I feel compelled to put some thoughts down here, both to help me un-jumble my brain and to have as a memory.
I am in rabbinical school because I love the Jewish people. I love our Torah and the covenant that looks forward as much as it looks backward. I love the land of Israel (despite disliking its government of recent years) and its existence as a sanctuary for Jews the world over. It does not lack for challenges, but its very existence means everything when history has proven time and again that there is no safe place for Jews to go.
Jewish history is a collection of many struggles, and this current one is only slightly different from the crusades of the Middle Ages or the pogroms in Europe between World Wars. Certainly, the blinding and irrational hatred of Jews is the same across time – based on religious fanaticism or fear or any number of irrationalities. All of the many, many tragedies and pogroms and expulsions in Judaism’s 4,000-year history feel personal to me. I have felt sorrow for each of them, as removed as I am. As a people, collectively, we remember.
I think the main difference I’m feeling is that we are living through this pain in current time. Reading Josephus’ account of the siege and tragedy of Masada during the first Jewish-Roman war, even visiting the site, is not the same as having real friends living in Israel that I speak with on a regular basis. Nearly every Jew has some tangible connection to Israel, and most of us have many.
The Jewish people is one of connection. Because there are so very few of us, making up almost zero percent of the world’s population, and because of the teaching that a single life equates to an entire world, the pointless loss of life from such intense barbarism evokes for Jews a collective memory of a long list of past hatreds. Watching and listening to crowds of people celebrate such atrocities feels sickening.
There is a great deal of complexity to the establishment of the state of Israel, as well as to the conflicts between peoples. We don’t need to get into that except to note that it is not for lack of trying that there is unrest and instability there. I’ve learned many new and surprising things in the past few months about the last 170 years in the region, more than enough to state that it’s beyond my abilities to explain it all.
I care for all people’s right to self-determination, and the Palestinian people have had a rough road. Their government has been overtaken by terrorists and Arabs in surrounding countries are not concerned with their welfare. However, disinformation that has led to pro-Palestinian rallies elsewhere, with fervent cries against Israeli “oppression” baffles and scares me, simply because this is not true. This is yet another instance when I have to ask, “Does no one care about the truth anymore? Does no one care about basic morality?” The past 13 days have not been about anything besides a terrorist group wanting to annihilate an entire people.
Israel represents sacred history as well as holy space. It is where God revealed Godself to the Jewish people and gave us the Torah, and it is also a laboratory for modern Jewish life. The concept of Jewish Peoplehood means that even though I live a very different life in America, I am soulfully linked to Israel. I am grieving. I am in deep pain. How could I not be???
My focus is elsewhere, hopefully temporarily. We say “libi b’mizrach – my heart is in the East,” a line from Judah Halevi’s poem, as a way of conveying an intense longing to be in Israel. The collective diasporic Jewish soul is aching.
It strikes me that this is rather strange. Speaking to a friend the other day who is not Jewish, I realized that she viewed the recent events as one headline among many. Whereas I couldn’t really speak of other things, she could not understand why I was in a state of mourning. It’s hard to explain that when something happens to Jews anywhere in the world, even if we did not know them personally, we care. We say, “kol Yisrael arevim zeh la-zeh – all Israel is responsible for one another.” The tribal unity of the global Jewish community, all Jews experiencing this event together, feels significant. And the instinct to actively help in some way is strong.
Of course, ideally we would feel this way about all of humanity because we are all interconnected. I care about the Chinese oppression of Taiwan. I care about Ukraine. I care about preserving and defending democracy against the powers that wish to take it away. I don’t understand such hatred. Many people keep checking their phones for an alert that the IDF has begun its land invasion of Gaza to find the terrorists. I am checking mine because I fear that I will read that Iran (and perhaps China, North Korea, and Russia) has directly entered the war, which will lead to more chaos in Israel and in America.
Instead, I am focusing on the remarkable altruism that immediately came forth from the destruction – people have reached out to the larger Jewish community simply because they care. One example is the 300 German citizens who linked hands and encircled a synagogue to protect it from violence. While their government seems to be in a state of overwhelm, Israelis have opened their homes to anyone in need, and are collecting and distributing toiletries and food, etc. And there are many volunteers and nonprofits responding and providing support. The fact that Israel went from intense disagreements in its streets to such unity is inspiring. I hope that the U.S. would do the same.
Thankfully, most Jews today do not live in fear because democratic governments and their citizens embrace and value diversity. May that continue to be so, and may we be a comfort to one another in these tenuous times. May we find strength in our tradition and transform our sadness and fear into hope.
