Sermons

Okay, here it is. The Israel sermon. I promised it on erev Rosh Hashanah, not having any idea on what I would speak. Hamas? Gaza? Hezbollah? Lebanon? Houthis? Iran? West Bank? Settlers? Bibi Netanyahu? Bezalel Smotrich? Itamar Ben-Gvir?

None of the above. Any sermon by me on the politics of Israel or on how Israel wages war wouldn’t do any of us any good. We have our opinions, we read or listen to the news, we talk with friends and relatives. We are tired and we are scared – tired and scared of the same things and tired and scared of different things.

I do, however, want to say one thing: No matter where you stand on Israel and Gaza or Israel and the West Bank or Israel and Lebanon, there is a place for you in this community. No one’s voice is to be silenced. Our Israel-Palestine discussion group welcomes you. I have considered holding a meeting/discussion for those of you struggling with Israel’s actions in Gaza. If you would be interested in such a meeting, please let me know.

In Israel, when a siren sounds, it has one of two purposes: To warn Israelis to get into their safe rooms and bomb shelters ASAP; or to commemorate a particularly difficult anniversary. The siren is deafening, yet, In the latter situation, everything is still and quiet. All Jews – and many others – stop what they’re doing; those driving on the highways and streets get out of their cars. The roads are still, as silence sweeps the nation and all that’s left is the sound of the siren.

On Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and on Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day, the sirens sound twice, for one minute at 8:00 pm and the next day for two minutes at 11:00 am. For those three minutes, a country stands in silence to commemorate the lives lost in the Shoah and the lives lost in Israel’s wars and terror attacks. 

When the siren sounds, radio, television, and theaters go silent. On Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron, the silence is out of respect for the dead. When the siren sounds as a warning, the radio silence is out of fear of the enemy picking up radio signals.

On October 7, 2024, five days ago at 6:29 am, the exact time of the start of the Hamas attacks a year ago, Israeli radio went silent for one minute. The silence was in the memory of those whose were murdered, as well as those who were raped or abducted on that day. For my friends in Israel, it was eerie and appropriate all the same time, as they constantly relive that day of hell. The siren also reminded Israelis of the chaos and confusion of a year earlier.

Recently, the Institute for Jewish Research published a book entitled Shiva. It contains poetry written by Israelis about October 7. Tzur Gueta’s poem is entitled Darkness Over the Surface of the Abyss, a reference to the state of the world pre-creation in Genesis.

My teacher Michal once asked us:

“Who can tell me the meaning of the verse,

‘The earth was chaos and confusion,

With darkness over the surface of the abyss?’”

All these years, from then until this very day,

That question has echoed within me, the teacher’s eyes

As she was looking for a raised hand, echoed in me

That all-encompassing silence echoed in me.

On October 7^th the ringing telephone echoed

In the silent home of my teacher Michal.

“It’s me,” I said. “Here’s your chaos and confusion.

Here’s your darkness. Here’s your abyss. Goodbye.”

Since the establishment of the state in in 1948, Israel has played multiple roles in the life of Jews, particularly Jews who made Aliyah, that is, moved to Israel.

Israel represented a safe haven, optimism about the future, and a sense that we Jews are strong – so strong that we established a state, brought home millions of Jews dispersed across the globe, and defied those who tried to kill every last one of us. In other words, as Israeli journalist and writer Yossi Klein Halevi wrote recently in the Times of Israel, “the post-Holocaust trajectory pointed forward.”

He notes that nothing like this had ever happened before to the Jews. From brokenness and death, we moved to power and life. In Israel, that power manifest in military strength, a strength that would succeed in defeating powers that sought to destroy the nation time and time again. Israelis felt mostly invincible, secure in knowing that the country could always defend itself. Ze’ev Jabotinsky called this “the iron wall.”

October 7 shattered Israelis’ faith that the state would protect them, and Klein Halevi called it “the end of the post-Holocaust era.” He stated that he often doesn’t know the date, the month, or the time. He added, “Disorientation is an apt response to the end of the post-Holocaust era, a seminal moment in which many of our most cherished assumptions have been upended.”

On October 7, 2023, Israel’s iron wall was breached. The high tech, state-of-the art defense system was overrun, literally, by terrorists driving tractors and hang gliding. Civilians were left to fend for themselves. Thank God for so many Arabs, Druze, and Bedouins who came to help the Jews in every place that was under attack.

Some Israelis take heart that all is not lost because of Israel’s successes against Hezbollah. But this has been a small balm for a people tired of the war in Gaza, desperate to get the remaining hostages home, fearful that most of them are dead, and deeply worried about Iran’s next move.

They are also traumatized by the fact that 68,000 Israeli civilians have been evacuated from their homes in the north because of the ongoing shelling from Hezbollah – and Iran.

