borders. Despite his distortions of history, many nations will undoubtedly recognize this declaration. Some will not. The Palestinians continue to appeal to the United Nations for support. Meanwhile Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appeals to the US Congress for support. They do not speak to each other, instead only to their supporters. Israel of course can always count on my support, but peace will not be achieved if Israel and the Palestinians refuse to speak with each other. (Tom Friedman is correct on this point.)
This week’s protests commemorating Al Nakhba offer further discouraging signs. Make no mistake. Marking the creation of the State of Israel as “the catastrophe” does not signal Palestinians coming to terms with the modern Jewish state. It suggests that the “stalemate” is not in truth about the 1967 borders but those of 1948. It should be remembered that the Jewish leadership accepted the 1947 UN partition plan and the Arab leaders rejected it. The catastrophe could have been averted then and there. The Palestinian Authority’s recent accord with Hamas is also deeply worrisome. Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction. How can Israel make peace with such partners? How can there be peace with someone who is pledged to your destruction?
Looking from the side on which I sit, Netanyahu is either unable or unwilling to marginalize those Israelis who believe that the land of Israel is only meant for the Jewish people and no other people. Israel must divorce itself from these internal radical forces. It must do so not only for the sake of peace but because these modern day religious zealots threaten the democratic Jewish state. Make no mistake again. Discussions about this settlement or that are a diversion. It is instead the ideology of many settlers that is corroding Israel’s soul. Israel must uproot this ideology from its midst. It must do so first and foremost for its own sake.
Years ago when studying in Jerusalem during my first year in rabbinical school, I volunteered to tutor Arab high school students in English. Once a week I traveled by myself to the nearby village of Beit Safafa. It is an interesting village. It is located near the current Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. Prior to 1967 Beit Safafa was a divided village. One half sat within the newly created State of Israel. The other half in Jordan, in what is called East Jerusalem. After the Six Day War the village was united and all its residents became Israeli citizens.
There I met with my students at one of their homes. Often we sat in the backyard eating sweets, nuts and fruits and of course drinking tea infused with mint leaves. Every week they laughed when I first sipped my tea. They exclaimed, “No sugar in your tea?” At the end of the year they presented me with a gift, a pen with my name inscribed on its side. “Steve Moskovitz” it read. I did not tell them that my name was misspelled. I did not tell them that I received five of these very same pens on my bar mitzvah. This present remains among my most treasured gifts.
I think of those moments as I eye the pen sitting on my desk. I have long since lost touch with my students. I wonder what has become of them. By now I imagine that they are married and have children. I wonder about their feelings and especially of those of their children. They would have come of age during a different time, during in particular the intifadas, the first of which began the year after I finished my studies in Jerusalem. Would they wish to live in a Palestinian state? Have some become radicalized? Have others left to make their lives in the United States or Europe?
Two weeks ago, Nicole Krantz spoke to our congregation about her recent experience with Seeds of Peace. As I listened to her speak about the friendships she formed with Israelis and Palestinians, I thought again about my students. Nicole spoke passionately about the power of Seeds and how it could perhaps transform the Middle East by changing ordinary young people. She was realistic about achieving peace. She recognized its challenges and difficulties. Yet she held fast to hope. She continued to believe that a few “seeds” could change the equation. I hope and pray she proves right. I wonder if Nicole befriended one of my student’s children.
I resolved to find my students. I will continue to search for peace.
This week’s portion, Bechukotai, declares: “I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone; I will give the land respite from vicious beasts, and no sword shall cross your land.” (Leviticus 26:6) The Torah’s words will forever remain my prayer.
The Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, will soon unilaterally declare a Palestinian State defined by Israel’s pre-1967 borders. Despite his distortions of history, many nations will undoubtedly recognize this declaration. Some will not. The Palestinians continue to appeal to the United Nations for support. Meanwhile Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appeals to the US Congress for support. They do not speak to each other, instead only to their supporters. Israel of course can always count on my support, but peace will not be achieved if Israel and the Palestinians refuse to speak with each other. (Tom Friedman is correct on this point.)
This week’s protests commemorating Al Nakhba offer further discouraging signs. Make no mistake. Marking the creation of the State of Israel as “the catastrophe” does not signal Palestinians coming to terms with the modern Jewish state. It suggests that the “stalemate” is not in truth about the 1967 borders but those of 1948. It should be remembered that the Jewish leadership accepted the 1947 UN partition plan and the Arab leaders rejected it. The catastrophe could have been averted then and there. The Palestinian Authority’s recent accord with Hamas is also deeply worrisome. Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction. How can Israel make peace with such partners? How can there be peace with someone who is pledged to your destruction?
Looking from the side on which I sit, Netanyahu is either unable or unwilling to marginalize those Israelis who believe that the land of Israel is only meant for the Jewish people and no other people. Israel must divorce itself from these internal radical forces. It must do so not only for the sake of peace but because these modern day religious zealots threaten the democratic Jewish state. Make no mistake again. Discussions about this settlement or that are a diversion. It is instead the ideology of many settlers that is corroding Israel’s soul. Israel must uproot this ideology from its midst. It must do so first and foremost for its own sake.
Years ago when studying in Jerusalem during my first year in rabbinical school, I volunteered to tutor Arab high school students in English. Once a week I traveled by myself to the nearby village of Beit Safafa. It is an interesting village. It is located near the current Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. Prior to 1967 Beit Safafa was a divided village. One half sat within the newly created State of Israel. The other half in Jordan, in what is called East Jerusalem. After the Six Day War the village was united and all its residents became Israeli citizens.
There I met with my students at one of their homes. Often we sat in the backyard eating sweets, nuts and fruits and of course drinking tea infused with mint leaves. Every week they laughed when I first sipped my tea. They exclaimed, “No sugar in your tea?” At the end of the year they presented me with a gift, a pen with my name inscribed on its side. “Steve Moskovitz” it read. I did not tell them that my name was misspelled. I did not tell them that I received five of these very same pens on my bar mitzvah. This present remains among my most treasured gifts.
I think of those moments as I eye the pen sitting on my desk. I have long since lost touch with my students. I wonder what has become of them. By now I imagine that they are married and have children. I wonder about their feelings and especially of those of their children. They would have come of age during a different time, during in particular the intifadas, the first of which began the year after I finished my studies in Jerusalem. Would they wish to live in a Palestinian state? Have some become radicalized? Have others left to make their lives in the United States or Europe?
Two weeks ago, Nicole Krantz spoke to our congregation about her recent experience with Seeds of Peace. As I listened to her speak about the friendships she formed with Israelis and Palestinians, I thought again about my students. Nicole spoke passionately about the power of Seeds and how it could perhaps transform the Middle East by changing ordinary young people. She was realistic about achieving peace. She recognized its challenges and difficulties. Yet she held fast to hope. She continued to believe that a few “seeds” could change the equation. I hope and pray she proves right. I wonder if Nicole befriended one of my student’s children.
I resolved to find my students. I will continue to search for peace.
This week’s portion, Bechukotai, declares: “I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone; I will give the land respite from vicious beasts, and no sword shall cross your land.” (Leviticus 26:6) The Torah’s words will forever remain my prayer.
Take Back Zionism
This is a powerful video about the humanitarian impulse of modern Zionism. It is produced by a new organization, Take Back Zionism, an advocacy group formed by alumni of Birthright Israel.
