Last month in Israel, we got to experience something unique to this country and something that every Jew should be very proud of. In a two-day stretch, Israel does what Jews have done for millennia – turn sorrow into joy like no other people in the world – and it began with Yom Hazikaron, the Day of Remembrance. It is a time when the people of the entire country stop whatever they are doing and pay tribute to those who have paid the ultimate price, who died al Kiddush Hashem defending our holy land. It is a chance to recognize the sacrifice of soldiers and their families as well as victims of Arab terror so that we can live in this land as a free, sovereign people. Most will be taking the time for hakaras hatov – recognizing the good that has been and continues to be done for us by those we have lost, those who keep us safe, and most of all, the Creator of All Things.
The
sense of mourning and sadness is profound. Businesses close early, and swarms
of people go to Har Hertzl where those who gave their lives for us to live ours
are buried. Radio and television are dedicated to events and constant stories
of heroism and, sadly, tragedy. I have never seen anything like it. Most
everyone here has lost someone to either terror or war: young, old, children,
parents, siblings. No one is immune, and the pain is thick and obvious. There
are no barbecues or baseball games here. No soccer or basketball. Just time to
pay tribute and show our gratitude to those who protected us, allowing more
than half of world Jewry to live in the land of Israel today. Gratitude is a
primary Jewish value, which the Torah speaks of many times, and if you can’t
recognize that and acknowledge it when it is in front of you, you need to
reevaluate what you are doing with your life and what you actually believe in.
* * *
It
is no secret that the world around us is closing in on the Jewish people. Lift
your head and open your eyes, and you can see it happening. Historically
speaking, when antisemitism is no longer underground but is, instead, out in
the open, it never goes away. You can simply ignore that it is happening and
pretend it will disappear, but I don’t rely on utopian optimism; I deal with
historical facts. I fear this will not get any better for our people, and when
this kind of thing happens, it usually culminates with something drastic, G-d
forbid, before the world belatedly pauses to acknowledge its complicity.
This
time, the main driver of the hatred is not a Western country with a history of Judeo-Christian
values. Those countries, albeit on rare occasions, eventually, if only for a
moment, snap the world back into a moral place of introspection. This time, the
main disseminator of this hatred is coming from Muslims. This is a whole
different kind of hate. They are not only participants in this tragedy but
also the disseminators of propaganda bots and proxy podcasts to a
naïve and ignorant public. The Muslim world has laid the groundwork for decades,
investing tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, into this moment. They
will not let it pass without attempting to do away with our people once and for
all (Heaven forbid). They spread easily debunkable lies amongst a willing
social media public, and before you know it, many of our own people have fallen
for the subterfuge dressed up as progressive moral superiority. While we
must fight back on those same platforms, we are obligated to do something
that is far more important.
Please
understand. When I write the words below, I am primarily talking to myself.
Yes, it addresses our society as a whole, but the main subject of this piece is
me and the things I must do to fix the issue.
We
need to hold our Jewish leadership accountable, both in Israel and outside it.
We need to demand they stop bickering like children and coalesce around each
other. We need to stop attacking one another and stand together as one people
with one voice. We have no more time for the petty squabbles over funding or
allocations. Figure it out in the spirit of a loving family trying to help and
work with and for each other. We have no more time for virtue signaling and
pompous holier-than-thou speeches. We have reached an us-against-them moment.
Us being the Jewish people across the globe against everyone who wants to
destroy us in both word and deed. If you don’t want to acknowledge it or join
us in this fight, feel free to leave, but don’t get in the way. The time for
attacking your fellow Jews to score political points or for your own ego – because
you told-that-guy-what-you-needed-to-say-and-that’ll-shut-him-up – is over.
October 8th is here, and it demands your attention. We need to unify
and do it fast. Enough is enough!
* * *
I
am reminded of a story about a chasidic rabbi who would go to the mikvah
(purification bath) but once a year, not even before Rosh Hashanah or Yom
Kippur. He only went the Friday of Parshat Bahaloscha, and he did so with the
whole community following him, complete with a marching band and song. He chose
that specific week because in that parsha, the Torah says Hashem spoke
good about the Jewish people. That is how important he felt it was to speak only
good about your fellow Jews.
