Our Online Library: High Holy Days Sermons and Creative Liturgy

I lived on KB from 1983-1984, just after the Israeli Lebanese war.  It was a tremendous year, full of travel around the country, encounters with Israelis,

I had my heart broken for the first time, and enjoyed my first experience with political dialogue.  Although I had been to Israel before, I was seeing the country anew, with my own eyes, separate from my parents.

On Yom Kippur, together with a classmate we went to sit by the Jordan river, which was in our backyard.  We cried because we were homesick,

the services were unfamiliar, but we drew strength from being in Israel,

the land of our people and our faith.

When I went to Israel that year, you could still visit the Dome of the Rock

without major security.  You could still walk on the walls around the old city of Jerusalem, you could drive through from Jerusalem to Masada via Jericho without incident.  And I think there was one bus bombing in the entire year.

My parents were thrilled that I wanted to spend a year studying in Israel.

although I am sure they had their fears, they went unexpressed to me.  They had taught me by their example about ahavat yisrael – the love for Israel.  They took me first when I was 3, then again at age 10, once again for the summer before I became Bat Mitzvah, and it was my request to go at 15 for a year – alone.

They had taught me and the Jewish education I received taught me, that Zionism was the movement for self determination of the Jewish people.

that the land of Israel is the place of deep connections and historical significance.  That the Hebrew language lives and thrives in the land of Israel because it is simultaneously the language of the past and the rebirth of the future.  Those many trips to Israel in my youth taught me that I have a homeland in addition to a home.  It was during that year when I was 15

that my love began to mature and deepen in ways that are still important to me today.

I am so grateful for this understanding. Grateful because despite the current political and religious realities in Israel, I feel bound to this place in ways that I think today are pretty rare among young liberal Jews despite important and meaningful programs like Taglit-birthright Israel, trips through the reform and conservative movements, and year course through Young Judea or workshop through Habonim.  And without sounding naïve, I do think that the desire to have a deep and meaningful relationship with Israel is often overburdened and maybe even overshadowed by politics and globalism.

How can I convey to you on this holiest of nights my love, my connection,

my pain, my sadness, my anger, but most of all, my commitment to the people and land of Israel?  How can I do it without sounding shrill?  How can I convince those of you who need convincing to support Israel without sounding naïve at best, hostile and callous towards the Palestinians at worst?

At the same time, how can I portray the need to continue to work for peace without sounding cliché and sophomoric.

I have been anguishing over this sermon.  I was deeply affected by the war

this summer with Hezbollah, because of the displacement and destruction

of Israeli lives, because of the lack of preparedness of the Israeli military,

because of the loss of civilian Lebanese homes and lives, because the captured Israeli soldiers are still in captivity, and despite a holding ceasefire,

Hezbollah is not disarmed.

On top of that I was really disappointed that the very first trip to Israel

in the history of our congregation had to be cancelled – not initially because of the war – but because on July 11 the day before the conflict began, we did not even have a minyan of people, 10 people, who would commit to this trip, and send a check for registration.  We see ourselves as an important congregation in the Reconstructionist Movement, we are in New York City!

And we have never been as a community to Israel.  I had to ask myself, what did it mean that we could not accomplish this goal?  I am not casting blame on anyone, nor am I unaware of all the reasons why people could not go.

I was, and I guess I still am, really sad that we couldn’t make this happen.

I have also been feeling guilty myself.  I have not been to Israel since the summer of 2001, and before that it was the year I spent while in rabbinical school.  In 10 years, I have been there once.  In my regret I have been catapulted to the days of my youth when going to Israel didn’t require a second thought, and when I felt its emotional centrality to my life an a much more conscious way.  My personal Al chet that I will add this year is for the sin of having become so distant from this land that I love.

I want so much to convey to you my deep feeling that Israel is a part of us,

“That Israel – our people, our homeland, the only place on earth where everything shuts down on Yom Kippur, where the Hebrew language

can be biblical and slang in the same sentence,” (Rabbi Barbara Penzner)  Where Jewish culture grows organically, where to walk the land is to walk in the footsteps of our ancestors, where the rhythm of life is a distinctly Jewish rhythm – all of this is part of us.

I know that many of you know this to be true.  Many of us have visited the country countless times, have family there and feel deep connections to the country.  Many of us feel connected to Israel, but have a hard time politically with the occupation, and the last 39 years of conflict with the Palestinians.  And still others of us have a hard time even feeling a kinship

with this country so often in the news and at war with its neighbors.

So you can well imagine that sitting down to write a sermon about Israel

in a community such as ours represents a bit of a challenge.  I have sometimes felt as though the message is a moving target.

