Rabbi Joshua Heller, Rosh Hashanah 5775 p 1
A Sermon I’ve Resisted Giving for 10 years.
Delivered by Rabbi Joshua Heller
Congregation B’nai Torah
First Day Rosh Hashanah, 5775
A story is told of a rabbi who, after a few weeks in his new congregation, decides
to give a sermon about some behavior and decorum issues in the synagogue. He
begins by talking about inappropriate clothing that some of the bar/bat mitzvah
guests have been wearing, and a couple in the front is whispering and nodding in
appreciation. He rails about the disruptions caused by cell phones, and the couple
continues to offer their encouragement “he’s really preaching it now!” He really
gets up head of steam as he launches into the people who talk during services, and
the couple in front turn their faces to a scowl. Loud enough for the whole
congregation to hear, they offer their critique: “now he’s stopped preaching and
started meddling.” Some congregants have strong opinions about what rabbis
should talk about from the bimah. I’ve found that many are really only concerned
about two parts of the sermon- the beginning and the end, and how far apart they
are.
This year there have been numerous articles on the pressure on rabbis to talk about,
or not talk about, Israel this year. To say, or not say this; to say or not say that.
There are rabbis who have been pushed out of congregations, congregants who
have quit. Those who are B’nai Torah veterans know that I usually end up having
something to say about Israel most High Holidays, and I’ll say a more than a few
words about Israel today, but I’d like to suggest that as this year has unfolded,
Israel is actually something of a red herring. The real story is at the same time far
more grand, and far more petty1. It is about the whole world and the individual,
about the universal and the particular, themes that are in sharp relief on Rosh
Hashanah. It’s about Jews, and the anti-Semites who hate them, but also how we
feel about ourselves as well. The story could be a heartbreaker, but it’s actually
cause for hope and even pride.
But let’s start with Israel. Over the years, many have tried to give a concise
summary of the state of the Jewish state. 14 years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak was interviewed on American television by Sam Donaldson. He was asked
to sum up the prospects for peace, in one word. He responded: “Good.”
Donaldson asked “Can you expand on that? How about in two words?” “Not
Good.” Those are both pretty accurate descriptions.
1
This year’s sermon bingo.
Rabbi Joshua Heller, Rosh Hashanah 5775 p 2
We have a lot to be proud of. Israel, as a modern country, has staked out a unique
position in a tough neighborhood. Despite war and conflict, and despite, or
perhaps because, of a lack of oil, somehow it has developed a vigorous
entrepreneurial economy- just shy of 9 million residents, a world center for high
tech and high culture. Tel Aviv is like a Middle Eastern Los Angeles, (with almost
as many Israelis), and Ramat Gan its Century City. Looking at it as an American,
you can appreciate that, even with its imperfections, it is more democratic than any
other country in the region, an ally to the US. It’s facing challenges of how to
integrate a very diverse population- Jews from ultra-orthodox to ultra-secular,
Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Russians. There are continued negotiations to
determine how to preserve religious rights for all at holy sites like the Kotel, to
wrestle with economic inequality, and challenges to the environment.
People of faith are drawn to Israel, because it is a land with an incredible history
and legacy. With all due respect to Nordstrom’s, it is the holy land. When you
read the bible, the backdrop to every story that matters is found in its majestic
mountains, its fertile valleys. It was also the crossroads of the ancient world- the
king’s highway was used by invading armies from Egypt to Assyria. Persians,
Turks, Christians, Moslems, each had more than one turn. We were exiled and
returned, and exiled again, but we never forgot our homeland. We held fast to a
covenant and held it in our prayers every day for two thousand years. Its very
stones tell the story of our people, its waters flow with sacred inspiration. Next
summer, we are taking a group to Israel, to draw that inspiration.
But if you ask the world at large, Israel seems to be associated with conflict and
condemnation. This was a tough summer for Israel. For the past few years, the
Fatah group, which controls much of the West Bank, has been more or less willing
to express a desire for peace, at least in English, but in practice has offered
cooperation to keep the peace and protect lives on both sides. There has been
simmering conflict with Hamas, sometimes hot and sometimes cold, with Hamas
firing rockets on Israeli towns and farms, causing great distress to those living in
border communities, but really not affecting the quality of life in Israel as a whole.
