The Dawn

In Parasha Vayishlakh Jacob wrestles with "a man", often identified as the guardian angel of his brother, Esau. Earlier in the story, when Jacob is told that his brother Esav is approaching "with four hundred men" Jacob is described as fearful and anxious. Here, however, Jacob does not appear to be afraid. Rather, he marshals all of his strength and wrestles with this angel "until the break of dawn". Despite being wounded by the angel, "the socket of his hip was strained", Jacob refuses to give up. "The angel said to him, 'Let me go, for dawn is breaking." It is the angel who begs to be released! The angel, a divine being, is unable to defeat Jacob, a mere mortal. Jacob's courage, his stubbornness and his perseverance ultimately win the day. As the rays of dawn drive out the darkness of the night, Jacob wrests a blessing from the angel.

The story can perhaps teach us something about the Jewish concept of "redemption" -- ge-ulah -- in Hebrew -- the times in our history when pain, sadness and oppression are transformed into healing, happiness and freedom. The Jerusalem Talmud relates the story of Rabbi Chiyya Raba and Rabbi Shimon ben Halafta who were walking in the Valley of Arbel when the first rays of light appeared over the mountains. Rabbi Chiyya said to Rabbi ben Halafta, “My friend, such will be the redemption of Israel. In the beginning it will be little by little, and as it proceeds it will become greater and greater."

May the courage, stubbornness, and perseverance of the Israeli Defense Forces bring an end to the evil that controls Gaza today. May Israel once again drive out the darkness and may we see soon see the light that will grow brighter and brighter. May the words of the Psalmist be fulfilled speedily in our day:  "You turned my mourning into dancing, You removed my sackcloth and clothed me in joy".

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Happiness in TImes of Distress

Last week my wife and I spent three glorious days in Vermont soaking up the fall colors. I have to say I felt a bit guilty enjoying myself when there is so much suffering in Israel and in Gaza. There I was in peaceful, pastoral Vermont a week after 1400 people were slaughtered in Israel. There are rockets and missiles flying between Tel Aviv and Gaza City, and tens of thousands of Israeli troops are poised to invade. Then there are the 200 kidnapped men, women and children being held hostage by Hamas. As one of my Israeli friends wrote to me, “These are difficult times. If there is still a country when this is over, it will be populated mostly by people with PTSD.”

But life goes on. Even in Israel, there are still brises to be performed, bar and bat mitzvahs to celebrate, marriages to be solemnized. These are islands of joy in a sea of sorrow. At a meeting this morning, Rabbi Margaret Frisch-Klein shared this poem of Mary Oliver’s that speaks to emotional conflicts we experience at time like this and gives us permission to embrace happiness in times of distress.

Don’t Hesitate

by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

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My Jewish Name

My Grandparents Nathan (Sarkolik)
Block and Mary Dora nee' Kharnas

When I was seven years old, I began Hebrew school. On the first day our teacher, Mrs. Friedman, gave us an assignment: ask our parents what our Hebrew name was. When I asked my mom, she told me that I had been named after her mother, Mary Dora, and that my name was Mortka Dov. When I returned with that information, my teacher informed me that she would not use that name. That was a Yiddish name. My Hebrew name, the name I would be called in synagogue, was “Mordechai”.

Now Mordechai, I learned, was a famous name in Jewish history. He was one of the heroes of the Purim story, and I carried that name proudly. But later in life I became a bit troubled by it. If my parents had named me “Mortka Dov” at my bris, was that not my proper name? True, it was a Yiddish name, not a Hebrew name. But is it not my true “Jewish name”?

Once my father asked Mr. Wolf, the principal of our Hebrew school, why we were not being taught Yiddish. Mr. Wolf replied that it was Hebrew, not Yiddish, that was the language of the Jewish people. This was probably news to my father. After all, his parents spoke Yiddish, my mother’s parents spoke Yiddish, most Jews in America, immigrants and children of immigrants, spoke Yiddish.

An article in this week’s “Forward” — “How Yiddish became a ‘Foreign Language’ in Israel” shed some light on the matter. Hebrew became the language of Jews in Israel partly due to through “violence, intimidation and propaganda”. In the 1930s it became illegal to speak Yiddish in a public meeting — one had to speak Hebrew. A year after the establishment of the State of Israel, the government of David ben Gurion legally banned Yiddish theater and publications in Yiddish. Yaakov Zerubavel, a Yiddish speaker, wrote of the status of Yiddish in pre-state Israel in the thirties:

“Worse than the persecution was the methodical, psychological and ideological pogrom practiced by the authorities against the right to use the Yiddish language.”