This, too, reminds Israelis that the state and the military cannot guarantee that the people can live safely in their own homes. Klein Halevi claims that it “undermines the credibility of our national home.”

The last time Israel faced an existential crisis – a war that they might lose – was 51 years ago, Yom Kippur 1973. After a victory when loss was a realistic possibility, the nation was jubilant. Nothing since then has tested Israelis psyches like they have been tested this past year.

During my trip to Israel last May, we spent a morning visiting with survivors from Kibbutz Holit. P’nina, Gigi, Sveta, and Gerida shared the horror of the day. P’nina, born on the kibbutz, nearly died of smoke asphyxiation, as the terrorists burned her home, the smoke entered her safe room, and she was unconscious when the IDF soldiers reached her. Gerida’s family hid in their attic for 11 hours and refused to come out until they were absolutely certain that the men who entered the house were IDF soldiers, not Hamas terrorists dressed as soldiers. 

Twenty percent of the people on their kibbutz of 84 families were murdered, including an 81-year-old Holocaust survivor. Two members of the kibbutz were taken hostage. Gerida gave us a house-by-house account of the families of the kibbutz, and shook while she spoke. One six-year-old girl hid in a closet while she heard her parents being murdered. All four women cried, sharing not only what happened to their own family, but also what they saw – shot bodies, burned bodies, burned houses, burned cars, and booby-trapped cars. 

The four friends are all suffering from severe PTSD as well as survivor’s guilt, having lost close friends who were more like family. They touched each other frequently, as if they needed to double check that the other was really alive. They are all in therapy. But they push themselves to speak, as they know that their stories must be told, and they gain strength when they speak. They say that the teens are suffering the most.

Klein Halevi observes that the need for Israelis to remind themselves of their will to live comes with the phrase, Am Yisrael Chai, the people Israel live. He notes that the expression is popular among diaspora Jews who needed reassurance after the Holocaust that the Jewish people had indeed survived. Israelis never adopted the slogan because of course the people of Israel live: That was the whole point of a Jewish state. Now, he writes, the slogan appears on highway billboards, in newspaper ads, and in popular songs. Suddenly declaring that one is alive is very Israeli.

Israeli poet Tal Shavit wrote these words in a poem entitled Good Day:

I want to manage all the war rooms,

Mobilize all the supply chains,

I want to take care of all the children,

of all the single mothers,

And those who are gone.

I want to turn myself into protective vests

for all the fighters, become iron domes over the heads,

of all the girls, each and every one.

To sustain all the families: the evacuated; the broken; the crushed.

Return those who were taken, bring back all that is gone.

I want to collect all the donations,

And take them where they belong.

To pass all the messages, to make all the sandwiches

To oversee all the efforts.

But on a good day, I manage, sometimes, to breathe.

Sometimes, to drink, sometimes, to call loved ones.

On a good day, I manage, sometimes, to cry.

Israelis have been at risk of being taken hostage since the founding of the state. One of the most fantastic rescue operations by the IDF was in 1976 when a hundred Israeli hostages were on a plane that was hijacked to Entebbe airport in Uganda. That rescue became the symbol of post-Holocaust Jewish strength and resistance. One IDF soldier died – Yonatan Netanyahu, the older brother of the current Prime Minister. For years after Entebbe, many Israeli parents named their sons Yonatan, wanting their sons to grow up to be heroes, too.

And so, Israel’s inability to free the hostages held in Gaza weighs heavily on the society. Klein Halevi calls it “a constant taunt, reminding us of the failure of October 7.” The IDF is inside of Gaza, no doubt within feet or yards of hostages, and has managed to free only eight of them.

The unwillingness of the current government to negotiate a deal that would bring the hostages home feels to many Israelis like floating in the Dead Sea with nicks and cuts all over one’s body. It stings. It burns. It is torment. And too many Israelis feel that they can no longer trust their government to rescue them, ala Entebbe.

Israel is in a unique position vis-à-vis diaspora Jews. Right now, it is probably the most dangerous country in the world, physically, for Jews. But with the antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiments I spoke of Rosh Hashanah eve and last night, it’s no doubt the safest country in the world, emotionally and psychologically, for Jews. Schoolmates, coworkers, and neighbors will not deny the horrors of October 7.

Klein Halevi ended his article with this story: “The other day in Jerusalem, I saw a bumper sticker that read, ‘Our story will have a good ending.’ Those words were spoken by Sarit Zussman at the funeral of her son, Ben, a soldier who died in Gaza. Once that sentiment would have seemed to Israelis self-evident. Now it has the poignancy of a prayer.”