This summer, Hamas-affiliated terrorists kidnapped and killed three Israeli
teenagers. The conflict quickly escalated, and before long, Hamas had lobbed
thousands of rockets at Israel. Israeli civilian casualties were mercifully low,
because of the Iron Dome missile defense system. Along the way, the world
discovered that Hamas had diverted millions and millions of dollars of construction
and humanitarian supplies, that could have been used to build roads, schools and
hospitals, to construct long tunnels into Israel. Hamas was planning a colossal
attack using those tunnels (some have suggested that it would have been on this
holiday) to murder and kidnap dozens of Israeli civilians, women and children.
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Israel sent soldiers into Gaza to take out those tunnels, and rockets, and 66 lost
their lives.
Hamas had a strategy unique in the annals of war. Usually, you use your missiles
and bunkers to defend your population. Hamas used its population to defend its
missiles and bunkers, hiding rockets in schools and near homes and apartments.
Israel took a step unheard of in warfare. They would send warnings to civilians to
leave an area with military targets, and Hamas would ask (or force) those civilians
to crowd in, so that Israelis would have choose between leaving the launchers and
bunkers intact, or risking civilian casualties. The goal was to maximize civilian
casualties, to make it impossible for Israel to respond to Hamas attacks without
harming women and children. This summer, we had a chance to study some of the
ethical dilemmas that Israel faced, and how our tradition guides responses to those
tough scenarios. If you do a statistical breakdown of the gender and age of the
2000 or so killed in Gaza, it seems to confirm Israel’s assessment that despite
Hamas’ best efforts to put women and children in harm’s way, about 50% of those
killed were Hamas fighters.
And so the fight went on, until after 6 weeks and 11 broken ceasefires, Israel and
Hamas came up with one that held. Some pundits have suggested that it was
primarily because Hamas was out of rockets.
It’s not surprising that Israel was subject to unbridled condemnation from the
world’s most violent and oppressive regimes in the UN, who would tell you that
Israel is not only the villain and the aggressor against the Palestinians, but the root
of all evil in the larger world. Also, perhaps no surprise either that the media
bought the Hamas strategy. There was an amusing set of articles from the New
York Times explaining why their reporters and photographers on the ground had
never seen a Hamas militant.
There’s no mystery. Many international news organizations use local stringers who
have a clear bias. Foreign reporters who might otherwise be honest know that they
will be expelled or killed if they report on what Hamas was actually doing.
Meanwhile, media chiefs needed to be perceived as “evenhanded,” and tried to
create an illusion of parity between a terrorist army that was trying to maximize
civilian casualties, and a democratic state that was trying to minimize them. Most
importantly, though, if it bleeds, it leads. News about Israel gets eyeballs and sells
ads.
Around the world, including here in the US, a movement called BDS (boycott,
divestment and sanctions), seeks to make Israel a pariah in the business world, to
put Israel out in the cold in the world of culture, sports, and academia. You can’t
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walk 20 feet on a college campus without running into a “rebel without a clue”
who wants protest Israel. Whereas support for Israel used to be one of a number of
shared assumptions that crossed party lines in the US, movements seeking to
criticize or marginalize Israel have become increasingly vocal and influential.
Even more distressing, criticism of Israel, would seem to have become a focus and
an outlet for hatred of Jews in general. Hate crimes have been on the rise across
Europe this summer. In Germany, with no hint of irony, pro-Palestinian protesters
shouted “Gas the Jews” and a synagogue was firebombed. Four people were
gunned down at the Jewish museum in Brussels. In France, mobs shattered Jewish
store windows, and many neighborhoods are simply unsafe for Jews to enter.
Morale is free falling, and about 1% of the Jews in France (currently the third
largest Jewish community in the world after Israel and the US) will be leaving for
Israel this year. In England a store guard denied entrance to Jewish students, and
after mobs trashed store aisles with Israeli foods, some stores stopped stocking
kosher products altogether.
