Survival Optimism

 

Rachel lived a life of broken dreams. She was in love with Jacob, waiting seven long years for marriage, only to be betrayed by her father at the wedding. For years, God holds Rachel childless. In her distress, Rachel quarrels with her husband and sister. And in the end, Rachel dies in childbirth, a young woman. Her body is too bloody to be carried to the family burial plot; so she is buried hastily on the side of the road, alone.

In her final moments, Rachel fully expresses her anguish. She had so desperately wanted children that she once told Jacob, "Give me children; if not, I will die." Ironically, Rachel ends up dying in childbirth; and with her last breaths, she expresses a lifetime of frustration when she declares that her baby should be called Ben-Oni - “the son of my sorrow.” Rachel has known too much sorrow in her own life; and this baby is a living tribute to her broken life.  Rachel’s lament becomes part of her legacy. Jeremiah, (a Kohen who lived among the tribe of Benjamin,) writes that when the Jews went into exile, one could hear the voice of “Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, for they are gone.” Rachel, the woman who sacrificed her life so Benjamin could have his, cannot bear to see the exile of her descendants.  Her cry is a bitter call of protest. In kabbalistic practice, special prayers known as Tikkun Chatzotare recited at midnight. One section is known as Tikkun Rachel, which bewails the destruction of Temple. In the Jewish imagination, Rachel refuses to accept the broken reality of this world. Rachel knows the bitterness of a life interrupted, pulled apart by multiple moments of alienation from one's dreams; and she will forever be our mother Rachel, who cries with us, and for us, when we stand at a painful distance from our own destiny.  Not so Jacob. He doesn’t accept the name Ben-Oni, and instead, offers a new name for the child: Ben-Yamin, or Benjamin.  Rashi explains that Yamin is the Hebrew word for right side; and if one faces east, the right side corresponds to the South. (The Arabic word for Yemen may have the same derivation.) Israel, Rashi explains, is to the South when one comes from Aram (where Jacob had just lived for 20 years). Jacob is declaring that Benjamin is his only child who was born in the South, i.e., Israel. Instead of focusing on sorrow, Jacob’s choice of name tells a story of redemption, of a family that finally has come home. The Ramban offers a different interpretation. Yamin, the right side, is the side of strength. Benjamin is the “son of strength,” a child meant for greatness.  The Ramban adds another thought-provoking point. He explains that the Hebrew word Oni actually has two possible meanings: sorrow and strength. Even though Jacob modified Rachel’s name for her son, Jacob didn’t want to uproot it entirely. Instead, he reread Oni as meaning strength instead of sorrow. This allows the name Benjamin to remain the equivalent of Ben-Oni, and for Jacob to continue to respect the name Rachel chose. I always thought the Ramban’s explanation was disingenuous, some clever linguistic sophistry. But actually, it reflects a profound truth, that the ability to carry on despite sorrow is a source of enormous strength. Ezekiel says “that in your blood you shall live.” The name Benjamin expresses the very same idea: sorrow and strength are often close companions.  According to both Rashi and the Ramban, the name Benjamin reframes the story; instead of focusing on the tragedy of Rachel’s death, it focuses on a better future. Even after burying his beloved, Jacob turns to optimism. But how does he do that?  This question is not just about Jacob; it is about Jewish history. While we might make jokes about Jewish pessimism, Jews have always been optimists, even in the worst of times. We never lost hope, and never stopped believing in redemption. Many see Jewish optimism as connected to the belief in the Messiah; if you dream of a better world, you have to be an optimist. And this Biblical dream has spread throughout the world; for centuries philosophers and social scientists have preached about the possibility of unending progress, perhaps even an “end to history.” Those dreams are messianic dreams, and simply a commentary to Isaiah’s prophecies.  But that isn’t the source of Jacob’s optimism.  Jacob is holding an orphan in his hands. He must make a decision; will he wallow in grief, or will he raise this child properly? You cannot raise a child by telling them they are a cause for sorrow. Like every child, Benjamin has a gift to bring to this world; it must not be eclipsed by sadness.  This is survival optimism.  During my career, I have seen awful tragedies; and none are worse than a parent who loses a child. Yet those same parents, bereft and broken, change their tone and demeanor when they are with their other children. There is an intuitive understanding that they must live, if not for their own sake, for the sake of their remaining children. They know they must learn how to savor life, and once again embrace hope, because the survival of their family demands it. They have no choice.  This is survival optimism. It is primal, a call from inside that declares, “I shall not die but live.” (Psalms 118:17) And in order to live, you must embrace a bit of optimism to nourish the spirit.  In the last year, several stories have appeared in Israeli media about widows of soldiers who have given birth. These women are the mirror image of Rachel, giving birth to children who will never know their father. The stories are touching; hospital staff, friends, and even complete strangers assist them in every conceivable way. The mothers speak about the void they feel, but also, how they feel this child brings them even closer to their late husbands. And they vow to bring the child up to be proud, to be strong, and to be happy.  They have optimism because they know that is what life demands of them. And there is nothing more sacred than survival optimism.

