Rosh Hashanah 5767

Judah Halevi, one of the greatest Jewish figures of the Middle Ages, was known for his gradually developing longing to move to Israel, and though he made it only as far as Egypt, a legend emerged after his death, that he managed to reach the city of Jerusalem where when he knelt down to kiss the ground, a passing Arab horseman trampled him to death.

Judah Halevi wrote something with which many of us can identify: "Even though I live in the outermost reaches of the West, my heart is in the East".
We live in the outermost reaches of the West. America has provided the greatest haven and home, outside of the Promised Land, the Jews have ever known. Yet, when a crisis takes place in the State of Israel, we become especially aware of our visceral connection to the people and the land of Israel. It activates our Jewish soul, the yiddishe neshamah, that pintele yid that exists in the heart of every Jew.

This is an essential part of Jewish identity. It reminds us that we are not merely a religion. We are a people, with a way of life and a mysterious but palpable connection to one another no matter where or when we live. The Biblical Abraham and Sarah, as well as Jomi Kramer and Greg Greengauz, two youngsters who grew up at Bet Shalom and who now serve in the Israeli army, are part of our family and we cannot help but feel that way.

When someone is in the process of conversion to Judaism, identifying, feeling and understanding this is a sine qua non, before they can call themselves Jewish. This is what Moses must have felt when he saw the Egyptian taskmaster striking a Hebrew slave, as it provoked in Moses feelings of identification and the desire to do something about it.

When we hear the word Israel or Jew coming from the TV or radio, we put our finger to our lips, "shh", so that we can hear more carefully what is being said. Our Jewish neshamah is experienced when our friends and neighbors want to know what we think of the Middle East situation and we want to be able to explain intelligently why Israel is doing what she is doing. This is part of what it means to be a Jew in 21st century America. This is what it has always meant to be a Jew.
What better time than Rosh Hashanah, as we begin a new year, a new cycle in the commemoration of our lives as Jews, to consider what Jewish identity truly means? It is something that brings us pride and joy, satisfaction and inspiration even more than the difficult pain we sometimes feel because of it. We are part of an eternal people whose members have made extraordinary contributions to the betterment of this world and whose values and ethics have helped to define Western Civilization.

One of those primary values is the sacred nature of human life. We admire Israel’s commitment to that value even when that makes its struggle more difficult. Israel protects not only its citizens and children, but also the innocents in enemy territory and does not purposefully sacrifice them as human shields the way terrorists do so casually.

This morning’s Torah portion, the Binding of Isaac, is meant to disturb us when Abraham takes his son Isaac to sacrifice him. While others in the ancient world actually sacrificed their children as offerings to God, we protested the very thought of it. The value that human life is sacred is still ignored in our world. How many Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad parents are bringing up their children to serve as suicide bombers in the midst of Jewish crowds of innocents? To terrorists, the Binding of Isaac story is not disturbing. It is instead the fulfillment of their fantasies! Hezbollah danced in the streets on September 11. This is the same group that murdered hundreds of U.S. Marine peacekeepers in Lebanon over 20 years ago.

That every human is created in God’s image is central to Jewish thinking. That is why we must mourn the death of every innocent who dies in this conflict, whether it is a Jew, Christian, or Moslem. There is anguish, torment and self-criticism in Jerusalem whenever an Israeli action results in these kinds of deaths.

In Israel and among the Jews this needs to remain at the top of our list of values. It should not surprise us to know that the state of Israel conducts a ceremony called Tohar haneshek, “Purity of arms”. Israeli soldiers are taught at the time they are inducted that the taking of lives is something done only reluctantly, when there is no other alternative.

This creates a heavy cost in every battle that the Jewish state fights, but the benefits are to remain human and Jewish and ethical and sensitive. Some object: they say: “war is war, enough is enough”, but the majority of Israel’s leaders and citizens insist on keeping Jewish values at the core, without which our world would move one step closer to savagery.

This approach has always defined Israel’s actions. Even the Irgun, led by Menachem Begin and often accused of being a Jewish terrorist group in the late 1940’s, gave warning to the British that the King David Hotel would be bombed. We are perturbed when Israel is accused of responsibility for the deaths of innocent children and unarmed civilians, and we must remain so. However, what else can Israel do? Imagine what we would demand of the US government if Canada were bombing Duluth, or Mexico attacking San Diego.

It is tragic that innocents are killed in Lebanon, but nobody mourns more deeply than the Israelis. Remember when Golda Meir told Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt, that we Jews might be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons and daughters, but we would find it much more challenging to forgive them for forcing us to kill their children in war, even when it is in self-defense.