We feel safe on this side of the pond. But maybe we should sleep with one eye
open. In Miami, in August, a rabbi was shot on his way to synagogue. The story
just kind of sank beneath the surface. Law enforcement on the case was quoted as
saying: “Again I’m not really sure what it was, but it definitely was not a hate
crime.2” I have heard of a number of synagogues that have been vandalized, but
have been asked not to publicize the incidents due to a fear of copycat crimes. One
Jewish school in New York drew controversy when an administrator suggested that
its students take off kippot when leaving the building. To be fair, even 25 years
ago, most of my friends who went there were doing that anyway.
Here’s the puzzle behind this whole scenario. I know why I care about Israel:
because of its past as the birthplace of my faith, because of its present as home to
my brothers, and because of its future as a source of inspiration. I know why
Hamas cares about Israel- they see the entire land of Israel as land that belongs to
Palestinians, no matter how it was bought or what it was traded for, and because
their vision of Islam doesn’t allow for a non-Moslem political presence in the
Middle East.
But the question I must ask is: why does everyone else care? Of all of the 40
different wars and conflicts going on around the world, why is Israel singled out on
streets and campus squares? Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are killed in civil
war, with barely a peep from the larger world. ISIS kills thousands of innocent
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2014/09/19/police-believe-they-know-some-of-the-peopleinvolved-in-rabbi-murder/
2
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people, Moslem and Christian, but until they behead an American on YouTube, it
doesn’t matter. Hundreds of girls are kidnapped in Nigeria to be used as slaves in
the most degrading way, and the world mobilizes … a twitter hashtag?
More to the point: other countries in the world are subject to criticism as to how
they act. Israel’s sin is its mere existence. Israel is attacked not just for shooting
back at the people who are shooting at its civilians, but even for having the Iron
Dome defensive system. The U.N’s top human rights official criticized Israel and
the U.S. for not sharing that system with the people shooting at it!
I think the answer is ultimately not about Israel, but about the Jews. This summer,
the Episcopal Chaplain at Yale, Reverend Bruce Shipman, wrote a letter
addressing the rise in anti-Semitic attacks around the world. He was wrong, but in
an incredibly instructive way. He felt that we Jews were ourselves to blame for the
attacks against us. By virtue of our association with Israel, we were responsible
for its behavior, and for whatever invective or violence its enemies might hurl
against us. “The best antidote to anti-Semitism would be for Israel's patrons
abroad to press the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for finalstatus resolution to the Palestinian question.” There are so many things wrong
with Rev. Shipman’s letter and that I just don’t have time to address them all.
However, there is one overarching error that deserves note. In blaming antiSemitism on Israel’s place in the world, Rev Shipman has repeated an oft-made
mistake. He has confused the cause and the symptom.
Of course, you can’t actually blame anti-Semitism on Israel. In high culture, this
month the Metropolitan Opera in New York is staging an opera called “The Death
of Klinghoffer.” This controversial piece offers a sympathetic view of Palestinian
terrorists who hijacked a cruise ship, shot an old Jewish man in a wheelchair and
threw him overboard. One can only imagine what they could do to top that: “9/11,
the Musical?” But even if you take back Vanessa Redgrave, and go pre-1948, you
have T.S. Eliot, and Richard Wagner who were professed anti-Semites.
Anti-Semites have been speaking with a southern accent for many years. In
Mississippi, a rabbi was told that he was not welcome in a local restaurant, and in
Kentucky, there is a candidate for senate running on the slogan “with Jews we
lose.” But then how do you explain Leo Frank, who was lynched just a few miles
from here, 99 years ago?
One can understand the Reverend’s consternation and confusion. If there is not
some external, geopolitical source for hatred of Jews, what cause could there be? Is
there no internal logic, is it just a sort of full moon fever that grips people for no
reason? Well, yes, to an extent. Hatred of minorities is no news. Almost every
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culture in the world has, at some point, feared or oppressed minorities and
outsiders. We have a legacy in our own country of racial tension and violence. But
hating Jews is somehow different. There’s a reason why hating anyone else is
racism, while hating Jews has its own word.