Simchat Torah, One Year Later

Mount Nevo

The Torah ends with sadness. Moses, the Torah’s author, dies, and its final sentences are written with tears. 

Moses liberated the Jewish people from slavery and led them to the edge of the promised land. But after 40 years of difficulties, Moses is left behind; not even his body gets buried in the holy land. This is a bitter irony. Moses, who personally carried Joseph's bones from Egypt for burial in Israel, is himself interred in a forgotten unmarked grave on the other side of the Jordan River. The life of the greatest man in Jewish history comes to an abrupt, unpleasant end. 

Lurking under the surface is a universal tragedy: death. Kohelet reminds us that both the fool and the wise man meet the same end. Spiritual excellence is irrelevant to the Angel of Death. And that intensifies the Torah’s tragic ending; a book that in Genesis began with the promise of eternal life for all ends with the death of the greatest man to ever live, Moses. The conclusion of the Torah makes it clearer than ever how far we are from the Garden of Eden.

This tragedy is the focus of Gerald Blidstein’s book Etzev Nevo, a study of the Midrashim written about Moses’ death. Most of the Midrashim grapple with this riddle; why did this person, who was more angel than man, die? The question is so large, that one text denies his death entirely; instead, it insists, Moses continues to perform his holy tasks in heaven. Other Midrashim depict Moses outsmarting the Angel of Death, who eventually needs to ask God to take Moses’ soul Himself. In another, the angels ask God “Why did Adam die?” God responds that Adam had sinned. Then the angels ask “Why did Moses die?” God responds: “It is a decree of mine, which must equally apply to every human being.” Moses isn't worthy of death, but he dies because all humans must die. 

This is the supreme tragedy of life; no one can escape death, no matter how good or worthy they are. And the Torah ends on this note to teach its most important lesson: how to find personal fulfillment in a tragic world. 

Whether we like it or not, death is our constant companion. Ernst Becker argues that Freud failed to recognize that the fear of death is the primary psychological drive. The question asked of us is whether we will look away, or face death directly. Will we choose to “tranquilize ourselves with the trivial” and amuse ourselves with pleasure, or will we find a sense of purpose? To live without a higher purpose is simply marking time until the inevitable end. 

Becker explains that only through meaning can the tragedy of life become worthwhile. When we live lives of true purpose, we can transcend the ordinary.  And there are so many ways to grasp eternity; through spirituality, family, community, charity, and more. 

This is the lesson of the final passage of the Torah: how to face death. And that is what the Midrashim focus on. The Torah writes that Moses blessed  the community “before his death.” This unusual phrase is seen by the Midrash as indicative of a struggle between Moses and the Angel of Death; in his last gasp, Moses must use every last ounce of strength to offer this moving blessing “before his death.”  No matter what, he will leave one last gift for his people.

The Midrash also explains Moses' strange burial. It writes that Moses chose to be buried anonymously in the desert. The generation he had redeemed from Egypt had all died there, buried in unmarked graves. God told Moses “If you are buried here with them, by your merit, they will come with you.” In other words, once the ultimate redemption comes, Moses will finally lead those unfortunate freed slaves into the promised land. Caring for the freed slaves has always been his mission; and even in death, he is Moses, their leader, waiting for his chance to bring them home.

Even when looking the Angel of Death in the eye, Moses never stops thinking about the future.

The importance of meaning is not just a spiritual teaching; it is a psychological insight as well. The worst pain is bearable when one has a purpose. Victor Frankl recounts how this gave a great deal of relief to one of his patients.  He writes:

Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now, how could I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything but instead confronted him with the question, “What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?” “Oh,” he said, “for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!” Whereupon I replied, “You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering—to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.” He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. 

In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.

When you love another, even the most difficult sacrifices are possible. 

A year ago Simchat Torah became a day of mourning. This year, everyone is struggling with how to rationalize celebrating a holiday on the yahrzeit for nearly 1,200 members of our extended family. We know we must celebrate; we just don’t know why. 

The answer lies in our mission. Like Moses, we now confront the Angel of Death face to face; and like Moses, we must never lose sight of our goals. It would be more comfortable for us not to celebrate this year. Celebrations are particularly painful for the brokenhearted; it's much easier to stay home. But we can’t take the easy path. Jews celebrated Simchat Torah in the ghettos, and they celebrated just days after the Yom Kippur War. They did so in defiance, people with broken hearts letting the world know that they were not broken in spirit. 