I remember years ago when Menahem Begin was Israel's prime minister. In 1977 an Israeli cargo ship came across a boat of Vietnamese drifting in the ocean. The Israeli captain offered the sixty some people food and water and then transported them to Israel. Begin granted these Vietnamese "boat people" Israeli citizenship, comparing them to Jewish refugees, many of whom had struggled in vain to escape Nazi occupied Europe. Begin was himself a Holocaust survivor. In the end approximately 300 Vietnamese were granted Israeli citizenship and found a home in the Jewish state.
Where human beings suffer a Jew must take action. I am proud of how frequently Israel has taken up this cause and sought to relieve the suffering of fellow human beings.
I remember years ago when Menahem Begin was Israel's prime minister. In 1977 an Israeli cargo ship came across a boat of Vietnamese drifting in the ocean. The Israeli captain offered the sixty some people food and water and then transported them to Israel. Begin granted these Vietnamese "boat people" Israeli citizenship, comparing them to Jewish refugees, many of whom had struggled in vain to escape Nazi occupied Europe. Begin was himself a Holocaust survivor. In the end approximately 300 Vietnamese were granted Israeli citizenship and found a home in the Jewish state.
Where human beings suffer a Jew must take action. I am proud of how frequently Israel has taken up this cause and sought to relieve the suffering of fellow human beings.
Unemployment and Torah
Yesterday I had the privilege of delivering the D'var Torah at the local Connect to Care town hall meeting and networking opportunity. This event was for those who have found themselves unemployed or underemployed because of the recent economic crisis. I am proud that my synagogue was one of the event's co-sponsors.
As a rabbi that is my most fervent hope and prayer. Despite all difficulties and struggles may our souls forever remain whole. Kein y'hi ratzon.
Thank you Jim Krantz. Thank you to all of the organizers of this Connect to Care event: UJA-Federation, Sid Jacobson JCC, Jericho Jewish Center and my congregation and its leadership.
This week’s Torah portion is Behar, from the book of Leviticus. It is a portion decidedly focused on eretz yisrael, the land of Israel. In particular it outlines two laws. It first details the sabbatical year, shmita, the seventh year in which the land must remain untilled. We are commanded not to work the land during this year. We can only eat what grows on its own.
The spiritual intention of this law is clear. Everything is deserving of menuchah, rest. In addition it reiterates the age old Jewish principal. Everything belongs to God. Just as you can’t do whatever you want with your bodies so too you can’t do everything with your land. Everything is borrowed. Everything is on loan. In a sense on the sabbatical year the landowner and the landless are on equal footing. Both can only take what the untilled earth offers.
The second group of commandments makes the point that all belongs to God even stronger. It is the law of the jubilee year, the yovel. In the 50th year three things are to occur: 1. the land is again to lie fallow (by the way that would mean that the earth would remain untilled for two years: on the preceding sabbatical year and then the jubilee year), 2. Hebrew slaves are to be set free and 3. all properties sold must revert to their original owners. This combined with the commandment detailed in the book of Deuteronomy that not only is the land to lie fallow on the seventh year, but that all debts are forgiven on that sabbatical year, are indeed worthy of further examination at this moment when we gather as a Connect to Care community.
To be honest it is doubtful that these practices of the jubilee when all land reverted to its original tribal owners and the remission of all debts were ever practiced. As they say in modern terms, that might bring the economy to a standstill. Nonetheless the ideal offers us an extraordinary teaching. The Torah here suggests that not only does the land belong to God but also our wealth. Even our money is in a sense God’s. All our worldly accumulations belong to God.
What is the goal of these biblical laws? So that we might better share with others. So that we might not measure ourselves by the acres we own or the wealth we accumulate. The Torah wants to draw a circle around the community. It seeks not fence others out, but to fence all in.
I think about this when I see our fenced in backyards. We work to keep our neighbors out. The Bible worked to bring our neighbors in. The Torah wants us to share with others. It wants us to include others. The Bible wants to instill in our hearts the idea that nothing is mine and everything is God’s.
As I read the Torah portion’s words I think to myself what it might be like to sit where many sit. Far too many are unemployed and far too many are underemployed. What an extraordinary opportunity it would be to have the jubilee this year, to have this ancient do-over when all debts would be wiped clean and each us would have the opportunity to start over. Too many feel that they are not even returning to the starting line, but instead beginning yards back because they are suffering under crushing debt. I wish I could proclaim the jubilee for all. I wish I could blow the shofar and announce that jubilee and say we are all starting over. Everything and everyone is back to the beginning. It is good to dream—especially when it is the Bible’s dream.
I of course have no such power. Not only am I poor shofar blower, but such power belongs to no one today. Long ago we lost count. And the 50th year was never again proclaimed. But each of us has the power to transform our own souls. Each of us has the power to proclaim such a thing to ourselves. Each of can say to ourselves that my wealth is God’s.
If the Torah is right, and I believe it to be so, that land is not truly mine, but God’s then I can never lose. I am only a tenant. Each of us is only a tenant. Holding such a belief in our souls might prevent us from becoming broken.
Behar
“It’s the ground that can never be replaced… They don’t make any more ground, and this ground in the spillway is the best in the world.”
Last week the Army Corps of Engineers dynamited a hole in the Mississippi river levee, flooding the spillway, in order to save a small town. In the process they sacrificed precious Missouri farm land. The New York Times (May 3, 2011) quoted one farmer’s words of praise and reverence for the land he and his family farmed for their entire lives.
Years ago when my family and I used to boat on the mighty Mississippi we would marvel at the homes on the river’s banks. Why would people build on a flood plain? Every year the Mississippi river floods. Every year the river nourishes the surrounding farm lands. Some years the floods are greater than others. Precious land comes at great cost. Apparently this is nature’s equation. And so every year families have to flee their homes. There is pull of the land that defies reason. There is the pull of an ancestral home that surpasses explanation. It is the sanctity of the land that pulls families toward it.
This week’s Torah portion, Behar, is about the sanctity of the land of Israel. So revered is this land that it alone is granted a sabbatical year. “When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a sabbath of the Lord.” What is the purpose of this sabbatical year, a year in which the land must be allowed to lie fallow? Its purpose is twofold. On the one hand it is a reminder that only God truly owns the land. There is in truth no property ownership. The land is lent to us by God. On the other hand the sabbatical year teaches us that everything, that all of God’s creations, must rest. Menuchah, Shabbat rest, is a universal right. It is not just a Jewish obligation, but instead a right that every living thing must enjoy. The land as well is a living and breathing creation.
Thus the sabbatical year of the land should rekindle in us a reverence for the land. To be sure the Torah’s focus is the land of Israel and its inherent holiness. Nonetheless we learn from this portion that land is sacred. And we must therefore regain a reverence for the land and nature. There is a majesty of the earth that is lost to many of our contemporaries. We appear only to revere nature’s awesome power. These recent storms remind us however not only of nature’s fury but also of its grandeur. The sabbatical year and the river’s flooding remind us about nature’s cycle that we try in vain to defy.
We must say as well, along with farmers, “The ground beneath our very feet is the best in the world.”