The bombing of the apartment building in Kana, Lebanon, was an exception, the kind that Israel regrets more than Hezbollah, whose greatest emotion is a wanton disregard for the rules of war and the indecency to hide their weapons in the homes of civilians, building rocket rooms next to babies’ nurseries. Israel’s responsibility to protect the lives of its citizens from terrorists is not preempted by the fact that their enemy places those weapons in the homes and on the bodies of seemingly innocent people. Frankly, there would be a hundred more Kanas if Israel were harsh and cruel, as its detractors claim. Israel never intends to kill bystanders when it justifiably goes after those responsible for terrorism. On the contrary! Israel continues to exercise restraint in spite of the accusations that it responds disproportionately. One of the reasons this war was not more decidedly in Israel’s favor is because Israel fights with one hand behind its back. Israel operates not only according to International Law, but also Jewish Law!!

One of the results of this recent conflict has been to make Jewish history more tangible and accessible. When we read and study and hear the stories of the old days, whether it was during the Holocaust, the horrible events of the Middle Ages, the destructions of the Temples, it is all so surreal and distant. It is hard to imagine what it must have been like.

As we study Jewish history, we see how this enmity between Arab and Jew evolved, not from 1967 or 1948, as the inadequate news bites make it seem. Beginning with Mohamed himself, there was a hard fought attempt to win our souls and convert Jews to Allah. When the Moslem world saw that they would not succeed, they did what Christians before them who had attempted similar results and failed, did. They too turned harshly against the Jews. Not much has changed. In our age the Islamic fundamentalists are anti-Christian and anti-Jewish, which results in their hatred of the United States and the Western world, not just Israel. Once again Jews are the barometer, the canary in the coal mine, and the first to stand up as a light to the nations, even when those nations are reluctant to see that light.

As much as we hate to face this fact, one of the reasons why there is so little support for Israel is antisemitism. Antisemitism is the oldest hatred and it has not gone away. The President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, is as clear as Hitler ever was. We wonder how the world could stand by during the Holocaust even after they knew. Now we know. Part of being a Jew is living with that realization and that pain. Shver zu zein a yid, It’s tough sometimes to be a Jew.

We like to think that antisemitism is always so obvious as in the case of Mel Gibson or Cynthia McKinney, the failed politician whose adherents blasted Jews after her defeat. Moreover, we like to think that it comes exclusively from gentiles. What about Mike Wallace, a Jew who ought to be ashamed of himself for portraying the head of Iran on 60 minutes as a nice guy, one who makes sense, instead of as the monster that he is. Is this how some of the apologists described Hitler? We have known about it, studied it, and never been able to understand it or solve it. We are living through the modern manifestation of antisemitism, disguised as anti-Israel rhetoric.

I must tell you how sad it makes me when I hear a Jew trying to explain why antisemites hate us. They somehow think that it is something that we are doing that causes people to hate us. If only we weren’t so public, or loud, or if only Israel did not occupy their land. There have been a multitude of opportunities for an Arab Palestinian state to be created from 1948 until today. As Abba Eban said, “The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” I have always believed that there will be an Arab Palestinian state when its creation becomes more important to the Arab world than the destruction of the Jewish state.

Many say the terrorism would stop if only Israel were more conciliatory. It is when Israel is conciliatory, and interpreted as a weakness, that the strongest terrorist actions are taken. The intifadas and suicide bombers, and this recent violation of international borders and kidnapping took place after Israel had withdrawn from Southern Lebanon, Gaza, and was in the process of retreating from the West Bank. Israel does not cause antisemitism. Our enemies are marching in the Arab street not because of what Israel has done. It is because Israel exists at all.

As for Europe, we sometimes wonder why is it so critical of Israel in the press and in the street? It is not just because of the growing Muslim populations there. Why are we so surprised that Europe is anti-Israel. Europe thought they had solved their Jewish problem 60 years ago. The fact remains that no angel flew over Europe following WWII and sprinkled some magic dust that would remove the stain of antisemitism from the continent that brought us the Holocaust. The fact that we are saddened is a constant. The fact that we are surprised is astounding.

Jews cannot stop antisemitism. Only antisemites can. While Israel’s actions may produce fodder for the antisemites, a hook on which to hang their hatred, the inclination has to be there already, a priori. Why are we so anxious to let the real antisemites and hate-filled humans off the hook that easily?