We must be defiant as well. We can’t allow Hamas to destroy Simchat Torah.  

Instead, we will carry those who have fallen with us, even as we dance. Hundreds of synagogues have joined the Simchat Torah Project; it has provided the synagogues with a new Torah cover dedicated to the memory of one of those who have died in the past year. As we dance with the Torah, we will be thinking of them.

There are times when we best honor the dead by celebrating; and this year, that is our responsibility. We must make it clear that there is, and always will be, a bright Jewish future. We must make it clear that those who died have not died in vain, and that we will never forget the sacrifice they made for a Jewish future. 

We must make it clear, to the living and the dead, that Am Yisrael Chai.

And that’s why we will celebrate. 

Who is a Hero? Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur 2024

 

Rami Davidian, An Extraordinary Hero   In December 2018, I broke my femur on the subway.   After writhing in agony on the train floor for nearly an hour, an ambulance eventually arrived. I was overwhelmed with pain; and during our traffic-delayed trip to the hospital, George, the paramedic, kept the chatter going to distract me. When I told him I was a rabbi, he decided to share a story he thought would resonate with me.

A few weeks earlier, George had been called to aid a 96-year-old man in great pain.   George said to the elderly man: “This is probably the worst day of your life, right?” The man looked at George and said: “No. The worst day of my life was when I was in Birkenau.” The elderly man went on to describe memories of a particularly horrific day there.   I was taken aback; it felt like the heavens had opened. My late mother was a survivor of Birkenau, and to me, this story was personal.   Immediately my perspective changed; I realized that whatever pain I was experiencing, it did not compare in any way to what my mother had endured. And that gave me hope. If my mother got through it, so could I.   When your challenges are overwhelming, you need a hero; and at that difficult moment in the ambulance, I was lucky to have one.   Since last October 7th, we have been enveloped by a gloomy darkness, pulled down by extraordinary sorrow. But what has made it bearable were the heroes, the tiny points of light that remind us that there is hope and that we must hope.   But who is a hero?   Mythology depicts heroes as supernatural. Hercules, Achilles, Gilgamesh, and Thor, among others, are all descendants of the gods.   This definition of heroism remains extremely influential. Yes, movie superheroes have superpowers, for sure. But in our day-to-day lives, our perspective about who is and isn’t important is shaped by a cult of celebrity. The financial elite are called “corporate titans” and “masters of the universe”; and these terms are more than mere metaphor. Athletes and movie stars, larger-than-life characters who appear on the big screen are revered, and their moral failings are overlooked. Our contemporary heroes are very different from you and me.   Sadly, firefighters, teachers, and police officers don’t count. They are not wealthy, not famous, and not glamorous, and therefore unworthy of inclusion in the pantheon of heroes. Their exceptional service is taken for granted, while the crowd chases celebrities.   In his 1978 essay Catharsis, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik focuses on the contrast between what he calls the “classical” (Greek) and “biblical” perspectives on heroism. The classical vision of heroism, which is deeply rooted in mythology, is theatrical, outward feats of strength that elicit the cheers of the crowd. (Think Olympics.). Raw power and public adulation combine to create the classical hero.   Judaism offers a very different view of heroism. It distinguishes between raw power, koach, and gevurah, inner strength. Heroism is best described by the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot:   Who is a hero? One who can control his own heart.   Gevurah, true heroism, comes from inside; it is about the person’s self-control, even self-negation, in the service of a higher cause. It is a function of one’s spiritual nature and a reflection of their higher calling.   This Biblical definition of heroism offers three critical lessons.   The first is that the hero is a mensch.   The Mishnah connects heroism to virtue; and true heroes are motivated by love, not hate.   On October 7th, we saw so many who were true heroes. One of the mantras I heard from Israelis in the last year was a quote, (originally from C. K. Chesterton,) that a “true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” There are a multitude of stories from Israel that reflect this idea; I will mention one, far too briefly.   At Zikim Base near the border of Gaza, the army was in the middle of training 90 new soldiers who had just been drafted two months earlier.   The base was attacked by 50 Hamas terrorists. The commanders of the base, fourteen in total, sent the trainees into a shelter.   Then they took on the battle themselves. And they saved the 90 trainees.   Tragically, seven of those who went into battle died:   Maj. Adir Meir Abudi, 23 Capt. Or Moses, 22 (She insisted on being in a combat unit, despite getting into an elite intelligence unit.) Lt. Adar Ben Simon, 20 2nd Lt. Yannai Kaminka, 20: (US-Israeli soldier) Staff Sgt. Eden Alon Levy, 19 Lt. Yoav Malayev, 19 Cpl. Neria Aharon Nagari, 18   These young men and women courageously sacrificed their lives to save others.   Yes, they were excellent soldiers; they had to be, to be able to fight off such a large group of terrorists. But what made them heroes was their willingness to be there for others, to stand up for others.   The second lesson is that heroes stand ready to leap into the absurd.   Rabbi Soloveitchik offers the biblical story of Jacob’s wrestling match with the angel as an example of a heroic struggle. He explains Jacob was extremely impractical in taking on the battle:   Was Jacob's victory something to be expected; could it have been predicted logically? Was he certain of victory? Of course not. He was alone, weak and unarmed, a novice in the art of warfare. His antagonist was a powerful professional warrior.   