The Zionist philosopher A.D Gordon once wrote: “At times you imagine that you, too, are taking root in the soil that you are digging; like all that is growing around, you are nurtured by the light of the sun’s rays with food from heaven. You feel that you, too, live a life in common with the tiniest blade of grass, with each flower, each tree; that you live deeply in the heart of nature, rising up from all and growing straight up into the expanse of the world…”
Gordon’s primary concern was the spiritual power to be found in working the land. But his lesson is still apt for our generation. Each of us must find a way to reclaim the earth as our own, to regain a sacred connection to the land. It should not occur to us when the land is washed away. We should recognize it and proclaim it each and every day.
Testing Limits
Testing the Limits - by Marjorie Ingall; Tablet Magazine
This is an interesting article about standardized testing. Given that our children are now in the thick of taking standardized test the author's thoughts should give us pause. Is there a correlation between improved teaching and standardized tests as politicians argue? I think not. I have always found these troubles. How can one objectify learning. Does a 5 mean you have learned more? Does an 800 mean you are a better writer? Such scores are pyrrhic victories. The notion that all students, especially young fourth graders, can be placed on the same level and evaluated by objective measures is impossible.
Ingall writes as well about what should be our communal concern:
This is an interesting article about standardized testing. Given that our children are now in the thick of taking standardized test the author's thoughts should give us pause. Is there a correlation between improved teaching and standardized tests as politicians argue? I think not. I have always found these troubles. How can one objectify learning. Does a 5 mean you have learned more? Does an 800 mean you are a better writer? Such scores are pyrrhic victories. The notion that all students, especially young fourth graders, can be placed on the same level and evaluated by objective measures is impossible.
Ingall writes as well about what should be our communal concern:
As Jews, we dig community. Al tifrosh min hatzibur, we’re told: Do not separate yourself from the community. Our prayers are written overwhelmingly in the first person plural. But standardized testing is the furthest thing from communitarian. Wealthy families buy tutoring. Upper-middle-class kids come into school with the huge advantage of being read to more often at home. Testing enforces existing divisions and even increases them. And being Jewish means you shouldn’t just worry about your kids; you should be concerned about everyone’s kids. That means working to improve all schools—yes, even if your kid goes to Jewish Day School—in meaningful ways, because that’s part of the responsibility of living in a democracy.The increasing attempt to reduce to numbers what is a subjective endeavor is a doomed enterprise. Teaching can never be quantified. It is an art. It can only be measured in the transformation of a student's soul.
Happy Yom Haatzmaut!
Today is Yom Haatzmaut, Israel Independence Day. 63 years ago, according to the Jewish calendar, David Ben Gurion proclaimed the creation of the modern Jewish state with the words:
[W]e, the members of the National Council, representing the Jewish people in Palestine and the Zionist movement of the world, met together in solemn assembly today, the day of the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine, and by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people and of the resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations, hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine, to be called Israel.
We live in remarkable times. Few generations of Jews have shared in the privilege of living alongside a sovereign Jewish state. When we look back through the lens of history we realize that this blessing is unprecedented. It is unrivaled.
Most people think that our community is affluent because of its material success. The Jewish community has indeed achieved unprecedented levels of wealth, education, and stature, especially here in the United States. Our riches however are better measured not by these successes, but instead by the achievement of our age-old dream. The modern State of Israel represents the greatest riches we have ever realized.
Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote in what has become a classic, Israel: An Echo of Eternity (1969):
The return to Zion is a creative challenge to stabilization, shaking up inertia, a challenge demanding new action, new thinking.Well-adjusted people think that faith is an answer to all human problems. In truth, however, faith is a challenge to all human answers. Faith is a consuming fire, consuming all pretensions. To have faith is to be in labor.Well-meaning people used to say that a Jewish state would be an answer to all Jewish questions. In truth, however, the State of Israel is a challenge to many of our answers. To be involved in the life of Israel is to be in labor.What is the meaning of the State of Israel? Its sheer being is the message. The life in the land of Israel today is a rehearsal, a test, a challenge to all of us. Not living in the land, nonparticipation in the drama, is a source of embarrassment.
Each of us could participate in this drama far more. Each of us must participate in this drama far more!
Yom HaZikaron
Today is Yom HaZikaron, the day we remember those soldiers who gave their lives defending the State of Israel. They are far too many for such a small nation. To mark this day I share Natan Alterman's "The Silver Platter."
The earth grows still
the lurid sky slowly pales
over smoking borders.
Heartsick, but still living, a people stand by
to greet the uniqueness
of a miracle.
Readied, they wait beneath the moon
wrapped in awesome joy, before the light.
A girl and boy step forward,
and slowly walk before the waiting nation;
In work garb and heavy-shod
they climb in stillness.
Wearing yet the dress of battle, the grime
of aching day arid fire-filled night.
Unwashd, weary unto death, not knowing rest,
but waring youth like dewdrops in their hair
silently the two approach
and stand,
are they of the quick or of the dead?
Through wandering tears, the people stare.
"Who are you, the silent two?"
And the reply, "We are the silver platter
upon which the Jewish State was served to you."
And in speaking, fall in shadow at the nation's feet.
Let the rest in Israel's chronicles be told.
May there soon come a day when no more will be offered on the silver platter!
The earth grows still
the lurid sky slowly pales
over smoking borders.
Heartsick, but still living, a people stand by
to greet the uniqueness
of a miracle.
Readied, they wait beneath the moon
wrapped in awesome joy, before the light.
A girl and boy step forward,
and slowly walk before the waiting nation;
In work garb and heavy-shod
they climb in stillness.
Wearing yet the dress of battle, the grime
of aching day arid fire-filled night.
Unwashd, weary unto death, not knowing rest,
but waring youth like dewdrops in their hair
silently the two approach
and stand,
are they of the quick or of the dead?
Through wandering tears, the people stare.
"Who are you, the silent two?"
And the reply, "We are the silver platter
upon which the Jewish State was served to you."
And in speaking, fall in shadow at the nation's feet.
Let the rest in Israel's chronicles be told.
May there soon come a day when no more will be offered on the silver platter!
Yom HaShoah Sermon
What follows is the sermon I delivered when we observed Yom HaShoah on April 29th.
Our sacred task in the face of the Holocaust is the pursuit of memory.
Our sacred task in the face of the Holocaust is the pursuit of memory.
I have been thinking about the question of justice. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Eichmann trial and I have been reading Deborah Lipstadt’s The Eichmann Trial. I urge you to read this book and to watch some of the video clips posted on this blog. Perhaps you might even want reread the controversial Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt.
Here is my question for this evening. Is justice possible? I believe justice is about rebalancing the scales. It is about two things: 1. punishment and 2. restitution. With regard to both of these categories it is impossible to rebalance the scales—in the face of the Holocaust. Perhaps it is possible with regard to punishment for our tormentors.
This is why Israel’s punishment of Eichmann was so appropriate. There is only one capital crime in the modern State of Israel. It is the crime of genocide. Eichmann was hanged and his body cremated. The ashes were scattered in the Mediterranean Sea beyond Israel’s territorial waters. In the Jewish imagination there is no worse punishment than to have your name blotted out. And so his name appears on no gravestone!
In terms of the second category of restitution it is impossible. How can there be recompense for the suffering of six million victims? So many millions can not even be represented? How can such suffering be rebalanced? How can there ever be adequate payment for such extraordinary suffering?
This does not mean we should give up our pursuit of the tormentors or their accomplices or the companies and leaders that enabled them. But these pursuits are more about remembering and telling the story than the pursuit of justice. This is because the pursuit of justice in the face of the enormity of the Holocaust is especially inadequate and imperfect. So our pursuit must be more about the pursuit of memory.