It was against this background that my Jewish name was changed from the one my parents gave me to its Hebrew equivalent — as were many Yiddish names when the bearers of those names arrived in Israel. How could they keep those names in such an anti-Yiddish environment? They may have felt a bit like Romeo:

By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written, I would tear the word.

See also: “Each of Us Has A Name” by Zelda 

Avinu Malkenu

Avinu Malkenu is one of the most beloved melodies in our High Holiday liturgy. In ancient times, Jews in the Land of Israel would fast and recite this prayer during times of drought. The story is told in the Talmud that Rabbi Eliezer came before the ark at a time of drought and prayed 24 prayers, but no rain fell. His student, Rabbi Akiva, prayed after him and recited “Avinu Malkenu”, and it began to rain. The other rabbis wondered why Rabbi Akiva’s prayers were answered but Rabbi Eliezer, his teacher’s, were not. Had Rabbi Akiva surpassed his teacher in holiness? Just then a voice came from heaven. “It is not because Rabbi Akiva is greater than Rabbi Eliezer,” said the Voice, “But rather that Rabbi Akiva overlooks a person’s faults, and Rabbi Eliezer does not overlook a person’s faults”.

Both Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer were great scholars. But Rabbi Akiva was more forgiving and compassionate than Rabbi Eliezer, and this is why his prayers were accepted and Rabbi Eliezer’s were not. “Do not judge one’s fellow until you stand in his place,” was a saying of Hillel the Elder. Apparently, Rabbi Akiva was a better practitioner of this than was Rabbi Eliezer.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “When I was young, I admired clever people, now that I am older, I admire kind people.”

Here is Barbara Streisand singing Avinu Malkenu.

May You Be Sealed in the Book of Life for the Coming Year.

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Jonah and the Whale

Today I came upon an article by my colleague and friend Rabbi Steven (Simcha) Bob on the website http://www.TheTorah.com which is of timely interest. On Yom Kippur afternoon we chant the Book of Jonah for our Haftorah. Perhaps better known as a children’s story, the Book of Jonah raises some profound theological issues. Rabbi Bob asks an intriguing question — Why does the “God of Israel” bother sending a prophet to a foreign city to warn them of their wickedness and ask them to repent? And not just any foreign city, but the city of Nineveh, the Assyrian capitol, the capital of the empire that is destined to destroy the Northen Kingdom of Israel in the year 721 BCE.

Rabbi Bob explores the views of four medieval Biblical commentators: Rabbi David Kimchi (Radak), Don Isaac Abravanel, The Malbim and Ibn Ezra. Reading the article helped me to answer two different questions: 1) Why did Jonah run away when G-d asked him to prophesize, and 2) why was Jonah so distraught when the people of Nineveh repented? After all, other prophets, most famously Moses, rejected their initial call by God, but none took the extraordinary step of running away with the exception of Jonah. Other prophets would have been thrilled if the people heeded their words (few did) but Jonah was crushed by his success with the people of Nineveh.

I invite you to read the article and write me with your thoughts. And please visit my website <www.rabbirudolph.online> for more about me and my writing. 

For an interesting novel about ancient Assyria I recommend All Our Broken Idols by Paul M.M. Cooper

Shana Tovah

Photo by Andrea Holien on Pexels.com

 

I would like to share a beautiful story about the meaning of the call of the shofar. The story is from <Chabad.org> and was adapted by Suzie Jacobson for her study sheet on <Sefaria.org> The photo above, taken by my wife, Middy in our dining room, is of a shofar that we bought in Sefat several years ago.

A King had an only son, the apple of his eye. The King wanted his son to master different fields of knowledge and to experience various cultures, so he sent him to a far-off country, supplied with a generous quantity of silver and gold. Far away from home, the son squandered all the money until he was left completely destitute. In his distress he resolved to return to his father's house and after much difficulty, he managed to arrive at the gate of the courtyard to his father's palace.