To really understand why, we have to dive deeply into the theology of what it
means to be Jewish in a larger world, a theology that is especially visible on Rosh
Hashanah, and this High Holiday season. We wrestle with the balance between the
particular- that which is distinctively Jewish, and the universal- that which is
shared by all nations. The “Jewish New Year” is actually in Nissan, the month of
the Exodus, and Passover. That’s why Rosh Hashanah is described in the Torah as
the “first day of the 7th month, not the first month. The Exodus is the birth of the
Jewish people, while Rosh Hashanah is intended to be the new year for the whole
world, Jew and non-Jew alike. In the Zichronot section of the Musaf service today,
in a passage adapted from the Jerusalem Talmud, we declare “V’al hamedinot bo
yeamer”- God decrees on this day regarding all countries, which for the sword, and
which for peace, which for hunger and which for abundance, and creatures are
recalled on it to remember them for life or death.
The High Holiday liturgy, again and again, explores the idea that Jews have a
particular relationship with God, distinctive to our own faith, but there is also a
universal opportunity that is open to all. For example, there is the Aleinu, which
originated in the High Holiday liturgy, but was so popular that it was added to
every daily service. Aleinu begins by talking about the uniqueness of the Jewish
faith, the distinctiveness of Jewish worship, but ends with the sentiment that all
peoples will come to recognize the One God, each worshipping in their own way.
Most significantly, though, we as a Jewish people are the bridge between the
universal and the particular. Parashat Ha’azinu, the passage from Deuteronomy
which we read this coming Shabbat, explains, “behanchel elyon goim, behafrido
b’nai adam”- when God set the divisions of man, He fixed the boundaries of the
peoples, in relation to Israel’s numbers. Somehow, we were meant to play a role,
far beyond our numbers, in the spiritual development of the world.
For thousands of years, we have been guided by those verses, whether we realized
it or not. We have served light unto the nations, as having a role in world history,
in the development of world spirituality and ethics, far beyond our own numbers.
That’s not always an enviable role.
The German Philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche explained it well, in his Genealogy
of Morals. To paraphrase, he explained that it was the Jews who turned the world
on its head by claiming that the powerful and aristocratic are wicked, and it is the
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lowly, poor and oppressed who are the chosen of God, and he hated us for that.
Oddly enough, Nietzsche wasn’t specifically an anti-Semite. If you read his
writings, it becomes clear that he really hated everyone, but his writings became an
important influence on Nazi thought. Nevertheless, I think Nietzsche captured an
important idea, Jews, influenced by our prophetic tradition, have often been at the
forefront of calling for justice, defending the poor and oppressed, of demanding
that even the losers have their rights
I’m reminded of the story of the woman who asks her husband what time it is. He
responds “Let me get my shofar and I will tell you.” “How can you tell time with
a shofar?” she asks. He opens the window and begins blowing. Voices ring out
through the neighborhood. “Stop that, it’s 3 in the morning!” Nobody likes the
person who makes them realize what time it is. There’s a discomfort with us when
we ourselves are weak, and an even greater discomfort when we ourselves have
some strength and power.
Judaism has had an outsize impact on world thought and philosophy. Think about
the way the shofar makes a sound, starting with the small end but emerging at the
wide end. Often the Jews are the small end of the shofar, from which ultimately a
large noise emerges. The teachings of Christianity and Islam both emerged from
our faith. Their story is our story. In some way, those faith traditions in some ways
mark the fulfillment of Aleinu, bringing monotheism to the larger, non-Jewish
world. However, that has sometimes caused great unease. It has taken some
Christian denominations many generations to understand that they do not have to
reject or dismissu our continued covenant with God in order to assert the
legitimacy of their own. Islam is still struggling to understand the debt it pays to
Jewish narrative and law. The Moslem tradition takes the very story we read today,
about the binding of Isaac, and claims that it is not a Jewish story at all, but rather
is the story of Ishmael.
When I became a congregational rabbi, I made a commitment to myself that I
would not give a sermon whose main focus was anti-Semitism, and I’ve done a
pretty good job keeping that promise. To be sure, I’ve spoken about terrorism, the
holocaust, Iran’s desire to wipe Israel off the map, but I’ve never given a sermon
with anti-Semitism as its primary agenda. Those of you who sit through my
sermons week in and week out, and know how much gets past my internal filter,
will particularly appreciate that. There’s a reason I made that commitment, and a
reason that I’ve broken it today.
The reason I made that commitment is that I believe our Judaism should be about
love, not fear. I believe that we should be Jewish because of everything that is
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great about Judaism, not because someone else doesn’t like us, or we have
something to prove. Anti-Semitism doesn’t move us to be better Jews, it moves us
to be bitter Jews.