I know all of us were touched and affected by the war with Hezbollah this summer, no matter what our personal views.  But Psalm 137 reminds us of the ancient pledge:  “Eem eshkachech yerushalayim, tishkach yemini.  If I forget you O’ Jerusalem, let my right hand wither and be forgotten.”  These words are a call to action within a psalm of lament, for the opening words of this very psalm, “al naharot bavel, sham yashavnu gam bachinu, by the waters of Babylon, there we sat and wept…” remind us of that from within our pain, we must continue to pursue our dreams.  We must not let the pain,

destroy our hope, our tikvah.

That is all we have actually.  If we forget, it is as if we have lost a critical part of ourselves.

We know that the Zion of today is not exactly what our ancestors

might have dreamed of when they sat and wept by the rivers of Babylon.

We know that since Hamas took power, it has continued to foil the Palestinian leadership’s attempt to build some kid of unity government,

which in turn makes the job of peacemaking that much more difficult.

But it is up to us now to ask ourselves the existential questions about what it means to support and love Israel and seek peace for the region when we ourselves do not make the choice to go there. When we ourselves may not

educate our children about its history in meaningful ways as families, and as a community.

We have to ask ourselves what it means to be critical of the State of Israel  and do so in ways that are helpful, that don’t abandon the people of Israel,

or punish them unduly.

We must ask ourselves what it means to stand up for our people when they are being threatened and not feel guilty that we are “not doing enough”

for the others in the region.

We can talk all we want about what we think Israel should do, but at the end of the day, where are we?  We are here.

In rabbinic tradition, to talk about something is to help sanctify it.  There has never been a realm of Jewish life that has not been meticulously and passionately debated and discussed.  The future of the state of Israel – its moral, political, and physical future – is of concern to all of us as Reconstructionist Jews.

So tonight, I want our focus to be the ways in which we may have grown distant from Israel over the last year or have refused to be engaged in the events in Israel.  Then let us commit ourselves to the ways we can do better individually and as a community

I read a sermon recently by Rabbi Joseph Prouser, a rabbi on Long Island.

In it, he proposes that ahavat yisrael, love of Israel, be added to the list of commandments we derive from the Torah.  There are 613 traditional mitzvoth – commandments – actions that sanctify out lives as Jews.  Jewish philosopher, Emil Fackenheim asserted the 614^th commandment as – you shall not give Hitler a posthumous victory through willing assimilation and willful ignorance of Jewish tradition.  Prouser posits that love of Israel be the 615^th commandment.

Now love is a difficult thing to command.  When we read v’ahavta l’reacha kamocha – you shall love your neighbor as yourself -- we are confronted by a challenge.  And as Skyler Siegel taught us this year in his dvar torah when he became bar mitzvah – we are not commanded the extent of this love,

only that we do love.

So how can we love a people, a land, a nation?  The State of Israel deserves the love of the Jewish people not because it is perfect – far from it – but because its rebirth is pretty remarkable, and to ignore its history and presence is to be missing something as a Jew.  Israel symbolizes much

of what makes us proud as Jews, and has the potential to connect us profoundly to our history and our historic potential.  Israel also sometimes symbolizes that what makes ashamed to be Jews, but is the response to turn away?

I can’t “make” you love Israel.  I can only hope that somehow you understand that for three thousand years, Israel has represented the place where Jews could put into action, values which under gird our lives.  It is certainly not perfect as a democracy – neither is America for that matter,

but here as well as there, people can vote, they and we can raise our voices

and our values, and hope that Israel becomes a better democracy, a more pluralistic country, and a nation a peace with its neighbors.

Think about it this way: Do you demand perfection from those you love?  My guess is that if you have ever been seriously disappointed by friends or family at some time in your life, you know that to abandon the relationship

isn’t always the best course of action.

This is the season we ask for and grant forgiveness to those we love and care about.  When it comes to Israel, I cannot help but liken it to a close friendship that is complicated and sometimes really hard.  As Prouser wrote,

“Israel’s democracy is genuine and healthy, but messy and confusing.  Its religious liberty for minority faiths is remarkable, but its appreciation for Jewish religious diversity is lacking and hurtful.”

We may have serious disagreements about what Israel’s policies are on any number of fronts.  But real love demands a meaningful response when we think there are problems, indeed, when we know there are problems.

The love I am talking about here is not the “adolescent love” that is filled with highs and lows and from which we quickly turn away when issues arise.  I am talking about the love found in real adult relationships, and the role of each person to strengthen one another in that relationship.

To borrow a line from the movie Jerry McGuire: for Israel to say to Diaspora Jews – “you complete me,” and for us to say back to Israel,

“you complete me.”  I am talking about self reflective love – quality time is never enough if there is no quantity time spent being engaged with another person, or with Israel.

We as progressive, religiously liberal Jews need to be even more engaged than others because we bring to Israel our values that can help Israel be an even stronger society.

Over the three years our congregation supported the New Israel Fund,

an organization dedicated to ensuring Israel’s peaceful and democratic future by safeguarding civil and human rights, bridging social and economic gaps,

and fostering tolerance and religious pluralism, I took a lot of heat.