In the passage of time, he had actually forgotten the language of his native country, and he was unable to identify himself to the guards. In utter despair he began to cry out in a loud voice, and the King, who recognized the voice of his son, went out to him and brought him into the house, kissing him and hugging him.

The meaning of the parable: The King is G-d. The prince is the Jewish people, who are called "Children of G-d" (Deuteronomy 14:1). The King sends a soul down to this world in order to fulfill the Torah and mitzvot. However, the soul becomes very distant and forgets everything to which it was accustomed to above, and in the long exile it forgets even its own "language." So it utters a simple cry to its Father in Heaven. This is the blowing of the shofar, a cry from deep within, expressing regret for the past and determination for the future. This cry elicits G-d’s mercies, and He demonstrates His abiding affection for His child and forgives him.

Shana Tovah......Please visit my website at www.rabbirudolph.online

Two Pockets

Shortly after I moved to Naperville in 2008, a knowing magazine proclaimed Naperville as "The best place to live in America". 

Oh, I said to myself, my moving here just tipped the scales! It is because of me! 

Now that I am retiring from my pulpit and leaving Naperville, the Chicago Tribune declares in an editorial that "Dupage County is Not Boring Anymore." 

That, of course, has nothing to do with me. 

In his book, "Tales of the Hassidim, Martin Buber relates the teaching of Rabbi Simcha Bunem of Pershyscha who taught his students:

"Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into the one or the other, according to his needs. In his right pocket are the words: ‘For my sake was the world created,’ and in his left: ‘I am but dust and ashes.’”

When we are very young, we indeed experience the world as if it was created for our sake. Everybody hovers around the newborn and, if we are fortunate, our parents do make us feel like they exist solely to meet our needs. As we mature, we begin to realize that other people have needs as well, and that the world does not revolve around us. Yet, understanding this does not mean that we are "nothing". Healthy self-esteem and a realistic sense of ourselves and our place in the world lie somewhere between "For my sake the world was created" and "I am but dust and ashes".

Naperville did not become "The best place to live in America" because I moved here. And it has not become an exciting place to live because I am leaving. I know that.

As part of my transition to retirement, I am starting a new website <www.rabbirudolph.online> From here on I will be posting from there. You can subscribe to my blog and receive my posts in your inbox. You will also be able to comment on the posts. I will not be posting sermons, but rather short pieces like this one. The website will have other resources, such as my past sermons, prayers, translations, and whatever else strikes my fancy. Right now, the website is a work in progress. But it is live and online.

I also have a new email address <rabbimarcrudolph@gmail.com

Thank you for being a reader and/or subscriber to this blog. And please, keep in touch.

Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

 

Four Poems for Fathers' Day

My Mother is at the Bridge Table  by Leslea Newman

My mother is at the bridge table with Loretta, Gert
and Pearl, when my father
finds his way to Heaven.

“Sit down, dear,” she says,
patting the seat beside her
and barely looking up from the hand

she’s been dealt. “The game is
almost through.” But my father is
too overcome to sit. He stands

and stares at his beloved, free
of wheelchair and oxygen tank
happily puffing away

on a Chesterfield King
held between two perfectly
manicured fingers, sipping

a cup of Instant Maxwell
House, leaving a bright red
lip print on the white china cup

her hair the lovely chestnut brown
it was the day they met,
her face free of worry

lines, the diamond pendant
he bought her on their first trip
to Europe glittering

against her ivory throat.
She looks like the star
of an old black-and-white movie
who would never give him
the time of day but somehow
spent 63 years by his side.

“I missed you,” my father
tells my mother, leaning down
to kiss her offered cheek.

“Of course you did,”
says my mother, who always
knows everything.

She plays her cards
right, and after Loretta and Pearl
and Gert fold, she stands to let

my father take her in his arms
and in their heavenly bodies
they dance

 “My Father” by Yehuda Amichai

The memory of my father is wrapped up in
white paper, like sandwiches taken for a day at work.

Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits
out of his hat, he drew love from his small body,

and the rivers of his hands
overflowed with good deeds.

“Shoulders” by Naomi Shihab Nye

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.

We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.

 

“My Father Was God” by Yehudah Amichai

 

My father was God and did not know it. He gave me 

the ten commandments neither in thunder nor in fury, neither in fire nor in cloud 

but in gentleness and in love. He added caresses and added kind words

 adding, “I beg you,” and “please.” He sang “keep and remember”

 in a single melody and he pleaded and cried quietly between one commandment and the next:

 Don’t take your God’s name in vain; don’t take it, not in vain.