So why didn’t Jacob surrender to the foe who attacked him in the dark?   The answer Rabbi Soloveitchik offers is that a Jewish hero has to be willing to leap into the absurd. (He borrows this phrase from Kierkegaard.) There are times when you must fight for a better future, even if you have to face impossible odds.   Jacob leaps into the absurd. He takes on an angel because his destiny demands it. And then the improbable happens: Jacob wins.   One leaps into the absurd when the dreams of the future are more important than the practicalities of the present. And that is the story of the Jewish people. As Rabbi Soloveitchik puts it:   Is this merely the story of one individual's experience? Is it not in fact the story of Knesset Israel, an entity which is engaged in an "absurd" struggle for survival for thousands of years?   We are called Israel, the name awarded to Jacob that fateful night he wrestled with the angel, because we wouldn’t be here if generations of Jews before us hadn’t wrestled through the darkest of nights, again and again. We wouldn’t be here today if they hadn’t believed the absurd to be possible.   In short, Jewish heroes are willing to take long shots because they are part of a people who are the longest of long shots.   One of those long shots was the Entebbe raid on July 4, 1976. Terrorists had hijacked a plane and taken it to Uganda. They held over 100 Israeli and Jewish passengers hostage. In what remains to this day the most daring rescue in military history, the Israeli army flew 2,500 miles to save them and take them home.   This long-shot rescue continues to inspire. When Natan Sharansky was imprisoned by the Soviet Union in 1978, it was the heroes of Entebbe that gave him courage, even when he was being threatened with the death penalty. Sharansky would explain:   "Each time when I heard the engine of an airplane in Siberia, I thought about Israeli airplanes. And I remembered Entebbe. I knew that a day would come when an Israeli airplane would come to take me out of prison. And that day came.”   Jewish heroes are willing to leap into the absurd. Just a few months ago, on June 8th, we had another long-shot rescue when Israeli troops brought the hostages Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv back home.   It was an exceedingly difficult operation. Ben, who has spoken at KJ, is in a unit that took part in the rescue. He told us they had trained for over two months non-stop to bring these four hostages home.   And they did.   You have to watch the videos of the rescues. In one, the soldiers burst into the room where they are held. Initially, the hostages think these are Hamas terrorists, coming to murder them - and then, in a moment - after the soldiers say “don’t worry, we are taking you home” - their faces change from sorrow to relief.   When Noa Argamani says to the soldiers that she’s scared, they tell her not to worry, they will protect her. And when the soldiers are leaving, they call their commanders and say: “The diamonds are in our hands.”   So my question is: What other country besides Israel does this? What other country thinks this way? Wasn’t this hostage rescue absurd?   Yes it was.   But Israel, a country named after an underdog who wrestled an angel, is willing to leap into the absurd. Because that’s what true heroes do.   The third, and most important lesson of Biblical heroism is: Everybody can be a hero.   The way the Tanakh depicts heroes offers two important insights. First, great heroes like David and Solomon are human beings, with flaws and failures.   Second, that ordinary, humble people, like Ruth and Esther, can overnight become great heroes. Heroism is a gift of the soul, and every one of us can step up and be a hero too.   And that is what Rami Davidian did.   On October 7th, many Israelis rushed to the Gaza border to help. One of the most extraordinary stories is about Rami Davidian, 59, a soft-spoken father of four and a fuel distributor from Moshav Patish near Gaza.   To make a long story short, he got a call from a friend to save the friend’s son from the nearby Nova site. He took his truck to the boy’s location. And there he saw hundreds of young people running in every direction.   So Rami began to rescue them. He called his son and others to help. After 18 hours of non-stop rescue work, ducking bullets and facing down terrorists, Rami saved 700 people.   700 people!!   When Rami Davidian got out of bed on October 7th, he was an ordinary person. When he finally went to sleep, he was an extraordinary hero.   Now, there is one final point.   We are all obligated to be heroes.   Maimonides writes that the shofar is meant to rouse us from our spiritual sleep and recognize our responsibilities.   But this lesson goes far beyond Rosh Hashanah. In the next paragraph, he explains that we need to stay spiritually awake for the entire year, and take our responsibilities seriously instead of daydreaming.   This is what he writes:   Therefore, every person should see themselves throughout the entire year as half righteous and half guilty. And so too, that the entire world is half righteous and half guilty. If one sins a single sin, they have tilted themselves and the entire world to the side of guilt and brought about destruction. If one performs a single commandment, they have tilted themselves and the entire world to the side of merit and brought salvation for themselves and for others.   In other words, the fate of the world depends on you. What you do next can change everything; it is up to you to be a hero.   I know this congregation.   You have done so much. You have volunteered, donated, advocated, and marched for Israel.   But in the coming year, we will need you to do more; because the fate of the world is still in your hands.   And I know you will step up, because you are the children of Jacob who wrestled into the night, you are the children of generations of Jews who never lost hope.   You are the children of Israel, the first unlikely Jewish hero.   And undoubtedly you will be heroes too.   Shanah Tovah!!