This does not mean we should give up our pursuit of the tormentors or their accomplices or the companies and leaders that enabled them. But these pursuits are more about remembering and telling the story than the pursuit of justice. This is because the pursuit of justice in the face of the enormity of the Holocaust is especially inadequate and imperfect. So our pursuit must be more about the pursuit of memory.
I believe remembering can serve to inspire. It must serve to inspire us to better our world. We must therefore speak out against suffering—wherever and whenever it might occur. One of the most powerful exhibits at the Glen Cove Holocaust Museum is the final pictures. One picture is the most powerful of all. It tells the story of a friendship between an elderly Holocaust survivor and a young woman who survived the Rwanda genocide. A Jewish man from Europe and a black woman from Africa together speak out against genocide and hatred.
This is also the power of our Torah portion’s words. “Lo taamod al dam re’echa. Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” There is a famous midrash about the first murder, that of Cain killing Abel. The Torah states: “kol dmay achicha tzoakim elai. The voice of your brother’s bloods screams out to Me.” Why is blood in the plural, the rabbis ask. It is because murder is not just about the murder of an individual but the destruction of all their potential descendants.
I imagine this is what Israel’s attorney general had in mind when he opened the prosecution of Eichmann fifty years ago. He said, “Damam tzoek. Their blood cries out, but their voice is not heard.”
Each of us has a duty to save another human being in distress. We cannot say as Cain did, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” This of course is what Eichmann also failed to understand. His notion of morality was to follow orders whatever they might be. Our belief by contrast is that each of us has a responsibility to other human beings. We are responsible for others! Wherever and whenever another cries out we must not be silent. We must rise up to help them.
That is what the memory of the Holocaust must inspire us to do. And that is what we must pursue each and every day of our lives. We pursue memory so that we might better our world and alleviate suffering!
Bin Laden is Dead
This week's news was extraordinary, although surprising. Nearly ten years after 9-11 the principal architect of these terrorist attacks was killed. There should be no moral qualms about our efforts to hunt him down and finally kill him. Punishment is served. Deterrence, we hope and pray, is also achieved. That his punishment is just does not mean as politicians and pundits now pronounce that justice is also served. There can really be no justice in the face of the deaths of thousands. I doubt very much if the families of those murdered feel any more sense of closure now that this architect of death and destruction is no more. To my mind justice is also about re-balancing the scales. How can this be achieved when so many have been murdered, so many still suffering and countless more terrorized? For that matter, how can there ever be such an accounting when even one life is taken?
This as well does not mean that we rejoice over his death. We belong to a tradition that teaches that we never celebrate death, even that of our self-proclaimed enemies. The Talmud declares: If someone comes to kill you, get up earlier to kill him first. Had we followed this dictum and killed bin Laden 12 years ago, or immediately following the bombing of the USS Cole, now that would have been cause for rejoicing. We would not then be celebrating his death but the saving of so many lives. Our cause would have been equally just at that time, but far more difficult to explain to the American public. We would not even have known then what were celebrating. Those were innocent, and naive, years. I also celebrate the decision to send commandos to carry out this mission rather than bombing from the air. I recognize that the decision may have had more to do with the desire to prove bin Laden's death than the preservation of civilian lives. Nonetheless I rejoice that civilians were not killed during this justified raid. Such things are what we celebrate. I do not dance when another human being is killed. Even a just punishment is never reason to celebrate.
Today nearly all recognize that bin Laden needed to be killed and his ideology needs to be eradicated. All that is, except for the likes of Hamas. Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Hamas ruled Gaza, said: "We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood." Reason appears to fail such leaders. Even though bin Laden was responsible for murdering Muslims as well, it is wrong when a non-Muslim kills a Muslim. Apparently it is only right when Muslims kill non-Muslims. Such appears to be his view. It is a contorted morality. It is twisted reason. And this is the leader with whom Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah have signed an accord. Such actions indicate that the West Bank's leadership prefers Palestinian unity over all else--even the possibility peace with the State of Israel, even the establishment of a Palestinian State. This accord makes such achievements far less likely.
It is eerie as well that only a few days after writing about Eichmann's trial and punishment I am now discussing the death of another who professed a similar malignant ideology. Like Eichmann bin Laden was buried at sea. There is now no place to pilgrimage. No country can claim his memory. It is remarkable that the US made sure that Muslim rites were provided. Even our enemies are guaranteed religious freedom. That more than anything else illustrates the difference between us and "them." We celebrate our differences. We give honor to our differences. Bin Laden wanted to eradicate differences. He and those who subscribe to such ideologies of hate offer a stark choice. Believe and practice like me or be killed.
I am going to celebrate that even our enemy was granted the rituals important to him. I am certain that he would not have done likewise. I will rejoice that here in this great country differences are celebrated and not reviled. I seek not to erase such differences. I revel in them. In my view the only infidels are those who scream at all but themselves, "Infidel!"
This as well does not mean that we rejoice over his death. We belong to a tradition that teaches that we never celebrate death, even that of our self-proclaimed enemies. The Talmud declares: If someone comes to kill you, get up earlier to kill him first. Had we followed this dictum and killed bin Laden 12 years ago, or immediately following the bombing of the USS Cole, now that would have been cause for rejoicing. We would not then be celebrating his death but the saving of so many lives. Our cause would have been equally just at that time, but far more difficult to explain to the American public. We would not even have known then what were celebrating. Those were innocent, and naive, years. I also celebrate the decision to send commandos to carry out this mission rather than bombing from the air. I recognize that the decision may have had more to do with the desire to prove bin Laden's death than the preservation of civilian lives. Nonetheless I rejoice that civilians were not killed during this justified raid. Such things are what we celebrate. I do not dance when another human being is killed. Even a just punishment is never reason to celebrate.
Today nearly all recognize that bin Laden needed to be killed and his ideology needs to be eradicated. All that is, except for the likes of Hamas. Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of Hamas ruled Gaza, said: "We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood." Reason appears to fail such leaders. Even though bin Laden was responsible for murdering Muslims as well, it is wrong when a non-Muslim kills a Muslim. Apparently it is only right when Muslims kill non-Muslims. Such appears to be his view. It is a contorted morality. It is twisted reason. And this is the leader with whom Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah have signed an accord. Such actions indicate that the West Bank's leadership prefers Palestinian unity over all else--even the possibility peace with the State of Israel, even the establishment of a Palestinian State. This accord makes such achievements far less likely.
It is eerie as well that only a few days after writing about Eichmann's trial and punishment I am now discussing the death of another who professed a similar malignant ideology. Like Eichmann bin Laden was buried at sea. There is now no place to pilgrimage. No country can claim his memory. It is remarkable that the US made sure that Muslim rites were provided. Even our enemies are guaranteed religious freedom. That more than anything else illustrates the difference between us and "them." We celebrate our differences. We give honor to our differences. Bin Laden wanted to eradicate differences. He and those who subscribe to such ideologies of hate offer a stark choice. Believe and practice like me or be killed.
I am going to celebrate that even our enemy was granted the rituals important to him. I am certain that he would not have done likewise. I will rejoice that here in this great country differences are celebrated and not reviled. I seek not to erase such differences. I revel in them. In my view the only infidels are those who scream at all but themselves, "Infidel!"