I made that commitment because anti-Semitism is not an encouragement or an
inducement to embrace our tradition. Would you really be enthusiastic about a
culture, a religion, an ethnicity if you were told repeatedly how despised it had
been throughout the ages? If I wanted to undertake a time-honored belief system
that would lead me to be the victim of scorn and negativity, I’d become a cubs fan.
I made that commitment because I don’t believe in crying wolf. There are those
who see anti-Semites under every rock, who use it as an excuse to justify practices
and beliefs that I don’t think are constructive.
However, I am speaking about anti-Semitism today, because those people are not
always wrong- just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get
you.
I am speaking about anti-Semitism today because, more so that any other time in
my lifetime, I think there are dangers that are not insurmountable, but can only be
overcome if they are named and addressed, and exposed to the light of day.
And yet, even in the midst of some scary times, there are some glimmers of hope.
First of all, the geopolitical situation has changed in the Middle East. It used to be
all the Moslems against Israel, but suddenly, the field of allegiances is much more
complicated. Shiite vs. Sunni, radical vs. moderate, new players like Qatar and
Turkey. In the Middle East, sometimes the enemy of my enemy is … also my
enemy, but sometimes the enemy of my enemy’s friend is my friend too. You
have Egypt and Saudi Arabia realizing that they fear ISIS and Iran more than they
fear Israel. Amidst the terrorists and the extremists, you see the rise of moderate
Moslem voices, voices from the Arab world telling Hamas that it is time to, stop
being all or nothing, and come to the table, make a deal.
I think there is also hope at the ground level, when one looks at the individual,
rather than the global. It’s one thing to hate Jews, or Israelis, or whoever, as a
group. It’s another thing to sit with another human being, and recognize that her or
she is not just a face in the crowd. I recently had the chance to witness two
incredible conversations. In Washington, DC, I got to see a conversation between
Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a leader of Hamas, and Gonen Ben Yitzchak.
Youssef rejected the violence that Hamas was carrying out against Israelis and its
own people, and ended up working with Ben Yitzchak, a Shin Bet operative, to
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thwart terrorist activities. Their experiences are the subject of a movie called “the
Green Prince.” The whole point of the high holidays is that people are indeed
capable of change.
The other dialogue that gave me hope happened here in Atlanta. Rabbi Hanan
Schlesinger, is a “settler” in Alon Shvut, one of the Jewish blocs in the West
Bank. He is an Orthodox Jew, living in an area inhabited by Jews until 1948, when
they were massacred. His counterpart, is Ali Abu Awwad a former PLO security
operative, who owns a plot of land within that block. Their conversation began
with each saying to the other “you don’t know how it feels,” but they realized what
they had in common- a devotion to the land, a love of their families and a fear of
violence that might harm those families, that they have more in common with each
other than with the folks in Tel Aviv. They are working together to create a new
kind of dialogue, that may someday bear fruit.
We are all individuals. If enough choose to change, then you have changed the
world.
You may think I’m running down a dream. I’m not polyanna-ish. There are many
different conflicts in the Middle East, and real peace will require cooperation
among many partners. I have no illusions about peace with the Palestinians. It
will take a change in theology, in rhetoric, and education. The waiting is the
hardest part. And indeed, before that happens, I fear that we will witness terrible
violence, and increasingly bold attempts at delegitimization of Israel- attempts to
isolate it diplomatically and theologically, but even logistically, by threatening the
airport.
It’s a long, long road, I’m not convinced that it will happen in my lifetime, but I
believe but there will come a day when the Palestinian people will come to the
same realizations, that you don’t have to live like a refugee, that their resources are
better spent building than attacking. Perhaps there will be a realization that neither
side is simply going away, and that this is not a war that either side can truly win.
Will they raise the courage to say “I don’t wanna fight?” Will they choose leaders
who can make peace, a peace that is built on some tough compromises, but a peace
that is built to last?
I believe that there is also cause for cautious optimism here in the US. Please raise
your hand if you parked in a church parking lot today (many hands go up). You
can compare notes later. The Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Mormons, they
disagree about fundamental issues of theology and interpretation of scripture.
However, they all agree that they want to help you get to services on time! It’s not
just about neighborly cooperation.