 I beg you, don’t bear false witness against your neighbor. He hugged me tightly and whispered

 in my ear 

Don’t steal. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t murder. And he put the palms of his open hands

 on my head with the Yom Kippur blessing. Honor, love, in order that your days might be long

 on the earth. And my father’s voice was white like the hair on his head. 

Later, he turned his face to me one last time

like on the day he died in my arms and said, “I want to add

 two to the ten commandments: The eleventh commandment: Don’t change. 

The twelfth commandment: You must surely change.

 So said my father and then he turned from me and went off 

disappearing into his strange distances.

"My Father was God" Translated by Rabbi Steven Sager z'l  sichaconversation.org

Photo by Time Mossholder on Unsplash.com

 

 

They Lied to Me in Hebrew School: Parasha Shelakh Lekha

Comedian Seth Rogan 

A couple of years ago, the actor and comedian Seth Rogan caused consternation across the Jewish world, when, in an interview, he asserted that as a student in Hebrew school he had been “fed a huge amount of lies about Israel….. They never tell you that ‘Oh, by the way, there were people there’. They make it seem like it was just like sitting there, like the door’s ….open.” Rogan acknowledged the pervasive and prevalent presence of antisemitism, but then questioned the wisdom of a Jewish state idea from the standpoint of Jewish Survival. “You don’t keep something you are trying to preserve all in one place,” he said. 

Let’s entertain Seth Rogan’s position for a moment.  Jews spread out around the world increase the likelihood that if one community is destroyed other communities survive. Interesting.  For others, however, Israel is the very symbol of safety and security. Life in the Diaspora, they claim, is unstable, precarious, and full of peril for Jews and Jewish communities. As Tevye holds forth in “Fiddler on the Roof”:

“But here in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask, why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous? We stay because Anatevka is our home…”

In this view, the State of Israel gives the would-be residents of Anetevka and other places like it the choice of having a new home, one perhaps not quite as dangerous and perilous, one in which one can do more than scratch out a life and a living, one in which Jews could live in dignity and prosperity. . But Seth Rogan is saying, and many may agree with him, that putting all of our Jewish eggs in one basket is way too risky. 

 

For others, statehood and political sovereignty are distractions from the higher calling of Judaism to be a vehicle for “the redemption of the human spirit and the salvation of the world”.

In this view, Judaism has flourished, grown, and changed through a rich exchange with our non-Jewish neighbors with whom we have  lived side by side for the past 2000 years. In exile we have lived by our texts and developed rich values and a Torah perspective on life.  Being mired in the day-to-day details of running a sovereign country and the compromises in values that running a nation state involves surely interferes with fulfilling the lofty values to which Judaism aspires. 

In this week’s Torah portion, we get yet another insight into the meaning of Israel for Jews. The Israelites are on the border with Canaan. Moses sends 12 scouts to reconnoiter the land. When the scouts return, ten of them report that it will be too difficult to conquer the Land. Upon hearing this, the Israelites rebel. They want to return to the safety of Egypt, the security of slavery. Upon hearing this, two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, tear their clothing and urge the people onward. “We can conquer the Land,” they exhort, “Have faith in God.” But the people ignore their pleas. 

What is the meaning of Joshua and Caleb tearing their clothing? It is a sign of mourning, of devastating loss. Later on, when the Israelites realize the gravity of their refusal to enter the Land of Canaan, they too go into mourning.  

When do we go into mourning? When we have lost someone dear to us. To this day clothing, or a symbolic substitute such as a ribbon worn on the clothing, are torn when our nearest and dearest on earth lay dead before us at the funeral. This is called “keriya”. The tear is made on the left side, above the heart, for our parents and on the right side for the five other relatives for whom mourning is obligatory. When Jacob believes that his dearest son Joseph has been killed by wild beasts, the Torah tells us he tears his clothing. Here, Joshua and Caleb tear their clothing and the entire People of Israel go into deep mourning over the loss of the Land of Canaan in their generation. 