Radical Commitment

 

Rabbi David Hartman coined the term “covenantal anthropology” to indicate that the metaphors Jews use to describe their relationship with God will define their understanding of the covenant’s obligations. In the Tanakh and Talmud, varying terms are used. God is our father, and we are His children; God is our king, and we are His subjects; God is our husband, and we are His wife; God is our teacher, and we are His students; and God is our master, and we are His slaves. And each one of these relationships is very different than the other.

Some of these relationships require what Hartman calls submission, to accept the authority of God uncritically. Others expect humanity to be assertive and become God's partner in a shared covenantal mission.   In addition, different texts offer dramatically different perspectives on the question of submission versus assertion. The Akeidah, when Abraham accepts God's command to sacrifice his son Isaac, is a moment of absolute submission; Abraham does not hesitate and does not ask any questions. God is Abraham’s king and master.   A very different perspective is found in the Talmud in “The Oven of Akhnai” story. During a debate between Rabbi Eliezer and his colleagues, God's voice calls out to declare that Rabbi Eliezer is correct. Instead of listening to God, Rabbi Joshua responds by rejecting God’s opinion and saying: “It is not in heaven.” Once the Torah is given, interpretation is left in the hands of mankind.   After Rabbi Joshua's response, God smiled and said: “My children have triumphed over me, my children have triumphed over me.” This text sees human creativity as critical; God wants us to implement his mission on earth in the manner we consider best.   How does one reconcile these very different visions? Hartman writes that Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik hoped to create a dialectical synthesis; that is to say, one must integrate both assertion and submission into one’s religious life. However, he writes that Soloveitchik held that submission must remain the supreme value.   Hartman offers a different interpretation. The relationship between God and man is constantly evolving; like a child who continues to mature as they get older, after thousands of years in God’s covenant, the Jewish people need to take on greater spiritual initiative. The submission of earlier stages of Jewish history now needs to give way to assertion.   Leaving this debate aside, it is critical to recognize that submission and assertion are not always opposites. On two occasions in Parshat Behar, God declares about the Jews: “they are my slaves.” One might think these verses are intended as a demand for submission; but they are not. Instead, “they are my slaves” is the explanation given for why a Jewish slave must be sent free on the Jubilee year, and must be redeemed if bought by a foreign owner. If all Jews are already God's slaves, they can no longer be sold into slavery. As Rashi puts it, “God's contract comes first,” and any other contract to buy a slave violates God’s ownership rights. To be God's slave is to belong to no man.   Seforno takes this idea a step further. He writes that the verse teaches us that even if someone wants to be a slave, they are not permitted to be one. Slavery’s mindless lack of responsibility may be attractive to some. Individuals and communities often look to escape from freedom and its endless choices and responsibilities. If freedom is just about living unimpeded by others, then it would be reasonable to let people sell themselves into slavery, if they so choose. But a Jewish view of true liberty is to enable a person to become the best possible version of themselves. Paradoxically, being God’s slaves actually demands absolute human freedom.   But why use the metaphor of slavery at all? Because even the free must at times emulate slaves, and undertake radical commitments. Acts of total devotion, such as the Akeidah, are not merely the submission of the meek; it can be a way of finding one's true self. The Mishnah uses the metaphor of a “servant who served his master with no interest in receiving a reward” to describe serving God with love. This is puzzling: wouldn’t the parent-child relationship be a better example of a loving relationship?   The explanation for this lies in the idea of radical commitment. Every servant acts without hesitations or questions. But unlike a child, if the servant loves their master, it is not out of gratitude; it is because they have an absolute commitment to the master’s mission. And those who love as a servant who loves their master take on their mission immediately; Abraham runs to saddle his own donkey early on the morning of the Akeidah without any equivocation.   At times, one must learn devotion from a servant and a slave.    Without radical commitment there would be no Jewish people today. Had Jews wanted their children to simply be happy, they long ago could have converted and had a comfortable life. But they chose to stay Jews, no matter how difficult it was.   They didn’t see their love for Judaism as an act of submission; on the contrary, it was their way of asserting who they are in a world that despised them. They declared they will never give up on the mission Abraham had taken on. Jewish pride is for the strong.   After October 7th we saw inspiring stories of radical commitment. Young Israelis found their way back to Israel to serve again in the IDF. They flew in from all parts of the world, often with help from others; an anonymous man stood in JFK Airport that day and bought, out of his own pocket, 250 tickets for soldiers returning to Israel. That week El Al flew on Shabbat for the first time in 41 years. On one flight from Bangkok an El Al stewardess brought 25 soldiers onto an overbooked plane and seated them everywhere, including the cockpit and bathrooms.   Here in New York City, Shai Bernstein rushed back to his unit in Israel, leaving behind his wife Naama and three young children. The children couldn’t understand what was happening and they asked Naama: “Why does Abba have to go?” Naama responded directly: “when Israel needs us, we come.”   That is radical commitment. In one sentence, Naama taught her children what has stood at the center of Jewish identity from the very beginning.

