Yom Kippur is a day of fasting, when we focus on the sins and difficulties of life, and when we find our way through the maze of problems and tragedy in order to see the good in life.
On Yom Kippur we recite the confession of sins as a congregation. Why? We do not require people to publicly stand in front of the community or before the rabbi and recite what they have done wrong. Instead the design is that we say the confessions together so that everyone will feel part of the congregation, and that as a community we can stand together, while those among us may be admitting fault, seeking forgiveness, and finding a path to a better future.
This has been a very difficult year, thinking back to the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenage students, their murder and what followed. Just as bad we learned about the kidnapping of an Arab youth in a revenge killing by Israelis. During the time of a massive search, hundreds of Hamas members were arrested in the West Bank, which is not too difficult since they have their offices in the open.
A painful discovery occurred when the teens bodies were found buried under rocks on private property, owned by a family involved in over a dozen terrorist attacks. At that point the PA had not made any arrests. During this time, eighteen days, many people posted on facebook, holding up three fingers and smiling, demonstrating how
happy they were about the kidnapping. These acts of racism were directed against Israelis and Jews.
Soon after, young men including teens who were Jewish, responded by picking up an Arab boy, torturing him and killing him. Israel investigated, and within days arrested six people who confessed, while the killers of Eyal, Gilad and Naftali were not even being looked for by the PA.
For those who hate Jews, Israelis or Americans nothing changed. These events affirmed the negative view that nothing will help. Nothing we can do will change these matters. Yet, as a community, we are horrified that anyone who is Jewish could do such a thing, a violent act of racism and vengeance.
There are those, including writer Karen Armstrong, who portray the God of the Torah as a vengeful God, using words in the Torah to support their accusation. The Tanakh and Torah, codified around 2600 years ago, was collected into five books of Moses, and paired with the Prophets and Writings.
At Judaism’s height in ancient times, a Rabbinic and Judicial form of Judaism developed. In the time of the Hasmoneans, better known as the Maccabees, there was a Sanhedrin with an upper court, and academies where students debated and studied the meaning of scripture. This became the Mishna, or second oral Torah, and Gemara, the commentary on the Mishna.
In these works we find Hillel who said “In a place where there is no man, be a man.” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is the whole of the Torah, now go and study.”
Even though we read in Genesis that Cain kills Abel, God does not sentence Cain to die . Cain is a marked man, yet he lives.
God does want to destroy the world due to the wickedness, yet he sees Noah and the hope for mankind.
There is no saving the people of Sodom and Gomorra, the wicked who force themselves on others, especially strangers.
When Abraham destroys his father’s idols, God does not punish him, rather he says “Get out of your native land from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.”
Over and over we see that God offers reconciliation, forgiveness of brother to brother, and even though it takes a while, freedom from slavery, redemption, revelation, and with it obligation: I will be your God, if you will be my people.
But what about the punishments in the Torah? The courts never carried out the harshest laws, and instead established the basis in law for compensation for loss of
limb, property, or other injury. Nowhere in Jewish law does it cry out for vengeance or the anti-semitic regrettable line in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice ‘A Pound of Flesh.’ That is a myth.
God, describes himself in the Torah in these words: The Lord, The Lord, is merciful and compassionate, kind, and loving truth, giving kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love me, who make atonement for their wrongs.
That is the God of Vengeance? I think not. Nevertheless, what do we do in this war and the next?
We are still required to be merciful to combatants, yet, we see in our world that there are those who intentionally place innocents in harms way, with gore and blood making photo ops to be used against those fighting to protect life, limb, way of life, and property.
In some ways it reminds me of the biblical story of Solomon and the two mothers claiming the same baby, ‘the land of Israel’; When Solomon says: Cut the baby in half, one mother says ‘kill it’, and the other mother says no, you take it, I would rather see it alive. It is better that it lives.
Today we have Hamas who says ‘we will attack, and provoke you to attack, and if we cannot have it, we will destroy it. No one will have peace’. Yet, Israel defends a Western way of life, democracy, equal rights, while at the same time facing a difficult paradox. Israel is forced to go after the attacker who hides behind children and women in order to maximize anti-Israel sentiment since the press is so easily manipulated and biased.
How do we end the cycle of violence? “Never Give in!” As Churchill said, “Never Give In!”
Recently the leader of Turkey said that Israel is worse than Hitler, even as he ignored ISIL’s driving hundreds of thousands of Syrian Kurds into Turkish Refugee camps.