Yom Haatzmaut
These past weeks I have been reflecting on the unfortunate linkage of the Holocaust and the State of Israel. Let me explain. Many people argue, or imply, that Israel represents recompense for the suffering the Jewish people endured during the Shoah. The State of Israel implied this when it rightfully tried and executed Adolf Eichmann fifty years ago. (By the way this week’s burial at sea of Osama bin Laden was eerily similar to Eichmann’s.)
President Obama also gave voice to this linkage when he said, two years ago in Cairo: “America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.” Our enemies as well recognize the importance our minds ascribe to this connection. This is partly why Iran and Hamas exert so much effort in denying the Holocaust. They believe to deny this murder of six million Jews is to undermine the legitimacy of the modern State of Israel.
It is of course undeniable that had the State of Israel existed 78 years ago the suffering of Europe’s Jews would have been significantly ameliorated. The Holocaust might even have been prevented. Certainly there would have been a state that would have stood up and defended our people! Most certainly there would have been a country that would have welcomed those of our people fleeing persecution! Far less would have been murdered. Fewer people would have suffered.
Yet the State of Israel is not about justice for the Holocaust. Those scales can never be righted. Israel is instead about an end to Jewish homelessness. It is about our return home. Now we no longer wander. Now we always have a home.
One might find this strange for an American Jew to say this. How can I affirm a home where I do not (yet) live? An analogy. I live in a community where many people are privileged enough to own two homes. Do they love one less than the other? Likewise we are privileged to live at an unprecedented time when there is a sovereign Jewish state. All Jews are today blessed to own two homes. And so I believe that there is room enough in our hearts for more than one home. Why must a choice be implied: Israel or America? Why can’t we love two homes?
Yet we are so afraid of loving Israel as our home and claiming it as the Jewish homeland that we paint it as the answer to our people’s suffering in the Holocaust. We justify its existence by speaking about past injustices and tragic persecutions. We raise money and support for Israel by speaking of the continued threats Israel faces and the suffering it continues to endure. These threats and suffering are of course very real. But they must not become justification for the State of Israel. Why do our hearts only pour out love in the face of a parade of victims rather than the beauty of what is indeed our home?
So say this instead about the Jewish state. Proclaim this about Medinat Yisrael: I have two homes. One in which I spend most of my days. The other I visit as often as possible. Both I love with all my heart and soul.
That should be all the reason you need to celebrate Israel’s 63 years!
Emor
People long for decisive leadership. President Obama is for example often criticized for being overly professorial, consulting with too many advisors, and weighing options for days or even weeks. Often the press reports that the American people long for quick, for a leader who will stand up and offer us a single, unwavering direction.
Yet even the greatest of leaders, Moses, is lacking in decisiveness and occasionally turns to others. In four instances Moses appears baffled by questions or situations and in fact asks his most trusted friend, God, for guidance. Interestingly three of these four instances deal with death. One deals with the question of ritual impurity brought about by contacting a corpse. Two deal with questions of capital crimes and the final example regards laws of inheritance. Here are those examples.
In Numbers 27 Zelophehad dies and leaves no male heirs. His daughters approach Moses and ask that the family inheritance therefore go to them. They argue that they should be allowed to inherit their father’s land. Moses asks God for advice. God responds: “The plea of Zelophehad’s daughters is just…”
In Numbers 9 some men were thought to be impure because they had come into contact with a corpse. They therefore could not offer the Passover sacrifice. Moses is unsure how to rule and says, “Stand by, and let me hear what instructions the Lord gives about you.” God offers a compromise. They can offer the Passover sacrifice but must wait a month. They can celebrate Passover during the following month.
And in Numbers 15 and in this week’s portion, in Leviticus 24, questions regarding capital crimes are addressed. In Numbers a man collects wood on the Sabbath day. Is this a violation of the laws of Shabbat? He is placed into custody. Moses is unsure how to rule. In Leviticus a man curses God. He is also placed into custody. What is his punishment? Moses again inquires of God. In both instances God rules harshly. These are capital crimes punishable by stoning.
Despite the troubling punishment for these apparent small crimes, I wish to draw contemporary lessons from these examples. Here are the values I read from these stories. It is especially good to pause and be deliberative when dealing with questions of capital crimes. In these final examples it is not a lack of decisiveness but instead a deliberateness that Moses exhibits. With regard to the taking of a human life, even when justified, and even when an enemy, we must be purposeful and deliberative. Quick and decisive might be emotionally satisfying but they are not ethically justified.
And thus the tracking and killing of Osama bin Laden appears to live up to Moses’ example and the best in American values. Yet I do not agree with our politicians and commentators that justice has been served. A justified punishment has been rendered but justice for the victims and their families, or for that matter our country, can never be fully realized. Perhaps we have gained a measure of deterrence. A rebalancing of the scales however can never be achieved.
With regard to our leaders, no person is wholly righteous. No president is perfect. Still I desire a president who has trouble sleeping when he sends men into harm’s way. I desire a leader who is thoughtful and deliberative. Making a judgment of capital punishment must never be determined lightly. It can only be made after consultation and deliberation.
This is the lesson we glean from our Torah portion and Moses’ example. We may have yearned for quick and decisive punishment, but after ten years we are instead left with slow and careful. Furthermore, it will take even more slow, careful, and especially thoughtful work and many more years to rid the world of bin Laden’s memory and the ideology he represents.
When speaking of our enemies and those responsible for great evils, Jewish tradition assigns the inscription, yimach shmo v’zichro—may his name and memory be blotted out. And such is my wish this week. May the memory of bin Laden be washed away by the ocean’s waves. May the ideology he fostered be forever blotted out from our country’s shores—and every nation’s borders.
Funeral Blues
The following article was also published in the anthology, Winter Harvest: Jewish Writing in St Louis, 2006-2011.
Even though I have served as a rabbi for over eighteen years, some of the most important and lasting lessons were learned in my earliest years prior to earning the title of rabbi. Many times our first experiences teach us far more than we can then admit. I still remember my grandfather teaching me how to ride a bike, his loving hand guiding me and his shouts of joy encouraging me.
There in my mind is a tableau of first memories. And so I continue to be drawn to the memory of officiating at my first funeral.
In 1987-88 I served as a student rabbi in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the birthplace of the Blues. Since the 1870’s Jews had found a niche in this community and there thrived in many businesses. Once a month I flew from Cincinnati where I was attending rabbinical school to Memphis and then rented a car, driving through the cotton fields of Northern Mississippi to Clarksdale. There I served Congregation Beth Israel, a synagogue built in the 1930’s.
By the 1970’s its membership was declining. The synagogue could no longer afford a full time rabbi and so it became a training ground for young student rabbis, until ultimately closing its doors in 2003. It was there, in Clarksdale, at the age of 23, in the first days of June 1988 that I officiated at my first funeral.
Harry Lipson Jr. died after a long battle with cancer. I carved out a few hours to visit with him and his wife Dottie during the course of my weekend trips. At the funeral I recited the words from the perfect, unused pages of my new Rabbi’s Manual. “Death has taken our beloved Harry. Our friends grieve in their darkened world…” Some of the words felt empty, and some even cruel. “For when we die we carry nothing away; our glory does not accompany us.” Others felt comforting. On some words I stumbled. On others I discovered strength.