It's Not A Fairy Tale

 

Barley swaying in the wind (Israel)    Israelis agonized over the appropriate way to mark this year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day). Thousands of people have lost their loved ones; 132 hostages remain in captivity. Every day is filled with anxiety about the safety of the soldiers and the future of the country. The thought of holding celebrations seems absurd.

But at issue is not just the propriety and etiquette of rejoicing during times of grief. The more significant question is: After October 7th, can we still see Israel as the harbinger of redemption?   Redemption is often seen as a fix-all, the remedy for every problem. But that was never God’s plan. Redemption was meant to be combined with reality.   We often forget what the conclusion of the Pesach is meant to be. Pesach is often depicted as an account of liberation from slavery, of the Jews achieving freedom from Pharaoh’s oppression. But that is not where the story ends.   Pesach is also the start of Jewish sovereignty. When God declares to Moses (Exodus 6:6-8) that he will redeem the Jews, it ends with the words “I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession.” Similarly, the declaration of the bikkurim, (Deuteronomy 26:5-10) made at the farmer’s annual offering of first fruits, tells of the slavery in Egypt and then concludes by saying, “He (God) brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” Pharaoh being vanquished is only the beginning; the Exodus concludes with the Jews being a free people in their own homeland, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.   In Parshat Emor (Leviticus 23:5-15), Pesach has two distinct roles. The first day is a celebration of the Exodus, with the rituals of Pesach sacrifice, Matzah, and the bitter herbs. Then the Bible introduces a ritual for the second day of Pesach: the Omer offering, a simple offering of barley. (This begins a 50-day period of counting days called Sefirat Ha’Omer, and on the 50th day is another holiday, Shavuot, on which two loaves of wheat bread are offered.)   With the Omer offering, Pesach shifts its focus to agriculture. Much like Sukkot, Pesach marks both a historical event and an agricultural season. For that reason Pesach is always celebrated during the spring, when the first shoots of barley appear; and the Omer offering is brought in prayer for the crops in the fields.   But why isn’t the Omer offering brought on the first day of Pesach? Why is it brought one day after the Pesach Seder?   Another biblical text sheds light on this question. In the Book of Joshua, we are told about the Jews' entrance into the land of Israel, just four days before Pesach. Then the text says:   On the day after Pesach, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened bread and parched grain. On that same day, when they ate of the produce of the land, the manna ceased. The Israelites got no more manna; that year they ate of the yield of the land of Canaan. (5:11-12)   There is a debate on how to interpret this text. But many, like the Rambam, read this as saying that in the days of Joshua, the second day of Pesach is when the Jews first ate from the produce of the land. At that point, they no longer depended on the daily miracle of Manna; they could now take their destiny into their own hands.   Itamar Kislev explains that this is why the Omer is brought specifically on the second day of Pesach. The Omer is both an agricultural and historical ritual; it also was initially intended to commemorate the first Pesach in Israel, when the Jews first ate the produce of the land of Israel. This was the goal of redemption, and only then was the Exodus complete.   In short, the first day of Pesach commemorates the freedom from slavery, and the second day commemorates the beginnings of sovereignty. The two are inextricably intertwined. Freedom was meant to lead to independence, with the former slaves taking control of their own destiny in their own homeland.   However, sovereignty is not at all simple. Manna, miracle bread from heaven, is effort-free; farming is difficult and uncertain.    This may be why the days of the Omer are seen as tragic. The mourning rituals we practice during the Omer mark the deaths of Rabbi Akiva’s students during the Bar Kochva revolt. However, the Kabbalistic view is that the days of the Omer are inherently melancholy, with each day filled with anxiety.   Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik elaborates on this Kabbalistic sense of dread in his essay Pesach and the Omer. He points out that Pesach “represents the transcendental order in Jewish history, or, shall I say, the order of Revelation.”   But transcendental experiences must eventually end. As he puts it, “Life is full of absurdities and contradictions. There is no longer any revelation… any direct contact with God.” In a new land, surrounded by enemies, Israel will have to confront multiple challenges. Nature is not always cooperative, and every harvest is fraught with uncertainty.   The contrast between the miraculous Exodus and the humble barley offering could not be greater. After celebrating a transcendent divine redemption at the Seder, who has any appetite for a grueling, messy, state?   But that is precisely the point. Life is not a fairy tale. Mistakes happen, accidents happen, and eventually, death happens. We don’t see God’s outstretched arm every day.   The same is true of a country. There will be enemies and wars. Nothing will ever be perfect, and at times, everything will seem to go wrong.   So it is understandable if some wonder whether it is possible to still say Hallel for a flawed country where the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust occurred. Bitterness and cynicism certainly make sense right now.   This is why the second day of Pesach, the day of the Omer, is so significant. The dramatic redemption of the Exodus sets an unattainable standard, one that makes ordinary life seem absurd. But that is the wrong way to look at redemption. Instead, one needs to find transcendence in the humble barley offering.   Farmers labor each year by the sweat of their brow to produce a crop. Some years are successful, and some years are failures. It may seem absurd to continue. Yet the farmer perseveres; that is heroic. Each year, the first shoots of barley brought in the Omer tells the story of those farmers.   Yom Ha’atzmaut this year resembles the Omer offering; humble, unassuming, and seemingly unworthy of center stage. But like the bowl of barley, what needs to be celebrated right now is not the beauty of what we hold in our hands, but the enormous effort it represents.   Since October 7th we have seen so many do so much to keep Israel together. Young and not-so-young soldiers picked up at a moment's notice and ran to the battlefield to fight for their country. Everyone else in Israel took care of everything else, from cooking meals, taking in evacuees, and packing gear for soldiers. And Jews from around the world stepped up with advocacy, philanthropy, and volunteering.   This is Israel’s Omer offering, humble yet remarkable at the same time.   And that is worth celebrating.