Abbas said Israel was committing Genocide even before the war, and he repeated it this week at the United Nations. Someone should remind him that Genocide was the work of Hitler and his Arab allies. Jews do not and did not commit genocide but were its victims.
Where are the demonstrations against Assad killing 200,000 Syrians? Where are the demonstrations against ISIL in Paris, London, Berlin, or NYC by Muslims who should be speaking out? Or Presbyterians who had no problem calling for boycotts and condemning Israel for building settlements?
We do not celebrate the death of our enemies, although Hitler, Mussolini, Osama Bin Laden and Gaddafi may be the exceptions. Like others, I feel a sense of ‘good riddance’ to these evil menaces of humanity.
The tragedy of Palestinians in Gaza is not just the death of 2000 people, and the injuring of 10,000 with 18,000 residences destroyed, it is that in life they are being taught to hate Israel, Jews, Americans and anything Western. They fired 3500 hundred rockets in 50 days which terrorized Israel. Imagine hearing sirens over one hundred times a day, and hearing explosion between
50-100 times a day, anytime of the day or evening for almost two months. Schools of hatred flourish in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Syria, and Jordan and Egypt. Morocco is the most moderate and tens of thousands of Jews have left because they do not feel safe. This hatred is taught in Virginia in some Saudi Schools and their textbooks, as well as many college campuses, even UCLA and Vassar.
Who encouraged the hacking to death of a British Police officer and filmed it to terrorize the public? AntiSemitism seems to be ‘in’ this year, so what are we prepared to do about it?
Imagine this is like the captain of a ship trying to avoid the dangers in the water in order to bring passengers, cargo, ship and crew home safely. This is a metaphor for life, and how we see the obstacles, the problems, the daily assault on our time, peace of mind, our finances, jobs, reputation as a people and our future.
Finding meaning in life, is part of our search and discovery all our years. We try to understand why we are here, what we were made for, what shall we do, how do we make people happy, or how if possible to make ourselves happy. We study, prepare, possibly fail, try again and again, with the encouragement of those around us, and then suddenly, we get bad news or somethings happens which changes our lives forever.
Thomas Edison is known to everyone. He went deaf as a child. He managed become an inventor. What might have depressed someone else, gave him a special ability to concentrate without interruption. Where someone else might have been less able, he demonstrated the magnificence of creation in becoming the world’s greatest inventor.
Examples of his work include: Artificial light, original light bulb filaments which still work after one hundred years.
Carbon paper, Onion Paper, the original Edison discs and players. He was searching for a cure to his deafness, which led him to discover ways of amplifying the
voice. He created modern movie cameras, and even Cement formulas for building Israel and The United States developed an Iron Dome to shield Israel from multiple rocket attacks. On one
youtube video you can see Iron Dome taking out fifteen rockets at once. Israel has brave young men and women, just as the Untied States has brave men and women, who risk their lives, still a terrible price for freedom which does not come cheaply anywhere.
If someone stands for Peace today, will you hear the shouts ‘Kill him!’ from both sides.
Israel has something which it underplays and I have never understood why it does that. Arab Christians, Muslims and Beduins have equal rights by law. 75% of Israel is Jewish 6,100,000 while 1,700,00 are Arabs, and 350,000 something else (Druse, Copts). That is a very large Arab population and are they totally happy? Probably not. Do they go to Israeli schools and universities?
Yes. Do they work in Israel? Yes. Are they divided in their allegiance? Yes. However, they are the most fortunate of all Arab peoples because they are the minority in Israel which has equal laws, and equal protection under the law, Women’s rights, gender rights, religious freedom…
They vote and have representation. Yet, vengeance, which is a sin, must not ruin the fabric of Israeli society. Can Israel be loved and appreciated thereby gaining the loyalty of its non-Jewish citizens while continuing to punish anyone who would incite hatred and vengeance, vigilantism against its minorities. How was this possible?
This is the design of Zionism. This is how to extract the good from the difficulty. This is what makes an Israel or an America worth it all.
James Madison wrote: Equal Laws, protecting equal rights are found as they ought to be the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country. In this difficult time of war, we must find a way to hold onto the very values that make a life worth living. We promise in this New Year to work even harder on making peace a real possibility for the future. While we wait, we cannot let down our guard.
G’mar Chatima Tova May you be inscribed and sealed in the book of life, happiness, health, prosperity, and peace. May the sacrifices of generations past be remembered as ours so that we too might merit a time of Peace.
With blessings,
Rabbi Arnold Saltzman