This then gives us a hint about how important the Land of Israel is to the Jewish People. What, after all, are God’s first words to Abraham when he appears to him? “Lech Lecha – Go forth from your land, from your birthplace, from your fathers house to the land that I will show you.” There, in the Land of Israel, God promises to make Abraham into a great nation. If I were a deity wanting to begin a relationship with a 75 year old man, the very last thing I would ask of him is to move his family thousands of miles away to a land I will show him when he gets there!  But so important is the Land to the relationship between God and the future Jewish people that God starts there with Abraham. 

When the Jewish people are liberated from Egypt, it is not simply so that they can no longer be slaves. It is not simply so that they can receive the Torah. The entire point of the liberation is that Moses will lead them to the Land that God promised to their ancestors. The Jewish people, the Torah and the Land of Israel is a three legged stool upon which the covenant is based. One without the other two does not work. Many of the commandments cannot be performed outside of the Land of Israel. The sages even go so far as to say that those who live outside of the Land of Israel have no God! All this is to say that, in this view, the Land of Israel is inextricably connected to Torah and the Jewish People. This is why Caleb and Joshua tear their clothing. This is why the Israelites go into deep mourning. Losing the opportunity to settle the Land was spiritual death. They believed that Judaism could not survive, that the promise to Abraham could not be fulfilled without establishing sovereignty in the Land. 

Although we did not have sovereignty over the Land for our 2000 years in exile, the hope – Ha Tikvah –  of a return to the Land was kept alive generation after generation in the Diaspora. The return to the Land of Israel in our times is therefore seen, by those who hold this view, as nothing less than the first step in God’s redemptive plan for humanity as a whole. The return of the People of Israel to the Land of Israel thus has profound religious significance. Or as one Rabbi recently put it, “Without Zionism there is no Judaism”. 

Where do you stand – what do you believe? Do you believe that the “ingathering of the exiles” represents an existential threat to the Jewish people, as Seth Rogan opined? Or is the State of Israel the last best hope of the Jewish People for survival in a hostile world? Is having a State and exercising Jewish sovereignty a “distraction” from our mission, or is it the best way to fulfill it? Does the modern State of Israel have religious significance for Judaism, and the world, or is it merely a political means for exercising Jewish power and self-determination? Perhaps you believe a little bit of all of these. It is from understanding the questions that intelligent conversation can begin.

Shabbat Shalom

 

A Psalm of Gerry Mendelssohn

Gerry Mendelssohn, our congregation librarian for 40 years, was honored at our Friday night services last week. When an Englishman wants to write a poem of praise, he writes an "Ode". When a Rabbi wants to write a song of praise, he must write a "Psalm". But how does one write a psalm? There are 150 Psalms in the Book of Psalms, which is a good place to start learning. So, I went to the Book of Psalms for inspiration. I found it in Psalms 21 and 139.

A Psalm of Gerry Mendelssohn

I lift mine eyes unto the bookstacks,

From where does my help come?

My help comes from Gerry Mendelssohn,

Librarian of Beth Shalom.

Gerry will not let you borrow a book

Without first checking it out.

Gerry is the Protector of Books.

Our Guardian of Books 

Neither slumbers nor sleeps.

Plastic covers adorn her right hand

At her left -- the Dewy Decimal System.

You don't return a book?

Gerry will track you down.

Where can I escape from you Gerry?

Where can I flee from your Presence?

If my book is overdue, you are there.

If I misplace it, you are there too.

Your right hand holding me responsible.

If I say to myself, "Surely being a Rabbi will provide me with cover,

"Surely, in my position Gerry will look away."

But my being a Rabbi is nothing to you,

To you, being a Rabbi and being a congregant are the same.

Gerry, if you would only go after the wicked,

Those who write notes in the margins.

Who turn down the corners of pages.

I count them as my enemies as well! 

I praise you Gerry

Your work is wonderful

I know it very well. 

Yom Yerushalayim/Jerusalem Day

Shaar Shechem

 

Today is Yom Yerushalayim- Jerusalem Day. Fifty-six years ago today, Israeli forces entered the Old City of Jerusalem. For the first time in 2000 years, the Holy City of Jerusalem fell under Jewish sovereignty. Here is how it happened:

When the 6-day war broke out in 1967, Israel was attacked from all sides. Israelis truly did not know whether the country would survive. Mass graves were dug in Tel Aviv for 14,000 people. It was nothing short of miraculous that Israel’s military prevailed in each and every place. Then it was time for the battle of Jerusalem.