Proud Jews, Despite Everything

 

A sign displayed at the reinstated Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University. Last Shabbat, several synagogues in New York received fake bomb threats by email. These phony messages are called “swatting,” and are intended to both provoke a police response and disrupt the synagogues; the emails’ IP was located in Finland.

At a meeting with the Governor about the incident, one of the rabbis shared with us that her non-Jewish staff members have requested to work remotely; they no longer feel safe coming into the synagogue.

I remarked to the Rabbi afterward: “You don't have to be Jewish to be paranoid about antisemitism.”   And there is a lot to be paranoid about. On Monday night, a mass of pro-Palestinian protesters marched up Madison Avenue right outside our building. A group of people from our building came out with Israeli flags in response; immediately, one of the women had the flag pulled out of her hands and was punched in the side of her head, bruising her eyeball and face.   My neighbor was assaulted because she is a Jew; this is just one anecdote that reflects the dramatic rise in antisemitism since October 7th. It is not a paranoid anxiety to worry about the safety of American Jews. As Golda Meir famously quipped, “Even paranoids have enemies.”    History reminds us that we ignore antisemitism at our own risk. Before the Holocaust, too many European Jews missed the warning signs. In 1936, Mordechai Gebirtig wrote a Yiddish poem Es Brent (It's Burning) in response to the Przytyk pogrom in 1936, where a mob attacked Jewish homes and killed two Jews.   The words of the first stanza admonish a lackadaisical Jewish community for ignoring the threats they were facing:   It burns! Brothers, it burns! Our poor shtetl pitifully burns! Angry wind with rage and curses Tears, shatters and disperses. Wild flames leap. they twist and turn, Everything now burns!   And you stand there looking on Hands folded, palms upturned, And you stand there looking on Our shtetl burns!   By 1939 this poem was seen as prophetic, foreseeing a catastrophe that was about to arrive; Elie Wiesel would later refer to Es Brent “as sounding the death knell of the shtetl and a thousand years of Jewish history in Poland.”   Some wonder whether America has reached the point of Es Brent. While we worry about Israel, visiting Israelis always ask me about antisemitism, uncertain how I can feel safe with all of the mayhem that is occurring here.   Although I understand this fear, I do not subscribe to it. The United States of 2024 is nothing like Poland of 1936. America has a long-standing pluralistic, democratic culture, and American Jews are far from powerless. Most importantly, the vast majority of Americans support us. This is not the time to take flight.   But we can’t take it easy either; we must never lose our will to fight. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud recounts a conversation he had with his father Jakob, when he was 10 or 12 years old. Jakob said: "While I was a young man, I was walking one Saturday on a street in the village where you were born; I was handsomely dressed and wore a new fur cap. Along comes a Christian, who knocks my cap into the mud with one blow and shouts: "Jew, get off the sidewalk." "And what did you do?" "I went into the street and picked up the cap." Freud was embarrassed that his father did so little to stand up to an antisemite.   Perhaps Freud’s judgment of his father was too harsh; Jakob Freud might not have had much choice in his response that day. But Freud’s sentiment is absolutely correct. To hide in the shadows as a meek and weak Jew may be an understandable adaptation to a difficult situation; but left on its own, cowardice will warp the very foundations of Jewish identity. As a perpetual minority, Jews have always been vulnerable to feelings of inferiority that can slowly eat away at the Jewish soul. One must be a proud Jew if one is to be a Jew at all.   Rabbi Zadok of Lublin writes that the essence of Judaism is to declare oneself a Jew; everything else is secondary. He brings as proofs two texts. One is in the Talmud, which implies that one can convert to Judaism without knowing anything about Judaism. The second is a ruling in the Shulchan Aruch that says even in times of persecution, it is forbidden for a Jew to claim that they are a non-Jew.   