I have never before revealed this but the next day I returned to the cemetery and sat by myself at Harry’s grave. The warm, humid Mississippi air was heavy with moisture. I asked Harry to forgive me for being the first funeral at which I officiated. I begged him to ignore my mistakes. I apologized over and over again for all of my weaknesses and flaws. I was overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy and incompetence in facing death.
And then I remembered that death is not a failure. I recalled that I became a rabbi rather than a physician because I wanted to have a manual that worked for moments just as these. I did not want to say, “There was nothing more we could do…” but instead, “I am sorry. I promise I will walk this path with you. We will face this death together. This is what our tradition says we must now do.”
The pages of my Rabbi’s Manual are now torn and wrinkled from snow and rain. The pages bear scribbling and notes as well as reminders that I no longer require. There are a few pages wrinkled from my own tears, from funerals still too painful to recount. Many have stood expectantly, looking up at me as I read from this small, holy book. There were days when I did not know how I might summon the strength to greet these expectations. Nearly every time I am drawn to remember Harry.
I recall that there is no perfect path through the valley of the shadow of death. I remember Dottie’s observation that the very words from our tradition that I found harsh and cruel she found soothing and comforting. She explained to me that it was the comfort of a familiar voice reciting what generations of Jews have spoken for thousands of years. I worried too much about the meaning of each word. She listened instead to the voice. I learned then that there is our tradition’s manual and its guidance. There is the strength we draw from our community, from each other.
I still find it remarkable that people ask me to stand by their side at countless occasions such as these. I am thankful that there have been far more simchas than tragedies in these eighteen years. In these years I have studied Torah with over 200 b’nai mitzvah students and watched as their parents welcomed them into the age of Jewish responsibility. I relish the smiles of parents and their tears of joy. I find it to be an unparalleled privilege that my congregants want me standing there at the absolute best of times and the worst. I am grateful that they see fit to call me rabbi.
I cannot promise that I will always say every word perfectly. I can promise that I will continue to call it a privilege and blessing to serve as a rabbi.
And as I learned as well in the birthplace of the Blues, from the master B.B. King: “You better not look down if you want to keep on flyin’. Put the hammer down. Keep it full speed ahead.”
Modern Rendition of Psalm 150
My modern rendition of Psalm 150 was recently published in Winter Harvest: Jewish Writing in St. Louis, 2006-2011. Other articles appeared in prior anthologies.
Here is the psalm.
Here is the psalm.
Praise God
Praise God in the sanctuary and
In the vastness of nature
Praise God for goodness and compassion
For blessings and wonders
Praise God with piano and song
With guitar and cello
With sax and drums
With clarinet and violin
Praise God with an orchestra of sounds
And a symphony of music
Let every soul praise God
Let every breath sing praises to the Lord.
The anthology will soon be available on Amazon.com.
Tornadoes
The following is a beautiful and moving article about the recent, devastating tornadoes by a colleague, Rabbi Jonathan Miller, of Birmingham's Temple Emanu-El.
First, I want to thank everybody for your prayers and those who reached out to me and my community in Alabama. Caring means so much, and when we are hurting, just to be cared for is all that we need for now.
These days after the storm are kind of surreal. Those of us who are alright are living in an eerie kind of silence. There is really nothing that we, the non-first responders can do. So we sit around and live our lives as normally as possible. It is a strange kind of silence. Still today, some of the people who are in need are still not being heard from. There is no power or telephones or ways to communicate. So it is strangely silent.
I went to the dentist early this morning. The receptionist lives in a mobile home that was on the path of the tornadoes. Her home survived the storm. Five lots away, homes are destroyed. She comes home to her home, without power, and she sees the destruction her neighbors endured on the same street. She doesn’t know where the neighbors are either. My dental hygienist has a niece on the Tuscaloosa Police force who was sent to Holt, a neighboring community. She walked the streets there and found dead children in the debris. All she could do was cover them up. One by one, the coroner has to identify the bodies. The fatalities are not yet counted. All you can do is cry.
It is odd. My wife’s yoga teacher cancelled class yesterday. Her parent’s house in the country was destroyed, and she was asking her yoga students if anybody knows anybody with a chain saw to cut up some trees so they can get out? Yoga ladies with chain saws, go figure.
My cleaning lady came this morning. “I am fine, but my church members have lost so much. The Lord was good to me.” And then what do you say?
The Maronite church in town has a local food festival. I try to go to all the food festivals, and they come to ours when we have them. Since the storms, the weather has been absolutely picture perfect. I asked a friend how she was doing? “Fine.” “And your family?” “Oh, my father lives in Pleasant Grove. He lost his house. Only the foundation is standing.” “What can I do for you?” “Nothing, they won’t let us into the neighborhood yet.” And we go get our food and ate together and nobody talked about it. What can you say? Here is a family that lost everything they owned, and we are eating our baklava. There is nothing they can do and nothing we can do, yet.
Yesterday, talk radio left behind Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to hear from local people calling in to tell their stories. Parents were killed covering their children. Pets are gone, and so are entire blocks of homes. The stories were heartbreaking and numbing at the same time. I had to turn the radio off. How long can you listen and bear witness to this pain? I came to Temple Emanu-El this morning (actually I slept here last night after my generator conked out—not the end of the world), and a Temple member whose family lives in Tuscaloosa told me that the people in the shelters need tote bags. They go to the distribution centers for water and food and light clothing, but they have nothing to put them in. So we are collecting tote bags. Who would have thought?
We are beginning to plan a local interfaith service for to commemorate the dead, offer thanksgiving for being alive, and to build for the future. We will do it next Wednesday, a week after the tornadoes hit. Tomorrow morning we will do birchat hagomel. And that is what we are doing. And we are living in silence. It is eerie and strange and sad. Someday, we will all break down. But for now, there is nothing else on our minds, and we don’t talk about it much. What can you say?
My people in Alabama need God today. They need God to get them through this devastation. They need God to give them meaning when they suffer. They need God to help them get through one lousy day after the next. They need God to keep them sober and focused and good and generous. They need God for all that stuff that makes life so damned difficult to get through. I can talk to them about all the different God options that we have studied and discussed, and you know what they will say to me, “Rabbi, pray with me, pray for me, speak to God, let God know.”
For those of us who deal with people and not with eternal truths, we stop and pray. We beseech. We implore. We turn to Avinu and Malkeynu.
We are blessed to have a generator at home to power the lights and refrigerator and TV. Last night, I watched groups of people standing outside the ruins of their homes offering prayers of gratitude for being alive. They proclaimed for the Channel Six and Channel 13 viewers that God is good and that life is good and that God is with them. And I was very moved. I was moved in ways that Rambam and Spinoza will never move me, not ever.
I don’t have it all figured out. Not by a long shot. But when the rubber hits the road, friends, lesser people like me and the people in my pews need a message of comfort and purpose and meaning. And that is what I aim to give them.
I sent an email to my congregation this morning. I asked them to do lots of things to help our community. I invited them to a special service for Saturday morning. I ended it with a religious message:
Pray for us and for the people who are suffering more than anybody should
ever have to suffer.
The Birmingham Jewish Federation has initiated a Tornado Recovery Fund to allow donors to participate in the rebuilding effort. Checks may be sent to: The Birmingham Jewish Federation, PO 130219, Birmingham, AL, 35213. Please mark them for “Tornado Recovery.” In addition, contributions can be made by going to this link. Please indicate in the comments section that your contribution is for Tornado Recovery.