All of the issues and feelings concerning October 7 have come to a head for Israelis. Around them are constant reminders of the failure of the government, the IDF, and even one another. Journalist Andrew Silow-Carroll of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency wrote in the Jerusalem Post that Israelis have turned to using the word s’licha, or “sorry,” with one another. He gives these examples:

• At the funeral of Eden Yerushalmi, one of the hostages whose body was recovered with Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s body, a family member held a sign saying “s’licha Eden” next to her body.

• At a vigil remembering Hersh and the five other Israel hostages whose bodies were recovered, mourners wrote s’lichaon placards.

• At Hersh’s funeral, Israeli President Yitzchak Herzog said, first in Hebrew and then in English, “As a father and as the president of the State of Israel, I want to say how sorry I am, how sorry I am that we didn’t protect Hersh on that dark day, how sorry I am that we failed to bring him home.”

S’licha is not commonly uttered by Israelis. It’s not that they are impolite; rather, s’licha, for many is a profound request for forgiveness. Think of the service we did the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah – S’lichot, s’licha in the plural.

Amichai Lau-Lavie, an American rabbi who was born in Israel, saw and heard the phrase s’licha repeatedly when he attended one of the mass demonstrations in Tel Aviv calling on the Israeli government to reach a hostage deal. “The impulse for personal remorse and repair is built into the infrastructure” of Jewish tradition and culture, he said. “We feel a collective responsibility for problems and solutions.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu, much to the dismay of many Israelis, had not used the word s’licha before the slaying of the six hostages. He uttered it in an apology to the parents of one of them. “I would like to tell you how much I regret and ask forgiveness for not … bringing Sasha back alive.”

Silow-Carroll notes that what “makes the use of the word s’licha unusual in the case of the hostage vigils is that it is being said by members of the public who seemingly have no direct responsibility for the prosecution of the war, or for the military and diplomatic efforts to free the hostages.”

In her poem Salaam Aleikum (Arabic for Peace be upon you) Little Girl, poet Miri Michaeli voices multiple s’lichots to a girl she imagines living in Gaza. Miri writes:

Salaam Aleikum little girl from Gaza.

I’m writing to tell you that it’s not your fault.

I know you are not to blame that our home

Suffered a direct hit by a rocket.

That it was not your choice that all our property burned down.

My nightmares and ours – are not your fault.

Aleikum Salaam little girl from Gaza.

S’licha, I’m sorry you are hungry; it’s not my fault.

I didn’t choose for you to stand so ling in line

For such a miserable portion of food.

S’licha, forgive me, honestly, I know that you are not at all

Connected to this; that you are exhausted

That you are cold at night; the little you had was taken from you.

I also know that everyone’s feelings here have been blunted

That no one feels pity, not even compassionate women,

For your distress. S’licha, I am sorry that the perfect

Synchronization was achieved by corrupt men

Pursuing profit with dulled senses – from this side –

Miserable politicians; on your side – terrorists.

S’licha, forgive me little girl from Gaza

I know that you would release the hostages and ask to return

With your teddy bear to the place that perhaps

Once was your relatively warm home.

S’licha, forgive me for the hunger, the thirst, the frailty

The longing for sanity, the yearning for a place of your own.

S’licha, excuse me if inadvertently (or not)

We killed your mother or perhaps a relative

For sure – welfare and hope.

Maybe when you grow up things will be slightly different.

S’licha, forgive me, little girl from Gaza, it’s not your fault.

You are really wonderful.

S’licha, I ask forgiveness. You don’t have to forgive.

I just wanted to write to you or perhaps send some strength.

S’licha, so sorry, my dear, s’licha, sorry for everything.

You should know that in our hearts, too

(in spite of a lack of symmetry),

A deep chasm has opened.

Israelis do not yet have a sign of the hostages coming home, the war ending, a ceasefire, northern evacuees going home, or anything else that would restore their hope and tell them that in the end, it’ll all be okay. Because in truth, it will never be okay. What they have is each other, exemplified by these words of poet Aharon Shabtai, in his work entitled, Tikkun, or Repair.

The horror … the terrible disaster

The shame

The fragments of stupidity

The foolishness of religion

The blindness of eyes

The violence of despair

Will not be repaired, neither by an officer

Nor bomb, not an airplane

Nor by any more blood.

Only the heart’s wisdom can repair

Only the doctor, the physician can repair

It is only the good teacher can repair

The medic, whether Arab or Jew,

The peaceful traveler can repair, the bicycle rider

The sandwich carrier

The one who walks in the street.

The one who opens eyes can repair

The one who speaks compassionately can repair

The listener can repair

The educated person can repair

The one who waits and ponders can repair

The guide can repair

On the paths of generosity, of love

The painter can repair, the poet

The students of peace can repair

The gardeners of peace.

Ken y’hi ratzon,

May repair be God’s will for our beloved Israel, speedily and soon.