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We are blessed to be able to participate in real, meaningful dialogue and
conversation. So for example, we have developed a very special relationship with
Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church, that consists of both talk and action. Last
week, we had our first session of a public conversation called “a Rabbi and a
Minister walk into a bar.” Over 50 people showed up to hear pastor Joe B of MVP
schmooze with me. We work together to staff a homeless shelter. When the
PCUSA- the national organizing body of many US Presbyterian Churches, voted to
divest from companies doing business with Israel, our local church expressed their
disagreement.
You may not be aware that one of our members is the Associate Director for
Christians United for Israel, an umbrella organization that represents hundreds of
thousands of Christian Zionists. Some Jews are wary, concerned that perhaps they
support us for all the wrong reasons, or that it is a pretense for conversion, but I
must disagree. Having spoken to leaders in the organization, I know that there is a
great sincerity and love. There is an appreciation that we are two faith traditions
that share common roots, stories and values. So maybe it’s all right for now.
Here in this country, intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews has reached
numbers that have never been seen. People fret and wring their hands. One of the
things that it means is we are embraced, that American non-Jews are ok marrying
Jews. A young woman feels that she can love Jesus and her boyfriend too. The
boundaries between the specific and the universal are blurred.
This brings me back to the premise of this whole discussion, the universal and the
particular. One of the byproducts of this summer’s conflict is that Israelis were
more united than they had been in decades. Prime Minister Netanyahu had far
higher approval ratings than he was in fact entitled to- even the peaceniks were
rooting for him. They wanted him to say “I won’t back down.” They recognized
that this is truly an existential fight for Israel as a Jewish state.
And yet, just as Israeli society is united, American Jewry finds these conversations
all the more troubling and divisive. American Jews have an increasingly complex
relationship with Israel. At one point, it was all about Falafel, bar mitzvah on
massada, and American Girls and boys going on Birthright. Now we can hardly
read each other’s Facebook feeds. Why is that? I believe it is because we wrestle
with the balance between the universal and the particular. Our universalist values
tell us that in any fight, we should be rooting for the underdog. It’s ethically easy
to be powerless, and to be the victim. We don’t know what to do when we actually
have a bit of power.
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We also are caught up in the question of whether Israel is allowed to be a country
like any other. On this Rosh Hashanah, every nation of the world is Judged. Israel
is judged, too. God is the ultimate judge, but we serve as human judges. I would
suggest that we need not judge Israel more leniently than any other nation, but also
must not judge her more strictly. If you are a fighter for justice, that’s great, but
don’t single out Israel for special criticism in the family of nations. If you love
Israel unconditionally, you must still remember that the ends don’t justify the
means.
I believe that, even with its flaws, Israel will fare well in honest, true judgment
before God, and is morally entitled to hold its head high among the family of
nations. There are those with whom we have conflict because we each call out
competing claims to the same land, and ultimately, those claims will have to be
settled people to people, person to person. Maybe those seeds have been planted,
even if they take a long time to sprout.
Most importantly, on this Rosh Hashanah, I want to offer, if you will, a shout out
to the haters. I believe that our Jewish people has a special place in the world. The
people who love us know it. The people who hate us know even better. They hate
us because we represent an ideal. Yes, we are a nation like any other- if you prick
us, do we not bleed? But we are also the shofar that disturbs complacency. We can
draw inspiration from the fact, the reminder that even those who hate us know that
we are here to make a difference. Let this year be not about responding to a
negative, but about being more positive. For over 3000 of the 5774 years, they
have tried to silence our voices. May this be another year where our joyous sounds
are still heard.
This year’s Sermon Bingo key:
Petty, Heartbreak, Century City, King’s Highway, Breakdown, Out in in the Cold,
“Rebel without a clue” (Into the great wide Open). Free falling Vanessa Redgrave
(Quit Jamming Me) Southern accent, Full Moon Fever. Even the Losers, Yer so
Bad, All or Nothing, Running Down a Dream, Long, Long Road, Live Like a
Refugee, I don’t wanna fight, Built to Last, The Waiting is the Hardest Part, I
Won’t Back Down, For all the Wrong Reasons, “Loves Jesus and her boyfriend,
too” (Free Fallin’), American Girl