First, I want to thank everybody for your prayers and those who reached out to me and my community in Alabama. Caring means so much, and when we are hurting, just to be cared for is all that we need for now.
These days after the storm are kind of surreal. Those of us who are alright are living in an eerie kind of silence. There is really nothing that we, the non-first responders can do. So we sit around and live our lives as normally as possible. It is a strange kind of silence. Still today, some of the people who are in need are still not being heard from. There is no power or telephones or ways to communicate. So it is strangely silent.
I went to the dentist early this morning. The receptionist lives in a mobile home that was on the path of the tornadoes. Her home survived the storm. Five lots away, homes are destroyed. She comes home to her home, without power, and she sees the destruction her neighbors endured on the same street. She doesn’t know where the neighbors are either. My dental hygienist has a niece on the Tuscaloosa Police force who was sent to Holt, a neighboring community. She walked the streets there and found dead children in the debris. All she could do was cover them up. One by one, the coroner has to identify the bodies. The fatalities are not yet counted. All you can do is cry.
It is odd. My wife’s yoga teacher cancelled class yesterday. Her parent’s house in the country was destroyed, and she was asking her yoga students if anybody knows anybody with a chain saw to cut up some trees so they can get out? Yoga ladies with chain saws, go figure.
My cleaning lady came this morning. “I am fine, but my church members have lost so much. The Lord was good to me.” And then what do you say?
The Maronite church in town has a local food festival. I try to go to all the food festivals, and they come to ours when we have them. Since the storms, the weather has been absolutely picture perfect. I asked a friend how she was doing? “Fine.” “And your family?” “Oh, my father lives in Pleasant Grove. He lost his house. Only the foundation is standing.” “What can I do for you?” “Nothing, they won’t let us into the neighborhood yet.” And we go get our food and ate together and nobody talked about it. What can you say? Here is a family that lost everything they owned, and we are eating our baklava. There is nothing they can do and nothing we can do, yet.
Yesterday, talk radio left behind Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to hear from local people calling in to tell their stories. Parents were killed covering their children. Pets are gone, and so are entire blocks of homes. The stories were heartbreaking and numbing at the same time. I had to turn the radio off. How long can you listen and bear witness to this pain? I came to Temple Emanu-El this morning (actually I slept here last night after my generator conked out—not the end of the world), and a Temple member whose family lives in Tuscaloosa told me that the people in the shelters need tote bags. They go to the distribution centers for water and food and light clothing, but they have nothing to put them in. So we are collecting tote bags. Who would have thought?
We are beginning to plan a local interfaith service for to commemorate the dead, offer thanksgiving for being alive, and to build for the future. We will do it next Wednesday, a week after the tornadoes hit. Tomorrow morning we will do birchat hagomel. And that is what we are doing. And we are living in silence. It is eerie and strange and sad. Someday, we will all break down. But for now, there is nothing else on our minds, and we don’t talk about it much. What can you say?
My people in Alabama need God today. They need God to get them through this devastation. They need God to give them meaning when they suffer. They need God to help them get through one lousy day after the next. They need God to keep them sober and focused and good and generous. They need God for all that stuff that makes life so damned difficult to get through. I can talk to them about all the different God options that we have studied and discussed, and you know what they will say to me, “Rabbi, pray with me, pray for me, speak to God, let God know.”
For those of us who deal with people and not with eternal truths, we stop and pray. We beseech. We implore. We turn to Avinu and Malkeynu.
We are blessed to have a generator at home to power the lights and refrigerator and TV. Last night, I watched groups of people standing outside the ruins of their homes offering prayers of gratitude for being alive. They proclaimed for the Channel Six and Channel 13 viewers that God is good and that life is good and that God is with them. And I was very moved. I was moved in ways that Rambam and Spinoza will never move me, not ever.
I don’t have it all figured out. Not by a long shot. But when the rubber hits the road, friends, lesser people like me and the people in my pews need a message of comfort and purpose and meaning. And that is what I aim to give them.
I sent an email to my congregation this morning. I asked them to do lots of things to help our community. I invited them to a special service for Saturday morning. I ended it with a religious message:
Finally, on a personal note. As your rabbi, I cannot promise you that prayer will keep tornados away. But I can promise you that prayer will help you endure the uncertainty with the knowledge that no one is alone, not now and not ever. That people suffer in life is a given. This seems to be our turn. That our lives are filled with the prayers of others and with a caring God; this is an axiom of faith that gives us meaning and comfort. Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God is with us. And we are with each other.On the morning after, I think they needed to hear this. And on the morning after, I think I needed to say this.
Pray for us and for the people who are suffering more than anybody should
ever have to suffer.
The Birmingham Jewish Federation has initiated a Tornado Recovery Fund to allow donors to participate in the rebuilding effort. Checks may be sent to: The Birmingham Jewish Federation, PO 130219, Birmingham, AL, 35213. Please mark them for “Tornado Recovery.” In addition, contributions can be made by going to this link. Please indicate in the comments section that your contribution is for Tornado Recovery.
Yom Haatzmaut Article
What follows is an article about the upcoming holiday of Yom Haatzmaut that was recently published in The Orchard, a publication of the Jewish Federations of North America Rabbinic Cabinet. Follow this link to download the Spring 2011 edition. My article appears on page 19.
Why is tragedy compelling? Why is fear motivating? Why is mourning viewed as a greater obligation than celebrating? Why are more people familiar with the details of the Holocaust than the history of Zionism and Israel? These are the questions that occupy my thoughts as we approach Yom Haatzmaut, Israel Independence Day, and the celebration of 63 years of Jewish sovereignty.
To garner our support for the State of Israel we are inundated with images of Hezbollah missiles, Iran’s potential nuclear weapons, suicide bombings, divestment campaigns and in the estimation of many, dwindling support from the Obama administration. These are great worries to be sure. Israel does indeed face numerous threats. Some very real and some imagined. But my question on this Yom Haatzmaut is not about the dangers Israel faces, but instead about our personal connection to the Jewish state.
Why do we rally in far greater numbers when Israel is threatened rather than dance for joy each and every day that Israel continues to thrive? We live in an unparalleled generation of Jews. In our own day we find ourselves in a vibrant and successful diaspora community alongside a successful and vibrant Jewish state. Never before have these two co-existed. Either there was a thriving diaspora community as in Babylonia in the fifth century or a successful Jewish community in Israel as when King David ruled three thousand years ago. And so we lack historic parallels. How do we live and thrive side by side?
Of course we rise up when Israel needs us. Each of us knows how to stand by friends when they are in mourning, or experiencing tzuris. But why don’t we feel just as a great an obligation to celebrate? We should stand by Israel and sing and dance—each and every day. For two thousand years a Jewish state was only a dream. We live in a time when the dream is a reality. In a mere twelve hours (ok that is only the plane flight) you could be in Israel touching the very stones generations of Jews only dreamed of touching.
In Jerusalem in particular the air is thick with prayers. At first one thinks it is thick with the prayers of the thousands and thousands and thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews running to pray. That is one’s first impression. It is true that a lot of people do a lot of praying in Jerusalem. I think it is instead that the air is thick with the prayers of generations. My great grandparents prayed that one day their people would return to the land of their ancestors. A hundred years later their great grandson visits there regularly. What a privilege it is to live in our generation!
