Love Is Not Easy but What Is Needed

What follows is my Yom Kippur morning sermon about how we are called to love the Jewish people and embrace the story of our return to the land in the face of this antisemitism cloaked as anti-Zionism.

We all deserve escape, moments when we get away from the challenges of the every day. For some it is a walk on the beach. For others it is a comfy chair and a romance novel. For some it is watching a Netflix special about a hot rabbi (the similarities are purely coincidental). For others it is a glass of wine and a sunset. We all need such escapes, and we are privileged to have access to them. For me it is training for and competing in triathlons. Why, at 60 years of age, I have decided this is how I should briefly run away from it all, would be a story for another time, but this morning, I wish to paint another picture.

The race was in rural Pennsylvania, outside of Penn State. Lining much of the bike portion, people camped out on their front yards, cheering the competitors on, shouting “You’ve got this” as we rode past. On one such yard, a person had a sign that read, “Tell us where you are from.” And I shouted, “Long Island.” and the person next to me shouted, “Michigan.” And I responded, “Go Blue.” And we started talking about Michigan and then spent some time riding alongside each other trying to figure out if our kids went to the University of Michigan during the same years. It was the distraction and escape from world events that I needed and why I relish the comradery of triathlons. Soon I was rounding a bend, fighting exhaustion at mile 35 with the approach to a climb that nearly defeated me a mile ahead in the distance, when I saw another sign that read, “If the Zionists stole your land, you would be fighting them too.”

And I shouted, “You have got to be kidding me! Even here!” And it was in that moment that I realized there is no escaping it. Such sentiments followed me on my January sabbatical. There, in Madrid, I found, graffiti that read, “Free Palestine.” And someone came along a few days later and added, “From Hamas.” And then someone else came along about a week later, made a line through “From Hamas” and added, “From Israel.” There is no escaping it. It is everywhere. It comes up in polite conversations. It comes up in heated debates. It comes up when you just want to get away from it all, be alone and ride your bike, or read your book, or walk on the beach, or enjoy your wine.

This morning, I need to talk about antisemitism and in particular the antisemitism cloaked in anti-Zionism and hatred for Israel. Since October 7th our everyday world has become a dangerous and confusing place from which we cannot escape. There are three layers to this sermon. All are wrapped up in the October 7th massacre and its aftermath. The first is the response of our neighbors to October 7th. The second is how this has infected the college campus. And the third may be the most difficult of all, is about those Jews who want nothing to do with Israel anymore or worse yet, make common cause with those shouting antisemitic hate.

Number one. With the notable exception of two Christian colleagues our neighbors’ response to the October 7th massacre was one of silence. After the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, there was a resounding chorus of support from our neighbors. Many from our community stood with us at our next Shabbat service. Christian clergy stood by my side on our bima. For me the attacks of October 7th and those of November 4th, 2018, share a common thread and that is one of antisemitic hate. We felt both to be attacks on us. For our neighbors they appear vastly different. I realize that one seems far away and the other nearby, but for us they are connected. Hamas shares the same vitriolic antisemitic hate the Pittsburgh attacker spewed, but others only see Hamas attacking Israelis and in Pittsburgh fellow Americans. I see them both as attacks on Jews. When antisemites strike a synagogue, an American Jewish church so to speak, there is an outpouring of support but when it is directed against Jews living in sovereign Israel there is silence. Maybe that’s because it is over there and not here, but I fear otherwise.

It's almost as if there is an embrace of Jewish victimhood and a revulsion of Jewish power. Short lived were those expressions of support for October 7th’s victims. Once Israel started forcefully responding support waned and eventually turned to hatred. It’s almost like people are saying, “We get it when you build synagogues like we build churches, but don’t like it when you carve out a country for yourselves.” It’s as if people are thinking what that sign said, “What did you expect to happen when you steal their land.” This antisemitism is, as my teacher Yossi Klein Halevi pointed out, an attack not only on Jews but on the Jewish story. (“The War Against the Jewish Story”) It is an attack on a central component of our story, and this is really important. We have returned to the land. We are not colonizers. We are indigenous to the land of Israel.

Jews have lived in the land for thousands of years. True, it was only recently, that our numbers grew to millions there, but our attachment to the land is indisputable and we should not have to debate it or prove it. It is a matter of history. Of course, Palestinians can also make an indigenous claim. The Palestinian attachment to the land is also legitimate. I believe in a Zionism that proclaims a power to safeguard Jewish lives while also not denying others theirs. But we appear to live in a world where we can only believe one and not both. This antisemitism seeks to deny us our connection, and says our claim is illegitimate. It declares that we are interlopers in an Arab Middle East and don’t really belong there. “Building a life in Pittsburgh or Long Island is ok, but not where you don’t belong.” people seem to be saying. Quietly go about your Jewish lives in your homes and your synagogues, but not in our face with a prime minister and an army. We are not being Jews with how the world wants us to be Jews.