In 1948 Jerusalem was declared an international city by the United Nations. It was to be a free city, open to Jews, Muslims and Christians. However, the country of Jordan conquered the city, expelled all of its Jewish residents, destroyed all of the synagogues and places of Jewish study in the old city, and forbid Jews to live there or enter. For 19 years Jordanian snipers used the walls of the old city to target Jewish residents of West Jerusalem. It was now time to address this grave injustice. Israeli soldiers were poised to mount an assault on the Old City of Jerusalem.

The Old City of Jerusalem is surrounded by a wall. There are seven gates through which one can enter. Nobody knew through which gate the soldiers would come through. So, each gate came before God to plead that the soldiers should enter through them.

The Jaffa Gate came before God: "I have two roads that begin at my gate. One of them leads to Hevron, the burial place of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah. The other leads to Jaffa, from where Jonah fled from God and was swallowed by the whale. I am the worthiest gate through which the soldiers should enter!"

The Gate of Shechem came before God:  "When the people of Israel were about to cross the border into Canaan, Moses commanded that some tribes stand on Mount Gerizim as the people were being blessed, and some tribes stand on Mount Eval while the people were being cursed. The road to Mount Gerizim and Mount Eval begins at my gate. All of the curses have been fulfilled; now it is time for the blessings. Choose me!"

The Zion Gate said: “I am the gate after whom the holy city is named – Zion. Let the Israeli soldiers enter the Old City through me!"

The Dung Gate said: "Through me generation after generation threw their refuse and I said, “The trash of Jerusalem is more precious than all the jewels of the rest of the world!” When, if not now, will you fulfill the Biblical verse of the Psalms: Me-ashpot Yarim Evyon – God lifts the poor out of the dust/the needy from the rubbish heap/ and sits them with the powerful/the powerful of His people."

The Gate of Flowers said, “When the soldiers pass through me I will pluck my flowers and crown their heads with garlands."

The Gate of Mercy cried, “It was through me that, according to Jewish lore, the Shechinah, God’s presence, would return to Jerusalem. The enemies of the Jews sealed me up in order to prevent this. Isn’t it fitting that the Jewish people should return through me?"

Only the Lion Gate was silent, until they urged her to step forward.

"I see how the youth of Israel are falling by the fire of our enemies. Come through whichever gate you will come but let not one more soldier be wounded!"

The Kadosh Barukh Hu said, “Since the Lions Gate did not boast of its value but was more concerned about the lives of the soldiers, I have decided that the army of Israel will enter the Old City through this gate. Those who are as courageous as lions will enter through the Lions Gate!

No sooner had those words been uttered that the soldiers of Israel broke through the Lions Gate and headed to the Western Wall.

(This midrash was written by Yitzchak Navon, the fifth President of the State of Israel)

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

 

 

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem Parash Kedoshim 5783

 

As many of you know last Wednesday was Yom Ha-Atzmaut, Israel Independence Day, the 75th anniversary of the State of Israel’s birth as a nation.  On that day, my class from the One Year Program from Hebrew University in Jerusalem had a reunion online. In 1972 we were  mostly nineteen, twenty years old, college Juniors, studying a year abroad in Jerusalem. We were six hundred strong, from all over the United States and Canada. This was our first class reunion, ever. Most of us had not seen, or heard, from one another in 50 years. The One Year Program never tried to stay in touch with the members of our class, so it was hit or miss on who we could find. Of the 60 people online, I could remember only a handful. Yet, for all of us, I believe, the reunion brought back powerful memories of one of the most significant years in our lives. 

 

Fifty years ago, at Israel’s 25th birthday, her population was 3 million. Today, it is 10 million. Fifty years ago, it cost $30 a minute to make a phone call home. That would be $215 a minute in today's economy. No wonder nobody ever called home! What I do have are over a hundred letters home from that year that my mother kept. On May 9, 1972, Palestinian-inspired Japanese terrorists murder 27 people at Lod Airport, now Ben-Gurion airport. I recall being hyper-vigilant when I arrived at Lod airport 2 months later to begin my year in Israel. In August of 1972 Bobby Fischer won the World Chess Championship. On September 5 eleven Israeli athletes were murdered by a Palestinian Terrorist group called Black September at the Munich Summer Olympics. In November, Richard Nixon was re-elected President of the United States in a landslide over George McGovern. On Israel Independence Day, 1973 my friends and I attended the Independence Day parade in Jerusalem. Thousands of soldiers marched by, from every branch of the military. Tanks rumbled down the streets, belching smoke and chewing up the asphalt as they passed. Fighter jets deafened us as they soared wing to wing overhead. This represented the height of Israel’s confidence, pride, and power. The Six Day War five years earlier had left Israel with an expanded territory and as the supreme military power in the Middle East. It was a time of unsurpassed optimism about the future in Israel. 