We
need to follow his lead. Unfortunately, you will hear some people who are
considered holy and/or even profess to be speakers on behalf of the Jewish
people, say some things about their fellow Jews that are cruel and wicked. No
matter who they are, no matter what spiritual or political position they hold,
know that they are wrong! Let me be very clear: Be wary of
anyone who speaks ill of the Jewish people. Yes, we have our problems, and we
speak about them in-house to fix them, not to hang them as some kind of
albatross around someone else’s neck. Even then you must be careful what you
say about the Jews. To air our dirty laundry in public for the sole purpose of
speaking against a fellow Jew is flat out wrong and anyone who does so is
playing with fire in Heaven.
I
found this in the holy book Eim Habanim Semaycha, regarding a comment by
the Rebbi of Belz, who said, “…It is of utmost importance that the Jews love
one another. One must love even the lowliest Jew as himself. One must engender
unity and keep far away from anything that causes disunity. The salvation of
the Jewish people during times of trouble rests on this.”
* * *
A
few years back, I saw a story told by Howard Schultz, CEO and Founder of
Starbucks. It is a life lesson we need to pay attention to, and we need to
start right now. “When I was in Israel,” he wrote, “I went to Meah Shearim, the
ultra-Orthodox area within Jerusalem. Along with a group of businessmen I was
with, I had the opportunity to have an audience with Rabbi Finkel, the head of
a yeshiva there. I had never heard of him and didn’t know anything about him.
We went into his study and waited 10 to 15 minutes. Finally, the doors opened.
“What
we did not know was that Rabbi Finkel was severely afflicted with Parkinson’s
disease. He sat down at the head of the table, and naturally, our inclination
was to look away. We didn’t want to embarrass him. We were all looking away,
and we heard this big bang on the table: ‘Gentlemen, look at me, and look at me
right now.’ Now, his speech affliction was worse than his physical shaking. It
was really hard to listen to him and watch him. He said, ‘I have only a few
minutes for you because I know you’re all busy American businessmen.’ You know,
just a little dig there.
“Then
he asked, ‘Who can tell me what the lesson of the Holocaust is?’ He called on
one guy, who didn’t know what to do; it was like being called on in the fifth
grade without the answer. And the guy says something benign like, ‘We will
never, ever forget?’ And the rabbi completely dismissed him. I felt terrible
for the guy until I realized the rabbi was getting ready to call on someone
else. All of us were sort of under the table, looking away – you know, please,
not me. He did not call me. I was sweating. He called on another guy, who had
such a fantastic answer: ‘We will never, ever again be a victim or bystander.’
“The
rabbi said, ‘You guys don’t get it. Okay, gentlemen, let me tell you the
essence of the human spirit. As you know, during the Holocaust, the people were
transported in the worst possible, inhumane way by railcar. They thought they
were going to a work camp. We all know they were going to a death camp.
“‘After
hours and hours in this inhumane corral with no light, no bathroom, cold, they
arrived at the camps. The doors were swung wide open, and they were blinded by
the light. Men were separated from women, mothers from daughters, fathers from
sons. They went off to the bunkers to sleep. There, only one person was given a
blanket for every six. The ones who received the blanket had to decide, ‘Am I
going to push the blanket to the five other people who did not get one, or am I
going to pull it toward myself to stay warm?’
“And
Rabbi Finkel said, ‘It was during this defining moment that we learned the
power of the human spirit, because they pushed the blanket to five others.’ And
with that, he stood up and said, ‘Take your blanket. Take it back to America
and push it to five other people.’”
I
read this story and was amazed, not so much at his retelling of it, but at the
strength of character of the Jews who pushed the blanket over. Think about it
for a moment. After all Rabbi Finkel described, the Jews cared for one another.
They sacrificed their own comfort for someone else’s. While we all have our own
issues – we spend so much time worrying about everything else except what is
important – we forget that the most important thing is the
most important thing: Who are we as a people? What do we believe in? What are
our most important values? Not what the world tells us should be our most
important values but what Judaism, the Torah, tell us are our most important
values. If we are honest with ourselves, we know that the Torah is the reason
we are who we are – the Torah that defines our people, our nation, and our most
important values. More often than not, especially recently, our values are very
much at odds with those of the rest of the world. We just have to be brave
enough to acknowledge it.