This antisemitism masquerading as anti-Zionism takes on the tropes of yesterday. The word “Zionist” takes the place of “Jew.” People say, “I am not anti-Jewish only anti-Zionist.” The worst of offenses in modern liberal parlance is to be a colonial occupier so now Israel is seen as the world’s worst offender. Somehow even though Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and Hamas ruthlessly took over soon after that, Israel is occupying Gaza and the Hamas terrorists who murdered, raped and burned people become freedom fighters. And this brings me to the second part of this unfolding story and its ongoing tragedy: the college campus.

When I traveled to Israel in January to volunteer on farms, I flew from Madrid. I was one of only two non-Israelis on the flight and this elicited many questions from the security agents. They could not understand why a Jew from Long Island who was able to travel to Spain would choose to forgo touring around Madrid to volunteer in Israel. They kept thanking me. And then one said, “We are watching what is happening at Harvard and Columbia.” Picture this moment. Here is some twenty something year old security agent who cannot understand how she and her friends are reviled on college campuses and depicted as the world’s enemies. You bet it is that personal. She cannot fathom it. She cannot comprehend how things have become so inverted.

But it is understandable when you realize that it’s all about denying us our story. The Jew is the perpetual wanderer, the perennial victim. That is the story the modern world wishes to tell about the Jews. But the story of our return to the land, the story of our return to power, that is not the story people wish to tell. And so, we hear, “If the Zionists stole your land, you too would be fighting them.” And had the sign read “If the Jews stole your land,” protests might have erupted and the sign might have been taken down, but substitute Zionists and it becomes legitimate discourse. We hear, “I am not antisemitic. I am not against Jews. I am just against Zionism.”

But Zionism is about returning to our ancestral land and building a home for ourselves. Israel’s Declaration of Independence makes this clear. It states, “The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people—the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe—was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing (re-establishing!) in Eretz-Yisrael the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the community of nations.” We are homeless no more. But the world prefers our homelessness. The world does not want to let us in. It seeks to deny us our story and our home. And that is antisemitism.

Of course, there are legitimate critiques about how Israel has waged this war, and people offering these criticisms are not necessarily antisemites, and such critiques should be open for debate on the college campus, but that’s not what is happening. There are no nuanced discussions about how Israel might respond differently to Hamas’ attacks or how it might operate more humanely in the West Bank. Or, for that matter, debates about how Palestinian leaders might not teach children antisemitic canards or how they might offer alternatives to their so-called armed resistance. Instead, it’s only about Israel. Israel is accused of genocide even though Hamas makes its genocidal designs plain in its charter. Jewish students are screamed at. They are blamed for the actions of Israeli soldiers or the decisions of Israeli politicians. Jewish students are harassed. And all of this is done, they say, in the name of protesting against Israel’s colonialist abuses.

People seem to forget that it is an elemental right for the Jews to have a state of their own. It is right once recognized by the world that the Jewish people should have a state whose primary purpose is to protect its citizens. To deny this only of Jews is a form of antisemitism. To those who proffer a utopian vision opposing all nation states I ask, why is that the Jewish nation-state is the one most often called illegitimate and in particular subject to such animus?

Israelis are the oppressors. Palestinians are the victims. The lines are drawn in black and white. There is no longer the grey that is supposed to be the hallmark of a college education. It is instead oppressor and colonialist on one side, oppressed and freedom fighter on the other. Israelis are guilty. Palestinians are innocent. But the world does not exist in such neat and tidy boxes. And rather than having discussions and debates, we just place every person and every idea in one box or another. You either stand with the oppressor or the oppressed. You are either with us or against us. You are either with the righteous or against as if the world can be divided into one side is 100% right and the other 100% wrong.

And so now being called a Zionist is the newest iteration of what was once the antisemitic label of dirty Jew. And I tell you what I say to that. I am a proud Zionist. And this brings me to my third and most difficult point to talk about, those Jews who do not see Israel as a central part of the Jewish story.

I understand how many young Jews feel and where their tentativeness about Israel comes from. Theirs is a generation that came of age since 9-11 and the subsequent war on terror whose promises of an end to terror have gone unfulfilled. They see an Israel that leads with military might rather than diplomatic overtures. They are skeptical that these latest battles against Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists will bring a measure of peace or even quiet. I do not share many of their qualms, but I hear them. And this is what I wish to say in response to such feelings.

Antisemitism is real. It is an ongoing threat. And this calls us to remain loyal to our people. This is our birthright. Of course, you can disagree with how Jewish and Israeli leaders see things. (By the way if you want to see this in action and in living color you need only come to my house to see how this Jewish leader’s arguments are picked apart.) Of course, you can loudly proclaim your different opinions. If you disagree with Israeli leaders such as Itamar Ben Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich and even Benjamin Netanyahu, say so loudly. But let’s do so without forgetting to profess love for the Jewish people. Loyalty and agreement are not the same thing. Unity can come with diversity of opinion. Zionism need not mean fealty to Israel’s current government.