We need to be angry. The Midrash tells us that a person’s character is best seen by what makes him angry. The anger of Biblical Israel was directed at idolatry, at the attitude that human life is dispensable.

Today‘s idolatry is antisemitism, which says that Jewish life and blood are less valuable. A recent interview in New Yorker magazine with a Hamas leader, quotes him as saying “we do not kill innocent civilians, we only kill Israelis!” Be angry and do something about it. Be a Jew. Be proud and active about it, and have faith that prompts us not to lose hope even in the face of the difficult situation facing Israel.

Daniel Gordis observes that a short drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem will remind you of the eternal nature of the Jewish people. As depressed as we sometimes feel about the Middle East and the future of the Jewish state, a stop at Latrun, the spot where Jews were devastated in battle as recently as 1948 in ambushes by the Arabs, is now a Military Museum and Memorial where the captured tanks and weapons of the enemy are displayed and tourists stop to take pictures. This is where the Israeli army conducts their induction ceremony of tohar haneshek. The Jews who were defeated and retreated from Latrun, including Ariel Sharon, less than a century ago would hardly have thought this to be possible.

And the drive up the hill to Jerusalem is intentionally strewn with numerous burned out tanks and vehicles which the early Jewish settlers used to make that dangerous journey when so many lost their lives in reclaiming Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people. “The carcasses of these trucks are a reminder, metal machines that provide us with perspective. If you had told someone in 1948 when Jews in Jerusalem were besieged - out of food, water, and medicine - that someday they’d be okay, they’d have told you that you were a dreamer. That’s what perspective does. It shows us that Jews have always figured out how to survive, that there is something eternal about our people that defies explanation, but that is nonetheless real; no less real than any of the challenges we face.”

Gordis asks: “Did we lose this war? Even if we did, it’s only one battle in the long campaign of Jewish survival. That’s why perspective is so important and why significant portions of our tradition require us to recall our history when we need it most. As we celebrate Rosh Hashanah it is perspective that is the order of the day.
That is our challenge for this High Holiday season, even if we’ve been bruised or beaten, even if Hezbollah is not defeated, even if Syria and Iran still menace. The challenge is to remind ourselves that we’ve been through dark days before, and each time we’ve emerged into the light.”

This Czech Torah scroll is our reminder each time we walk into this sanctuary. It saw some of the most devastating scenes in recent Jewish history. Six decades ago, it must have thought, as the Nazis were taking it, that this must be the end of the Jewish people. However, today it knows differently, it sees and hears the baby namings and brisses that take place in this sanctuary. It sees youngsters celebrating B’nai Mitzvah, and carrying the Torah with pride in hakkafot each Shabbat morning. It witnesses couples standing under the chuppah, building Jewish homes. It notes the myriads of Jews who come here to learn Torah and live their lives as committed Jews.

Moreover, it hears us saying prayers for the State of Israel. It watches as we send congregants to visit the state of Israel, and knows that so many of us are working hard to preserve the homeland, Eretz Yisrael, that makes Jewish existence so much richer for all Jews no matter where we live.

I know that this past month brought pain and disappointment to many supporters of Israel throughout the world. The news kept telling us that more and more rockets were hitting cities in the North. More and more innocent people were dying, and the prejudice and bias against Israel in the media was at times quite depressing. Like this Torah we cannot lose hope. We must also know that our future remains bright, as long as we understand that it is our responsibility to preserve it in as many ways as possible.

It is disheartening that the state of Israel seems to be constantly in the midst of battles and wars. The nineteenth century English economist & philosopher John Stuart Mill taught, "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
Most of us are not going to sign up for the Israeli army, but we can do our part. We can maintain support for Israel, make donations through the Federation and ARZA, visit Israel, read the articles and materials we provide on our website and emails, and defend its actions when we can in the many discussions we hear. Most of all, we can continue to dedicate ourselves to the values of Judaism, like the idea that all humans are precious in God’s sight.

We Jews, too, have a place in the world, and when antisemites try to say otherwise, that specter of hatred must be fought wherever it raises its ugly head, whether it is in the words of a famous public figure or as part of a casual dinner conversation or a battle over prayer in schools.

We need to feel that pintele yid, the yiddishe neshamah as part of our identity. We can’t escape it. Why would we want to? It is a cloak of honor as we continue to remind the world of what we believe are the essential values that make life meaningful and help to repair a world that still cries out to us as it did to Judah Halevi who, like us, lived in the farthest reaches of the West but whose heart was in the East.

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