 

A few months later, in October 1973, when we were back in the United States, Egypt launched a surprise attack against Israel that shattered that confidence and severely challenged the idea, held in the previous five years, that Israel was invincible. Israelis paid a terrible price in that war – 2,700 dead, more than 7000 wounded, thousands of them permanently maimed. The war brought down the leadership of the country. And never again would Israel celebrate its independence with a military parade.  

 

A great deal has changed since those heady years of the early 1970s. At the time, Israel was admired by much of the world as a David slaying Goliath. Israelis were respected for their pluck and their courage, as they prevailed over and over against more powerful forces who sought to destroy them. The terrorism directed against Israeli civilians, adults and children alike, evoked sympathy from most of the world. Today, Israel is seen by much of the world as an oppressor of the Palestinian people, a Goliath subjugating the national aspirations of the weaker party. Terrorists have become “freedom fighters” or “guerillas”. Headlines proclaim that Israel is on the verge of becoming an autocracy, that its judiciary will be so weakened by recent reforms proposed in the Knesset that minority rights will not be protected.

 

I know that many of us feel disillusioned, bewildered, and confused by Israel. Israel has not fulfilled the prophetic dream of being “a light unto the nations” – at least not yet.  Indeed, these are challenging times, worrisome times. But we must not lose our perspective and give up on Israel. We cannot abandon Israel, just because we disagree with the policies of the Israeli government. Our connection to the Land of Israel, our reborn sovereignty on this land promised to us by God, is an essential part of the Jewish story. Our bond to the Land of Israel is integral to our Jewish identity, whether we identify as “religious” or “secular” Jews. From the time of Abraham, the Jewish narrative has been linked to the Land of Israel. When God takes us out of Egypt, now no longer a family, but a people, God leads us to the land of Israel, the Land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Our fate is inseparable from the Land. Indeed, in the Haftorah that Katie will chant tomorrow morning, the Prophet Amos reaffirms the unique relationship between the Jewish people and the land. God, speaking through Amos, says:

 

I will restore my people Israel,

They shall rebuild ruined cities and inhabit them.

They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,

They shall till gardens and eat their fruits.

And I will plant them upon their soil,

Nevermore to be uprooted

From the soil I have given them. 

In 1991, Avrum Harman, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and President of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, delivered a speech. He said, “If I have one regret in all that I have done for this country, it is the many times over the years that I addressed Jews and said to them: this is the most challenging time in Israel’s history.  This is the most dangerous time in Israel’s history.  This is the most exciting time in Israel’s history.  I’ve said that so many times over the years, in ’48 and in ’67, with the PLO and Lebanon and the Intifada, I regret having ever said it.  Because the truth is, right now is the most difficult, exciting and challenging time in the history of the State of Israel.”

 

So much has happened in Israel since I was first there in 1972. Still more since Avrum Harman penned those words in 1991. God willing, much more is yet to happen, until the end of time. But when we despair over the difficulties and challenges that confront the Jewish state in our own time, let us keep in mind the words of Psalm 122:

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem/May those who love you prosper.

May there be peace within your walls/serenity within your homes.

For the sake of my friends and companions/ I pray that peace be yours.

For the sake of the House of Adonai our G-d/ I seek your welfare.

Shabbat Shalom

 

What Is Heroism: Some Final Thoughts on Holocaust Memorial Day 2023

 

Many of our congregants, both in person, and via Zoom attended our moving Holocaust Remembrance Service last Sunday.  Before I share some of my thoughts about it, I would like to say a few words about the origins for the idea of creating a Commemorative Holocaust Day. 