It means instead attachment to our Jewish story and that story centers around the land of Israel and the people of Israel. Beware of groups whose entrance requirement is the renunciation of millions of Jews who call Israel their home. We are but 15 million strong and nearly half live in Israel. Be cautious of organizations that insist you be a certain kind of Jew, a Jew they approve of—namely, one who renounces Zionism and Israel. Your misgivings about Israel and Zionism are welcome at my table but they are not for those places or those groups. To be concrete, if the person standing next to you at an abortion rights rally is also shouting about Zionists stealing the land, think again about where you are standing. I am not suggesting abandoning the cause. I am urging we consider the company we keep.

Ahavat Yisrael, love of the Jewish people is a supreme value. And these days, we need to love the Jewish people more. We need to love the Jewish people even when we think some of us are misguided. I know it’s hard sometimes, but these days Ahavat Yisrael, love of the Jewish people is something we need to be talking about and thinking about a lot more. And we need to allow this love to guide our actions. We need to be loving the Jewish people as much as we embrace other values like making peace. To be honest, Reform rabbis like myself have done a poor job of teaching this supreme value. The prophets who we Reform rabbis so admire, and so often quote, understood this. They loved the Jewish people even though they also thought they were up to no good.

We have taught our children the prophets’ universal values. We taught them Isaiah’s words. We joined in singing, “Lo yisa goi el goi cherev. V’lo yilm’du od milchamah. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not take up sword against nation; they shall never again learn war.” (Isaiah 2) But we never taught, or bothered to learn, the context of Isaiah’s words. At that time the Assyrian empire was ascendant. Israel’s power was waning. War and destruction were on the horizon. I imagine the Israelites were terrified. And guess what the prophet offers them? Words of rebuke! And harsh chastisements! (Don’t go to a prophet if you want comfort and consolation by the way.)

But we ignored all of that when we were teaching our kids. We just talked about Isaiah’s messianic vision of peace. And in so doing we not only glossed over the history but may have forgotten part of his message. The prophet’s universal dream for peace begins with these words, “Ki mitziyon teitzei Torah ud’var Adonai miy’rushalayim. For out of Zion will come forth the Torah, and the word of Adonai from Jerusalem.” Yes, the very same words we say when we take the Torah scroll from the Ark. Isaiah’s vision is a universalism that stems from particularism. It begins in Zion and Jerusalem. His world centered on Jerusalem.

Of course, I still pray for peace. I still hope, along with Isaiah, that things like war colleges will one day only exist in the history books. I don’t expect to see that in my lifetime, but I do still hope and pray for shalom. In this messy, and tumultuous, present, however, I am called not only to hope and pray for peace and maybe even work for peace, but also and this is the part we keep forgetting, hold on to our people. I am called, like the prophet Isaiah, to love the Jewish people.

The Jewish people are small in number but mighty in spirit. We are called to love them. They drive me nuts sometimes, but the love continues. Ahavat Yisrael is what we most need and now. Peoplehood matters. We are going to differ about how we should respond to this war or inevitably how we should respond to the next crisis, but we only have each other. Loyalty need not mean agreement. Devotion need not preclude disagreement. Keep the words of Rabbi Hillel in your thoughts, “Al tifrosh min ha-tzibbur. Do not separate yourself from the community.” (Avot 2) He is, by the way, the same rabbi who taught, “What is hateful to you do not do to another. That is the whole Torah. All the rest is commentary. Go and learn it.” Universalism and particularism are wrapped up in one guy and one vision. It’s always been universalism married to particularism. Care about the world at large through one’s love and attachment to the Jewish people.

I get it. Love is not always easy. Where there is love there is also passion. But we cannot give up on each other. Nearly half of the world’s Jews live in the sovereign State of Israel. We need each other more than ever. We have to stay in this fight together. We can never say, “I want nothing to do with them.” Ahavat Yisrael. Love the Jewish people.

Before I left for my December mission to Israel, I invited you to send me with hats and gloves for those Israelis who had been evacuated from their communities in the South. They left in haste and did not have the necessary clothes for Jerusalem’s winter. I created Amazon wish lists to make it easier for you to purchase these gifts. People kept calling the office to say that there was nothing on the wish list. It took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on but then I realized what happened. It was because I had to indicate how many of each item we needed. And then I became inspired. You kept buying so many of the items that the list kept getting fulfilled. You purchased so many hats and gloves that I was unable to take all of them with me and had to ship them to Israel after I returned. Your donations exceeded what I could carry. Hold on to that.

Love is not always easy. But loving the Jewish people is what this hour requires. Antisemitism is real. We cannot escape it. Let us love our birthright. Let us relearn the meaning of Ahavat Yisrael, love of the Jewish people. All the rest is commentary.