It
is the Torah that has defined our people, and it is the Torah that has kept our
people. But if we are to learn from history, it is Tanach, the word of our
prophets, that retells the story of our becoming one people and later, due to
our senseless hatred and arguing, splitting into two separate kingdoms. Power,
ego, and hatred drove us away from each other, and away from who we are and who
we were meant to be. We refused to do the right thing when the right thing was
required.
We
knew better, but we chose poorly because we wanted to be right,
more than we wanted to do right, and it cost us dearly. We
ignored our prophets, ridiculed them, and even went so far as to kill them. In
turn we lost our land, we lost our Bais Hamikdash, we lost our tribes and were
banished from our home. When Ezra returned, there were still Jews, holy Jews,
who refused to come back home with him. So we remained a fractured people and
continue this fracture to this day. As my four-year-old granddaughter tells me
in Hebrew all the time, “Dai, enough. Stop.”
Haven’t
we been through enough? Aren’t you sick of what is happening? We have tried the
arguing, the virtue signaling, the soapboxing, the blaming of “them.” Look at
where it has led us. When will we learn? If the murder of 1,200 of our people
in broad daylight and the kidnapping of more than 250 others – with much of the
world denying the atrocities even took place – with being attacked and having
to defend ourselves from at least three different entities, doesn’t get your
attention and show you that what we have done up until now has not worked, what
will? When will we stop being so impressed with ourselves and start being part
of something more important, something bigger? We need to get our house in
order. This one is offended by that one, that one doesn’t recognize the other
one, the other one disparages everyone else… Dai!
* * *
The
Lubavitcher Rebbe said that the moment you are born is the very moment Hashem
said that this world cannot exist without you in it. That is
how important you are. Remember that the tzelem Elokim (essence/image
of Hashem) runs through you. You are so very holy. Because of that, do not
fear. As Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said, “Kol ha’olam kulo gesher tzar me’od,
veha’ikar lo lifchod klal – The whole world is a very narrow bridge, but
the most important thing is to not be afraid.” Have no fear. Step out of your
comfort zone and have faith that Hashem will guide you and lead you where you
need to go. Look only to Israel and see that, despite everything that has
happened to us, He has kept his promise to His people and returned them to
their home.
We,
the Jewish people, were chosen for moments like this. It is going to get
harder, more intense, more difficult. Be prepared because, as you have seen,
not many will be there for us. All we have is each other. But this is why He
chose you. Because you are “a man accustomed to pain” and survived it – not only
that, but you thrived after it, regardless of where and when or what
circumstance. You are a stiff-necked nation. Moshe, our teacher of blessed
memory, told us we would be a small nation, a nation no one would want to
associate with. That long-ago era that the Torah spoke about has arrived in our
time. We were built for these difficulties, this hatred. The time is now. We can
no longer attack each other. We need to fend off attacks against us – together,
not apart. Today is not the day to address those Jews who work against our
people and bring aid and comfort to our enemies. They have, by their actions,
separated themselves from our people. Yet what makes us unique is that we are
still required to love them, while we disapprove of their behavior.
I
will leave you with this from Maimonides (Rambam), who illustrates this point
far better than I have. “Every person is commanded to love each and every
one of Israel as he loves himself, as it is said, “You shall love your neighbor
as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). Therefore, one should speak positively about
his neighbor and be just as concerned for the good of his neighbor’s assets,
just as he would care about his own wealth and his own honor” (Hilchos Dei’os
6:4)
* * *
By
Tuesday evening, the country converted from Yom Hazikaron, a day of memory,
mourning, and sadness, to joy and celebration with the anniversary of Israel’s
Independence Day. The movement from extreme sadness to unbridled joy is
instantaneous, and it is itself something all of us need to experience at least
once in our lives. This is why we were chosen. The ability to take sadness and
turn it into joy is the story of our people – to see beyond the present and
look to the future. We celebrate the reality of 2,000 years of now-answered
prayers from generations that could only dream that they could be on the holy
soil we are living on today. Hashem has brought us back home, and despite the
world’s malevolent wishes, we can take comfort in the words of our Prophet Amos,
who wrote of this very day some 2,700 years ago, “And I will plant them upon
their land, and they shall no more be taken out of their land which I have
given them, said the L-rd, your G-d” (Amos 9:15).
May
Hashem bless us with peace in our land, peace in the world, and most
importantly, peace among each other.