In our own day our prayers have become reality. When we celebrate Yom Haatzmaut I plan to sing (and maybe even dance—watch out party enhancers!). On this day especially I don’t want my support for Israel to be motivated by fear, or tragedy. I want it only to be out how fortunate we are to live during these times. How blessed is our generation that we live alongside a vibrant and thriving State of Israel!
Why is tragedy compelling? Why is fear motivating? Why is mourning viewed as a greater obligation than celebrating? Why are more people familiar with the details of the Holocaust than the history of Zionism and Israel? These are the questions that occupy my thoughts as we approach Yom Haatzmaut, Israel Independence Day, and the celebration of 63 years of Jewish sovereignty.
To garner our support for the State of Israel we are inundated with images of Hezbollah missiles, Iran’s potential nuclear weapons, suicide bombings, divestment campaigns and in the estimation of many, dwindling support from the Obama administration. These are great worries to be sure. Israel does indeed face numerous threats. Some very real and some imagined. But my question on this Yom Haatzmaut is not about the dangers Israel faces, but instead about our personal connection to the Jewish state.
Why do we rally in far greater numbers when Israel is threatened rather than dance for joy each and every day that Israel continues to thrive? We live in an unparalleled generation of Jews. In our own day we find ourselves in a vibrant and successful diaspora community alongside a successful and vibrant Jewish state. Never before have these two co-existed. Either there was a thriving diaspora community as in Babylonia in the fifth century or a successful Jewish community in Israel as when King David ruled three thousand years ago. And so we lack historic parallels. How do we live and thrive side by side?
Of course we rise up when Israel needs us. Each of us knows how to stand by friends when they are in mourning, or experiencing tzuris. But why don’t we feel just as a great an obligation to celebrate? We should stand by Israel and sing and dance—each and every day. For two thousand years a Jewish state was only a dream. We live in a time when the dream is a reality. In a mere twelve hours (ok that is only the plane flight) you could be in Israel touching the very stones generations of Jews only dreamed of touching.
In Jerusalem in particular the air is thick with prayers. At first one thinks it is thick with the prayers of the thousands and thousands and thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews running to pray. That is one’s first impression. It is true that a lot of people do a lot of praying in Jerusalem. I think it is instead that the air is thick with the prayers of generations. My great grandparents prayed that one day their people would return to the land of their ancestors. A hundred years later their great grandson visits there regularly. What a privilege it is to live in our generation!
In our own day our prayers have become reality. When we celebrate Yom Haatzmaut I plan to sing (and maybe even dance—watch out party enhancers!). On this day especially I don’t want my support for Israel to be motivated by fear, or tragedy. I want it only to be out how fortunate we are to live during these times. How blessed is our generation that we live alongside a vibrant and thriving State of Israel!
Yad VaShem Testimonies
In observance of Yom HaShoah read the testimonies of this year's Torchlighters. Every year Yad VaShem chooses six survivors to light the commemorative torches. I would also suggest that you watch the below video. I keep coming back to this testimony, but I cannot escape its closing words: "Shalom yeladim." "....We never saw them again."
You can watch other video testimonies here. As Elie Wiesel said: "For whoever listens to a witness becomes a witness."
You can watch other video testimonies here. As Elie Wiesel said: "For whoever listens to a witness becomes a witness."
Yom HaShoah
This evening we will add special prayers and songs to our Shabbat Services in order to commemorate the Holocaust. Yom HaShoah v’HaGevurah (Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day) is officially observed on Sunday. It is a day filled with special services, concerts and public ceremonies. But no commemoration can adequately mark this tragedy. Still it was not always the case that such services marked our calendar.
Fifty years ago Israeli agents captured Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and secreted him to the state for trial. David Ben Gurion made the startling announcement to the Knesset and the world at large. To mark this anniversary and prepare for our Yom HaShoah observances I began reading Deborah Lipstadt’s new book, The Eichmann Trial as well as rereading Hannah Arendt’s controversial, Eichmann in Jerusalem. Arendt provocatively claimed that evil appeared so ordinary and banal in Eichmann’s visage. Lipstadt expertly recreates the details of the trial in her gripping account. So many years later we still fail to recognize the significance of Eichmann’s trial and the historic shift it represented. It was pivotal in our understanding of the Holocaust and our formulation of modern Jewish identity. It was the day that survivors’ stories began to be told—and heard.
In 1961 Holocaust museums did not dot the landscape of American cities. Yad VaShem was only established in 1953 and Yom HaShoah declared that same year. The Eichmann trial brought the Holocaust to the world’s attention. The Nuremberg trials that immediately followed the end of World War II did not do the same. With the Eichmann trial the recent victims, now embodied in a fledgling state, tried their former tormentor. With this trial the memory of the Holocaust was forever tied to the State of Israel.
The prosecution paraded 100 Holocaust survivors before the judges in order to add human faces to the millions of victims and the crimes of the accused. Eichmann was one of the principal architects of the Nazi’s final solution. One of the most famous of these survivors was Abba Kovner, Israeli poet and leader of the Vilna ghetto’s resistance. While the intention of showcasing the testimony of survivors was noble and most certainly served to humanize the innumerable faceless victims, its long term effect may prove undermining to our future survival. The parade of survivors suggested that the modern State of Israel represents justice for the Holocaust.
We have been living with this unfortunate linkage ever since. We must stop perpetuating this myth. The modern Jewish state is not recompense for the suffering our people endured in the Holocaust. Israel is not about justice for the Holocaust. It is about an end to Jewish homelessness. It is about our return home. By contrast there can never be justice for the Holocaust.
Yes we must pursue Nazis and their sympathizers until they are no more. We must redouble our efforts to recover lost Jewish property. And we must always remember the Holocaust, but not as justification for the State of Israel. Instead we must remember so that we may forever prevent another holocaust. When others suffer we must speak out. We must bring the likes of Eichmann to trial not so much in the pursuit of justice but instead in the service of memory. Remembering can be ennobling and humanizing. Punishment for our tormentors: yes. Justice for the millions of victims: impossible. I believe there can never be justice for the six million. There can only be remembrance.
I have great faith in Israel’s judicial system. (I also witnessed its court overturn a guilty verdict against John Demjanjuk when it could not prove that he was in fact Treblinka’s Ivan the Terrible.) I believe Israel was right to capture and try Eichmann. It was the only place where Eichmann could be tried. Nonetheless the modern State of Israel must never be seen as justice for our suffering. There can never be adequate payment or recompense for suffering. Eichmann was found guilty, hanged and his ashes scattered in the Mediterranean Sea, beyond Israel’s territorial waters, thus denying a grave for his followers to pilgrimage and a country to claim his memory. May his memory be erased by the ocean’s waves.
Abba Kovner wrote of his sister who was murdered during the Holocaust:
My sister, in her bridal veil, sits at the table
alone. From the shelter of the mourners
the voice of the bridegroom draws near.
without you we shall set the table
the ketubah will be written in stone.
May the memories of our murdered millions serve as a blessing, calling us to bring healing to our broken world. May Israel forever remain our home.
Addendum: If you would like to watch attorney general Gideon Hausner’s opening statements at the 1961 Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann, as well as some testimony by survivors, you may do so on YouTube:
Hausner proclaimed: “In this place, where I stand before you, judges of Israel, to serve as the prosecutor of Adolf Eichmann, I do not stand alone. With me, here, at this very moment, stand six million prosecutors.” I would also suggest that you visit Yad VaShem’s extraordinary website.