“Why are we supporting a political organization”

“It’s not political” I said. “It reflects our deepest values we want for Israel.”

“It’s left wing”

“No, it is a funding organization supporting community efforts to make Israel a more just, more democratic, and more pluralistic society.”

“This is just your personal agenda.”

My friends, you better believe it is my personal agenda.  As a rabbi and a Jew, I am proud to have a vision and an agenda of Israel as a more just society, not one created only by the memories of victimization or romantic nostalgia, and I will not apologize for that.

Real love means wanting to help the person, in this case, the country, be even better than they are.  Many of you supported our effort for NIF, but at times we felt alone against the wind.

At the same time, real love also demands a meaningful response when the life and safety – or even the dignity – of our loved one is threatened.  During the war this summer when we really began in earnest to promote the rally to end genocide in Darfur, several congregants wrote and called me to say,

“Of course we are against genocide in Darfur, but who is standing with Israel at this moment?  We should be putting our efforts into supporting Israel not worrying about Darfur.

And just last week, in response to the promotion of an Israel solidarity rally

another congregant wrote, “How can we rally with Israel when Palestinians continue to suffer terribly under occupation.”

My friends, both sentiments are well meaning, even understandable.  In the first case, I applauded these members and their love for Israel, but that love shouldn’t eclipse our responsibilities to human beings around the world who suffer.  And in the second case, I applauded the member who wanted to focus energy on the Palestinian situation, but it shouldn’t eclipse our responsibility to care about the soul of Israel and people of Israel.

In Pirke Avot, Ethics of the Sages, we learn from Hillel: Im ain ani li mi

If I am not for myself who will be for me. Uchsheani l’atzmi mah ani?

If I am only for myself, what am I?  V’im lo achshav, aimatai.  If not now when.

Support and love for Israel should come from us as a Jewish community.

Support and care and outrage over injustices in the world whether in Hebron

or in Chad, should mobilize us too as a Jewish community.  And as always,

there is no time like the present to make a difference.  That is the ethical core of Judaism that Jed Eisenstein spoke so eloquently about on Rosh Hashanah.

David Ben Gurion once noted, “It would be good of course, for the world

to be a world of peace, brotherhood and justice, but it would be even better if we, Israel were alive in that world.”

Ahavat yisrael – love of Israel cannot remain only an emotion, and only in our minds.  It actually has to be transformed into action.  There are so many Israelis and Palestinians working for peace, bringing to light abuses by the army, trying to remain dedicated to human rights, and challenging the status quo.  Here’s just one example: when the Supreme Court of Israel required the army to move the Fence separating Israel and Palestine, security was not the only concern or value applied.  Consideration was paid to the lives of the Palestinians, the trees that would be uprooted, and further development of the land on both sides of the fence.

Aren’t these important benchmarks of an open society?  Don’t they speak of the verse that immediately preceeds V’ahavtah l’reacha kamocha, namely –

“Don’t hate your neighbor in your heart; You shall criticize them, but incur no guilt because of them.”  In other words, in order for there to be real love,

there must also be a place for real rebuke.

It is not up to Israel to prove its worthiness to us as a Jewish community in the Diaspora.  It is actually up to us to make a relationship that is meaningful.  One that is based on history, Jewish values, Jewish ethics, our responsibility for each other as Jews, and our responsibility to care for others in distress.

On this night of vows and oaths, I make an oath to go to Israel myself this year to renew my relationship with the country.  I am also keenly aware that at the conclusion of neilah tomorrow night, we will say l’shanah habah b’yerushalayim -- Next year in Jerusalem.  I pray that our community will indeed make that a promise it will keep, and I look forward to fulfilling that oath with you.

What will need to happen in the next year for that to happen?  What will be your personal commitment to Israel?  Will you go there?  Will you pay attention to what goes on there?  What will you teach your children?

Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan envisioned Israel as a radiating center – emanating outwards to Diaspora communities.  Israel today with its vigor and its flaws,

must still have a place at the core of Jewish community.  Kaplan taught that “The fulfilling of Zionism…aims to reconstitute the Jewish people, to reunify it, and to redefine its status vis-à-vis the rest of the world.”

Im eshkachech yerushalayim tishkach yemini– If I forget you, O Jerusalem,

let my right hand lose its cunning.  I cannot forget.  We cannot forget.  Kol od balevav penima, nefesh yehudi homiyah – so long as a Jewish soul still lives within a heart, lo avdah tikvateinu – then the hope is not lost.  The hope is not lost for an Israel that is strong and at peace; and the hope is not lost for our ability to love Israel.  Let our words tonight and our conversations in the future, enable us to grow closer in our attachment to this land and this people of Israel.

Gmar Hatima Tova – May our journey of teshuvah towards Israel be inspired.