Judaism then is quite simple; to be a Jew means embracing being a Jew, even without fully understanding what that means. And this further implies that all the good deeds and Torah scholarship in the world are not as important as being a proud Jew. (This passage was so controversial, it was censored out of the initial publication of Rabbi Zadok’s writings.)   An earlier precedent goes back to the Tanakh. When Jonah declares “I am a Jew,” he is stating all of Judaism on one foot. All the rest is commentary.   Sadly, it's not so easy to be a proud Jew nowadays. The noisy intimidation of poster defacers and encampment makers has driven Jews underground. On the street, Kippahs come off and Chai necklaces are covered up. No one wants to be like my neighbor, the victim of an antisemitic assault.   More insidious is the social ostracization, which is far more influential. Students on campus have been frozen out by their friends for refusing to join in protests. Online, Jews on dating apps are peppered with questions about Israel. Appointments are canceled and letters of recommendation denied for having the wrong point of view. Young Jews are now offered the choice to condemn Israel or be considered an enemy of the people; there's no room for conversation.   It is challenging to be a Jew on campuses filled with pro-Hamas professors, activists, and propaganda.   One would have expected students to take the easy route; keep their heads down, go with the flow, and hide their identities. Instead, the opposite has occurred. Remarkably, Jewish students have defiantly declared that they are proud Jews.   In an exceptional letter circulated at Columbia this week, 540 Jewish students (at last count) wrote about their love for Israel. Entitled In Our Name: A Message from Jewish Students at Columbia University, they explained that: Over the past six months, many have spoken in our name…some are our Jewish peers who tokenize themselves by claiming to represent “real Jewish values,” and attempt to delegitimize our lived experiences of antisemitism. We are here, writing to you as Jewish students at Columbia University, who are connected to our community and deeply engaged with our culture and history. We would like to speak in our name.   We proudly believe in the Jewish People’s right to self-determination in our historic homeland as a fundamental tenet of our Jewish identity. Contrary to what many have tried to sell you – no, Judaism cannot be separated from Israel. Zionism is, simply put, the manifestation of that belief…..   We are proud of Israel. The only democracy in the Middle East, Israel is home to millions of Mizrachi Jews (Jews of Middle Eastern descent), Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of Central and Eastern European descent), and Ethiopian Jews, as well as millions of Arab Israelis, over one million Muslims, and hundreds of thousands of Christians and Druze. Israel is nothing short of a miracle for the Jewish People and for the Middle East more broadly…   Yet despite the fact that we have been calling out the antisemitism we’ve been experiencing for months, our concerns have been brushed off and invalidated. So here we are to remind you:   We sounded the alarm on October 12 when many protested against Israel while our friends’ and families’ dead bodies were still warm.   We recoiled when people screamed “resist by any means necessary,” telling us we are “all inbred” and that we “have no culture.”   ….We felt helpless when we watched students and faculty physically block Jewish students from entering parts of the campus we share, or even when they turned their faces away in silence. This silence is familiar. We will never forget.   One thing is for sure. We will not stop standing up for ourselves. We are proud to be Jews, and we are proud to be Zionists.    This letter is an exceptional statement of Jewish identity, and I urge you to read it in its entirety. Written during a crisis, on a campus filled with contempt for them, they refuse to surrender to ideological bullies who want them to relent and convert to their cause.   These students aren’t going to hide who they are. They will not stop standing up for themselves. And they have it exactly right.   They are proud Jews, despite everything. And the rest of our community should follow their example.