 

 In 1951 the government of Israel passed a law designating the 27th of Nisan as “Holocaust and Ghetto Uprising Remembrance Day.” In 1953, the day was officially named “Yom HaShoah ve-Ha-gevurah” – Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. Why “'Holocaust and Heroism' Remembrance Day", instead of simply “Holocaust Remembrance Day”? The answer can probably be found in surveys taken in Israel in the 1950s that showed that Israelis had little sympathy for Holocaust victims.  Most of the participants in surveys believed that the victims of the Holocaust passively went to their deaths like sheep to slaughter. The Israelis admiration and sympathy, instead, was directed toward those who were able to take up armed resistance against the Nazis – the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto  and other Ghettos, The Israelis admiration and sympathy also focused on the Jewish partisans who fought the Nazis in the hills and forests of Europe. In other words, we were to remember victims and heroes, two different groups, but it was those who took up armed resistance that were admired and held out as models to be emulated.

 

Of course, today we understand that the “victims” – those who ended up in concentration camps – and “heroes” – those who took up armed resistance, are not two different groups at all.  Today we recognize the concept of “spiritual resistance”, the refusal of victims to acquiesce to the dehumanization of their Nazi tormentors. This heroic resistance took the form of holding on to one’s human dignity in the most unbearable and unspeakable of situations. Our speaker on Sunday, Joyce Wagner, , never held a gun in her hand. She never killed a Nazi. Yet this petite, frail, determined woman, now age 100, is a true heroine, as true a heroine as those heroes who fought and died in the Warsaw Ghetto. We were privileged and honored to listen, in her own words, about the experience of this remarkable Holocaust survivor.  

 

When do we call someone a hero? A hero is a person who displays extraordinary courage, selflessness and nobility of character in the face of danger. A hero is someone who maintains their moral integrity when they are faced with corruption, deceit and depravity. A hero is someone who perseveres in the face of immorality and degradation, wickedness and evil. 

 

I doubt if Joyce Wagner considers herself a hero. If we asked her about that, she would probably tell us that she was just doing what she had to do as a daughter and as an older sister. She came to speak to us as a personal witness to the atrocity that was the Holocaust. She came to remind us, and to warn us, that the unthinkable is possible. That we need to be vigilant. That we must do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, not to Jews, not to anyone.  That love is more powerful than hate. She taught us all that. And she showed us what a true hero looks like. She taught us what heroism is. 

 

There were many moving parts of her story. One of 11 children, she was the only survivor. She vividly described How she hid her sisters  and brother from the Nazis in her neighbor’s attic. How she risked her life to bring a little food and money to her parents and two sisters, Hava and Haya, ages 10 and 11, who were living on the Polish-Czech border, hoping to be more protected from the Nazis.  In her book. A Promise Kept to Bear Witness,  she tells about a time she resisted the amorous advances of a Nazi guard who promised her a few days of freedom outside of her slave labor camp in exchange for a favor.

 

The part that I feel will stay with me forever is how, after losing everything, her home, her  parents, her beloved siblings, her friends and extended family; after having been imprisoned and beaten and starved and humiliated and almost worked to death, she had the opportunity to reach out and touch the electrified wire of the concentration camp and to end it all. Joyce  tells us that the face of her father appeared to her, her father, a religious man, and her father said to her, “God gives life and God is the only one who can take it away.”  And she pulled her hand away from the electrified wire and chose to live. To choose life over death, to love deeply while surrounded by dehumanizing  barbarity, to continue to believe in God when the evidence of God’s existence is nowhere to be found, to rebuild a life after years of  despair  – that is the ultimate  act of heroism, I believe. 

 

I want to close by sharing the remarkable words of Aharon Appelfeld. He was a famous Israeli writer who was born in Romania in 1932. When he was eight years old, his mother was killed, and he and his father were sent to a concentration camp. He escaped and spent three years in hiding, a child alone moving from village to village. He reached Israel in 1946. 

He writes: 

“My reminiscences of the war, of the second world war—I hope it will not surprise you—are of love, endless love. Anyone who was in the Ghetto and saw mothers protecting their children, mothers not eating but feeding their children, young boys staying with their parents, defending them until the last minute, will understand. Asking myself from where do I derive my writing force, I know that it is not from horror scenes but love scenes that existed there, everywhere. My world was not formed by the executioner, it is not dominated by an irreparable, endless evil; I remained with people, and I loved them.”

Shabbat Shalom