Gaza War 2014
Friday night, August 1, 2014
Congregation B’nai B’rith, Santa Barbara CA
An old friend sent me a message earlier this week saying: “It must be a challenge being a rabbi right now, with people constantly talking about things and having strong feelings.” I typed back the reply “very.” And she sent me a smiley face. That smiley face helped me get through a long day.
I know I am not the only one. We are all receiving a barrage of messages and images, over the internet, on the television, and around our own dinner tables. From friends, from thoughtful commentators, from trusted teachers, from not-so-trusted teachers, all commenting, arguing, venting, grieving, raging. The level of noise is deafening.
And as a rabbi, I do feel some responsibility….perhaps I shouldn’t but I do…. to hear it all, with compassion and an open heart, to contain it all within me. I am learning, slowly: I cannot contain it all.
What I find hard, as a Jew and as a human being, is trying to hold onto all of my fundamental principles at the same time.
Principle number 1. The right of self-defense.
Principle number 2. The sanctity of all human life. All human life.
Principle number 3. We Jews cannot rely on the outside world to take care of us.
Principle number 4. The moral law does not change, even in war.
Principle number 5. War is hell.
A close friend and trusted advisor wrote to me this week and reminded me of another fundamental Jewish principle, tafasta merubah lo tafasta. Meaning: If you attempt to hold onto too much—which could mean too many possessions, or trying to maintain a connection to too many people, or holding onto too many fundamental principles—then in the end you will not be able to hold onto anything. tafasta merubah lo tafasta. Hold onto too much and you will not hold onto anything. I have felt in the past week or two that I am trying to hold onto too much….but do not know where to let go.
All of this emotion was intensified here at CBB just a little over a week ago when each of our staff members woke up and turned on our email to find a threatening email. It was a bizarre little email, a mixture of scary and nutty. And we were faced immediately with a huge host of questions: who do we need to tell about this, and how do we inform the community without causing panic, and what kind of security do we really need, and how do we make our staff feel safe and our preschool parents, and most of all, how do we make this person stop harassing us?
We quickly decided that we would treat this with the utmost seriousness, and brought in the ADL and the Sheriff and the FBI, and hired security to be here all the time. Within a day or two, the situation was handled and we all felt completely reassured. It had been an intensely emotional experience, and I felt proud of our staff and our community.
I also sent the email to my friends the Imam and two leaders of the Santa Barbara Islamic Society, with whom we had been slowly but surely building a very positive relationship. That relationship has been badly strained by the war in Gaza, but I wanted to let them know and see if they might offer any help. They all replied right away, but one reply touched me deeply. Mukhtar wrote: “Salaam all. After my initial shock and anger, I realized that this person is more crazy than scary. The FBI should be able to make sure that he is not a threat. But why can I not shake my sorrow and repulsion? I guess WE are in this together. I hope that we will find our way peacefully out of this sad chapter soon. My heart and prayers are with everyone.”
I thank God for those words and for the human being who wrote them.
On Monday I experienced something for the first time in my life.
I had woken up early, as usual, and while I was feeling troubled by the war and by the bizarre email and all of its ripple effects, I was feeling physically fine until around 11:00am, when in the middle of a meeting, I began to feel more and more unsettled and then chilled and shaky. I explained that I needed to finish up, took two Tylenols, and within a couple of minutes, went back into my office and began to shake uncontrollably. Really shaking, my teeth were chattering, and I had no idea what was going on. I lay down and kept shaking. I opened up my computer and with hands shaking googled “uncontrollable shaking.” And the first entry that popped up was “Livingwithanxiety.com.”
The shaking continued for about twenty minutes, and then eventually I managed to have a quick nap and woke up feeling fine. I called my doctor to let him know what I had experienced and asked if I should come in, but he said only if it recurs, and since Monday I have been completely fine.
Since there is no apparent medical explanation, I wonder if my shaking may have been something spiritual. The Torah tells two stories in which people physically shake uncontrollably. The first is when Isaac, the blind father, discovers that he has mistakenly given his blessing to Jacob rather than to Esau. The text says Vayecharad Yitzchak charada gedolah ad me’od. Isaac trembled with a very great trembling. The great medieval rabbi RaSHI comments “He sensed Hell opening up beneath him.”
Then at Mount Sinai, where the people gathered around the foot of the mountain, and witnessed thunder and lightning and a thick cloud over the mountain, and a shofar blaring, and the text says vayecharad kol ha’am. The entire people trembled. A legend says that they all died in that moment, and then came back to life.
In both stories, Isaac and then the people Israel encountering God at Sinai are confronted by a reality utterly beyond their understanding, but which they cannot ignore. Their entire world is shaken…manifesting in the trembling of their bodies. This week we are confronted by a reality in Gaza which transcends our understanding, but which concerns us to the core of our being. And so we tremble.
Let me be clear.
There is much we do understand.
We understand that the people of Israel are defending themselves from a murderous enemy.
We understand that the IDF will perform its mission, with honor, with courage, and with great skill and with compassion and morality insofar as is humanly possible. The tunnels will be destroyed. Hopefully Hamas will be crushed and replaced by a more enlightened Palestinian leadership.
Eventually there will be a ceasefire that holds and a truce. And life in Israel will return to normal and perhaps things may one day improve in Gaza.
All of that is within the realm of what we understand.
But what I cannot understand is the mortal terror of Lieut. Hadar Goldin’s family who began Shabbat this evening knowing that their son had been captured alive by Hamas.
And I cannot understand the grief of the Palestinian parent who finds their child dead in the rubble after an airstrike.
And I cannot understand why after 3,000 years hatred still flourishes between the descendents of Abraham, or for that matter why the human race as a whole has not yet come to its senses, and set aside its hatreds and fears.
This is the reality that we cannot understand, but which concerns us to the core of our being. Woe to us if we do not tremble.
Monday night begins Tisha B’Av, the day of fasting and prayer marking the destruction of the ancient Temple, the center of our Jewish world. According to our sages of the Talmud, the Temple was destroyed for one reason….sinat chinam. The Temple was destroyed because hatred had become widespread.
And on Tisha B’Av, we begin the long journey toward Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, by grieving for all that is broken in this world. On Tisha B’Av we open ourselves to the full reality of what we do not and cannot understand, and reflect on what it would take from us….what acts of generosity, of moral courage, and of kindness…would be required to begin to rebuild our broken world.
Therefore tonight, on the special Shabbat that precedes Tisha B’AV…called the Shabbat of Vision….I would like to end with a story of a Palestinian named Ali Abu Awwad. Ali’s brother was killed by an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint, an action for which the soldier was later disciplined. Ali was filled with rage and contemplated a revenge action.
Then his family received a phone call from an Israeli parent who had lost their son to terror, asking if they could come over. He jokingly said that his home had been visited many times by Israelis, though never had they asked permission before.
As they sat with the Israeli family, Ali watched the parents cry as they reminisced about their sons. “I had never seen an Israeli cry; I didn’t know they could. The entire IDF could not have stopped me from throwing stones during the first Intifada,” Ali said, “but one single tear of an Israeli parent prevented me from going on a rampage.”
One single tear.
Shabbat Shalom.